3 ms·
I've had this experience lately of waking up around 3 or 4 AM and having a hard time falling back asleep for 30 mins or so. Nothing catastrophic, but a bit anno
by warent 5y ago
I've had this experience lately of waking up around 3 or 4 AM and having a hard time falling back asleep for 30 mins or so. Nothing catastrophic, but a bit annoying.
To address this, I've tried a couple of different things to help sleep: melatonin; and valerian root extract.
The valerian root worked great, until one night it gave me the worst sleep paralysis night terror of all time. Sleep paralysis is nothing new to me. Getting it once every other month or so, it's a bit unpleasant, but far from terrifying. Sometimes I can even leverage it to induce a lucid dream. But this was on a whole other level, with a full blown out-of-body hallucination and a demonic face across room that locked me in a state of raw horror and doom. Also, it made me feel mildly hung-over in the morning.
Never taking that stuff again!
Melatonin on the other hand, perfectly fine. I take a 3mg supplement with L-Theanine 1 hr before I want to sleep. Makes me nice and drowsy, and I sleep like a baby through the night. Can't speak to how it affects dreams because I have dreams every night anyway even without it. But overall really good experience.
- nullify88 5y agoHow much valerian did you take? I often drink Celestial Sleepytime Extra, that contains 25mg in each teabag.
- warent 5y agoTo be fair, it was way too much. Something like 4x the recommended amount. My reasoning was "more valerian means more sleepy" couldn't have been more wrong. 25mg teabag is probably like 10% what I was at. I still enjoy valerian if it's in tea. Just not in a pill supplement form anymore.
- chana_masala 5y agoYou can also try sitting up in bed and meditating until tired.
- warent 5y agoMeditation is great and I enjoy it :) Relaxing and falling asleep isn't a problem for me. Just waking up in the middle of the night feeling wide awake is a bummer sometimes. Yes I can relax and fall back asleep again but it's a bummer that it happens at all.
- mellavora 5y agoThat sleep "problem" may not be a problem; plenty of evidence suggests that before we invented electric lights, segmented sleep was the norm. These links might get you started on the topic: https://www.sciencealert.com/humans-used-to-sleep-in-two-shifts-maybe-we-should-again https://www.sciencealert.com/humans-used-to-sleep-in-two-shi... https://www.medievalists.net/2016/01/how-did-people-sleep-in-the-middle-ages/ https://www.medievalists.net/2016/01/how-did-people-sleep-in...
- bserge 5y agoAh yes, the valerian nightmares lol. I used to take 200-500mg and had those occasionally. It is a good anxilyotic otherwise, sadly tolerance builds up real fast.