Not normally a poster, but figured this might help peeps. In my 20's to early 30's I went through pretty bad insomnia. I tried treating it with substances (atav

Not normally a poster, but figured this might help peeps. In my 20's to early 30's I went through pretty bad insomnia. I tried treating it with substances (atavan, etc.), and when I realized it was only getting worse (much worse) from medication, I set about fixing it properly. I have been a great sleeper now for about 15 years I think. Here's what worked for me. The trick is, you need to do them all and you need to do them consistently, so that your brain gets used to it and you stop being anxious about it - because the anxiety about sleep will make it worse. The biggie: no brain work of the problem solving variety less than 2-3 hours before bed time. This was the #1 thing! No coding, no reading coding books, no thinking about code. CODE IS THE WORST. It puts me in rumination mode, and you can't stop. I can do music practice, exercise, read books (that don't make me think about solving a problem), clean the house whatever. But I structure my day so that no computer work happens for those critical hours. Little to no screens for the same period. Read on paper. If you need screens, redshift away all the blue light. NO social media at night. Getting worked up over bullshit does not help. No caffeine less than 8 hours before bed. And much less caffeine over all. I have 2-3 coffees over the day, but they are 4 ounces. Little alcohol in general. Half a glass of wine with dinner, and I'm good. Running! Get running. Seriously, it's good for everything. If you can't run, find some similar cardio, but every athlete will tell you running is king. There's a reason even chess champs and pistol shooters run tons. Try to get regular on your times. I shoot for 8 to 9 hours a night, and bed time is almost always between 10 and 11. I never use a reader in bed. But I will say that the above to me are more important than regular, in that I could handle 2-3 hours of jet lag fine last year with regular travelling if the others were all in order. I saved melatonin for travelling. Over all though, I can't stress how much changing what kind of thinking and work I allow myself in the last 3 hours of the day changed EVERYTHING. Bigger than all the rest put together. Just structure your day so that you are winding down your brain. We can't just turn off like a light switch. I've been a sleep fanatic for my whole life, as I do a bunch of things that are just a waste of time if overtired (practicing for playing music at a professional level etc). Hope that helps some folks. iain