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I used to battle this, and still do if I'm not careful. What have you tried? I find exercise (even light yoga), watching what I eat in the hours before sleep, a

I used to battle this, and still do if I'm not careful. What have you tried? I find exercise (even light yoga), watching what I eat in the hours before sleep, and breathing exercises help greatly

smhinsey 11y ago
I used to have this issue and while I'm not totally cured, I improved things a lot by waiting until I was at or near the point where I could barely keep my eyes open before getting in bed and trying to read. You don't need to do it every night, but if you do it often enough, eventually it becomes easier to get in bed, start reading, and find yourself falling asleep even if you aren't already almost there.
makeset 11y ago
I've cut out all sources of caffeine completely, except for a glass of tea right after I wake up where I pour away the first steep. I use NRR 33 earplugs and at least one white noise machine going, sometimes two, to avoid any noise pulling me back from near-sleep. The room is dark, but I wear a sleep mask just in case. I'm averaging 1-2 hours with those. I'm doing the sleep hygiene thing, where I don't do anything in bed except (try to) sleep and sex. I think you're also supposed to just get up if you can't sleep, but if I do that, I just never sleep. I come back even more exhausted, and I'm still looking at the same damn wait. Mental activity can definitely make it worse, but I haven't found a meditation/visualization sort of trick that really helped. The best I can do is psyche away the frustration and just... wait. Alcohol/pot help maybe a little, but then I don't sleep deeply at all, always wake up really tired. I haven't tried prescription drugs. I'm told they have the same effect on sleep quality, and I don't want that. I do get much-needed good sleep once I'm there. It just takes too damn long. I'd love to hear if anything's worked for you.
- Periodic 11y ago
  For me it's all about stress. Typically I can't get myself to fall asleep before 1am. Whenever I go to bed it just takes 1-2 hours to fall asleep. I just can't get my mind to shut off. I struggle to get up at 9:30am and need coffee to be functional in the mornings. If I go out on a long camping trip I'll often not even bring a book. This means that once the sun goes down there is basically nothing to do. After a day or two I find myself easily falling asleep and sleeping through the night. When I come back home, if I still haven't begun to go back to work, it persists. I can easily just go to bed at 11:00 and get up at 8:00. It generally lasts until I go to work. It's the anxiety of needing to get things done and maintain my appearance to others and to myself that really seems to keep me up. As I lie in bed there's a part of me that says I should have accomplished more during the day and that I should be doing something "productive". I'm working hard on meditation, mindfulness and self-awareness to reduce the anxiety, but what works best is to really remove myself from the stressors and go to a place where I really just can't do anything so my mind gives up. I went camping near the end of December and had another week off for the new year. It was great. I was well slept and relaxed. Now in my first week back to work I've already fallen back into less than 7 hours of sleep per night. I guess I need to go camping again.

I used to battle this, and still do if I'm not careful. What have you tried? I find exercise (even light yoga), watching what I eat in the hours before sleep, and breathing exercises help greatly

smhinsey 11y ago

I used to have this issue and while I'm not totally cured, I improved things a lot by waiting until I was at or near the point where I could barely keep my eyes open before getting in bed and trying to read. You don't need to do it every night, but if you do it often enough, eventually it becomes easier to get in bed, start reading, and find yourself falling asleep even if you aren't already almost there.

makeset 11y ago

I've cut out all sources of caffeine completely, except for a glass of tea right after I wake up where I pour away the first steep. I use NRR 33 earplugs and at least one white noise machine going, sometimes two, to avoid any noise pulling me back from near-sleep. The room is dark, but I wear a sleep mask just in case. I'm averaging 1-2 hours with those. I'm doing the sleep hygiene thing, where I don't do anything in bed except (try to) sleep and sex. I think you're also supposed to just get up if you can't sleep, but if I do that, I just never sleep. I come back even more exhausted, and I'm still looking at the same damn wait. Mental activity can definitely make it worse, but I haven't found a meditation/visualization sort of trick that really helped. The best I can do is psyche away the frustration and just... wait. Alcohol/pot help maybe a little, but then I don't sleep deeply at all, always wake up really tired. I haven't tried prescription drugs. I'm told they have the same effect on sleep quality, and I don't want that. I do get much-needed good sleep once I'm there. It just takes too damn long. I'd love to hear if anything's worked for you.

Periodic 11y ago
For me it's all about stress. Typically I can't get myself to fall asleep before 1am. Whenever I go to bed it just takes 1-2 hours to fall asleep. I just can't get my mind to shut off. I struggle to get up at 9:30am and need coffee to be functional in the mornings. If I go out on a long camping trip I'll often not even bring a book. This means that once the sun goes down there is basically nothing to do. After a day or two I find myself easily falling asleep and sleeping through the night. When I come back home, if I still haven't begun to go back to work, it persists. I can easily just go to bed at 11:00 and get up at 8:00. It generally lasts until I go to work. It's the anxiety of needing to get things done and maintain my appearance to others and to myself that really seems to keep me up. As I lie in bed there's a part of me that says I should have accomplished more during the day and that I should be doing something "productive". I'm working hard on meditation, mindfulness and self-awareness to reduce the anxiety, but what works best is to really remove myself from the stressors and go to a place where I really just can't do anything so my mind gives up. I went camping near the end of December and had another week off for the new year. It was great. I was well slept and relaxed. Now in my first week back to work I've already fallen back into less than 7 hours of sleep per night. I guess I need to go camping again.