7 ms·

I've struggled with sleep for as long as I can remember. I have improved it considerably in the past year (still not perfect). Out of the dozens upon dozens of

I've struggled with sleep for as long as I can remember. I have improved it considerably in the past year (still not perfect). Out of the dozens upon dozens of things I've tried, here's what I think made the most difference, in order of importance. 1. Very consistent bedtime and wake up time. +/- 30 minutes, but ideally less. Obviously if you struggle with sleep you can't count on falling asleep at the same time, but work at it. 2. Expose yourself to bright, outdoor light every morning. 3. Keep the lights as dim as you can tolerate for ~2 hours before bed. Blue light is technically worse than red, but total light is way more important. 4. Anything you do for ~1 hour before bed should be very passive. For me, reading is good, very particular kinds of TV is okay (can't be too stimulating), or something along those lines. Anything that requires decision making, social interaction, things that get you excited and so on are completely out. 5. Breathe through your nose. It can be hard at first but it gets easier over time. If your nose is constricted you can exhale all your air, hold your breath until you feel the urge to breathe, and then draw in a big breath through your nose. It will open up your nasal passages. Do it a couple times if you need to. If you have sleep apnea that you can't fix that way get a CPAP. 6. Meditation. And it's not really that doing 10 minutes of meditation during the day means you'll magically sleep better; it's more that you learn how to divert the noisy thoughts and focus on something very simple to help you relax at night. Also, sleep is a temporal problem. If you do everything perfectly for one day your probability of sleeping better at night will go up by some relatively small percentage. Which is discouraging. But if you really work at it for a month it will get significantly better. And by the same token, if you're in a good state, one or two days of disrupted sleep don't cause all that much damage. EDIT: 7. Forgot to mention this one: keep the room very cold. Matthew Walker (the guy who wrote Why We Sleep, which is a great book) recommends 65F.

clumsysmurf 5y ago
I'd also add 8. Don't eat within 2 hours of sleep (at least, maybe more). 9. Exercise earlier in the day, rather than later
fleddr 5y ago
Can't agree on reading. It's cognitively stimulating, assuming you read something that interests you. I don't know about you, but I can't just close the book and forget about it.
- NoPicklez 5y ago
  Complete opposite for me, no matter how good the book is, at night I still find myself becoming extremely tired from reading.
  - 7thaccount 5y ago
    Yeah, if it's night time and I start reading something technical I usually pass out in like 20 minutes, even if I'm enjoying it.
- op00to 5y ago
  Read something you’ve read a hundred times. I use Hitchhikers Guide to go to sleep.
- mikenew 5y ago
  For me it really depends on what I'm reading, and I do agree that sometimes it can be too stimulating. I don't think there's a hard and fast rule here of reading == good, TV == bad or anything like that. For example I can watch twitch before bed, but only a replay, not a livestream. I suspect it's something about the feeling of being able to interact with a streamer vs it being totally passive. I think it just really depends, and it's worth just paying attention to how specific things affect you.
- kmtrowbr 5y ago
  There are morning w/coffee books and, nighttime books. For me, history works well for night time. The 18th or 19th century. Ancient works. YA novels. Something which will take you out of your day and into another place mentally. Examples of bad books to read before bed: business books, technical books, self-help.
- wenc 5y ago
mettamage 5y ago
A couple of things worked on there for me as well, but the biggest one for me personally is 0.3mg of melatonin I started with 3mg, way too much, went to 1.5mg, still too much. Then did 0.7mg, that was fine but still some small side effects. Then 0.4mg that was fine. Then 0.2mg, that didn't work. Then I did 0.3mg and it seemed to be the sweet spot. I can just barely perceive it working and it is just enough to make me feel a bit woozy, which is what I cannot do myself.
- mikenew 5y ago
  My understanding is that melatonin is a threshold kind of thing, so it makes sense to dial in a specific dose. For me I found that 1mg gave me as much "get to sleep" effect as 10mg, so I would just use 1. I wasn't able to find dosages less than 1mg so I never experimented further. For me, I took melatonin before bed for a month or two and then stopped, and when I stopped I didn't notice my time-until-sleep being any different. My assumption is that my natural melatonin production eventually started happening at the right time once my circadian rhythm was fixed and the supplemental melatonin wasn't needed.
  - raducu 5y ago
    > I wasn't able to find dosages less than 1mg so I never experimented further. I was like you, but I just roughly broke the pills in half or 1/3 and it worked even better. Now I have this melatonin syrup drops, 150mcg per drop so it's easy, 2 drops for me.
  - mettamage 5y ago
    In The Netherlands they are sold at 0.1mg at the lowest granularity. I used those to test it. Eventually, after figuring out my dose, I now resort to a comfortable yummy (it's sweet, helps with placebo effect :P) 0.3mg melatonin + 1mg CBD tablet.
- xattt 5y ago
  Most melatonin tablets are available in 3 mg formulation. What sort of microtome are you using for dosing?
hashimotonomora 5y ago
It may seem paradoxical but also not worrying about sleep itself, not writing down lists, not trying to dissect and optimize sleep, may actually improve your sleep much more. Animals have slept and evolved for literally millions of years. Unless there’s an actual clinical condition, having faith in your own body and just relaxing should be enough. At least that’s my case.
- zemvpferreira 5y ago
  It is paradoxical and rooted in our duality as thinking animals. Many sleep disorders (mine included) are rooted in anxiety. They will respond to these little hacks and tricks, but (in my experience) only insofar as they allow you to feel in control and tune out your thought stream. For the record I practice all the common wisdom and more 90% of the time (and melatonin, earplugs and blindfold close to 100%). I might sleep 7-8 hours a night and wake up fully rested or I might wake up totally blitzed, depending on my mental state. I might fall asleep easily the night after or toss and turn for hours. I might fall asleep easily from exhaustion and wake up 4 hours before I'm supposed to with a racing mind. It's not environmental and it's not any state of my body. It's my/your thoughts and emotions. It sucks but since I've found the root cause, I've been better at controling the downward spirals. (Still need my little rituals before going to bed to feel right though)
- nickjj 5y ago
  > just relaxing should be enough. At least that’s my case. Yep, this is a very important one. I've been fortunate enough to have a pretty good ability to fall asleep and generally wake up feeling rested. Most nights I'll wrap up with a movie and often times I'll fall asleep in what feels like about 10 minutes after I decide "ok, I'm going to sleep now". I believe this is very tied into not feeling like I must wake up at a specific time. It allows me to goto sleep when I'm tired and wake up when I naturally wake up. There's no laying down and thinking "ok it's 11:17pm, I have to be up at 7am". This could easily turn into "it's now 11:58pm, why can't I sleep, crap I have to be up in 7 hours" to "...how the heck is it 1:30am, this is bad, I need to be up in 5.5 hours" and now you're done for, your sleep quality is going to be bad because you'll for sure think if you can't fall asleep in a few minutes you're going to risk sleeping through any alarm. But without the pressure of having to be up on a schedule, 99.99% of the time if I went to bed at 11pm I'll be up at about 6:30am or 7am without an alarm and feel good about it. This has happened to me time and time again. Any time where something comes up and I "must" be up at an early hour with alarm it affects my ability to fall asleep the night before. Usually the more important the thing is the harder it will be to fall asleep. Like ensuring I'm up to catch a flight or anything with a hard line on the time.
munificent 5y ago
I really like your list, but I also want to point out that humans have way more variability than we realize. A sure fire solution for some will do nothing for others. It doesn't mean it's bad advice, just that context is everything when it comes to health, diet, and fitness for people. A few other things I would suggest that might help some. 8. Cut down on caffeine. The whole point is that it's a stimulant. I have had many conversations with people where they complained about chronic insomnia but also drank six cups of coffee a day. Caffeine has a longer half life in the body than you expect. Drink less and drink it earlier in the day. Personally, I have only one cup of coffee in the morning, and that's it. If I have any caffeine in the afternoon, I'm up all night. 9. Journaling. If I'm awake with the same anxious thoughts going through my head, I find writing them down helps massively. It's like my brain understands that I don't have to worry about forgetting it in any more and lets it go. 10. Exercise. Doesn't have to be super vigorous, but just going for a walk helps. We are animals. Animals need to move. Gotta get the wiggles out.
- drzaiusapelord 5y ago
  This is such a good point. /r/decaf has a lot to say about how life changing quitting caffeine is.
- ulrikrasmussen 5y ago
  Anecdotal, but cutting caffeine completely for at least a month is something that I think anyone with sleep issues should try. I drank at least five cups of coffee every day for the last couple of decades. While I have tried to keep away from it for a week now and then, I have never managed to eliminate caffeine entirely, and still ingested some from other sources like tea and soda. Until last year, when I started taking some medication that interacts with caffeine, forcing me to drop it could turkey. Aside from the splitting headache and flu-like symptoms that persisted for three days straight during withdrawal, my sleep almost instantly improved. For most of my adult life I have been a very light sleeper, waking up easily and having a hard time falling asleep. While I still have some nights where I can't fall asleep, the number of those have reduced significantly. Finally, I can actually remember my dreams again, and they are often quite vivid.
medo-bear 5y ago
good list the following addition is gonna sound weird, but here it goes :) one thing that was recommended to me and which worked is eating a handful of sour cherries before sleep. don't get ones in a jar (contains added sugar). instead get frozen ones and defrost them so they are ready before bed also here is a great podcast about topic of sleep by the author mentioned in advice #7: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbQFSMayJxk&t=5768s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbQFSMayJxk&t=5768s "Dr. Matt Walker, Professor of Neuroscience and Psychology and the Founder & Director of the Center for Human Sleep Science at the University of California, Berkeley"
- Guest42 5y ago
  Same, I’ve heard that red berries work well in general. I’ve used raspberries but will have to try the sour cherries. Not sure the science behind it but I’ve noticed a difference.
  - medo-bear 5y ago
    well sour cherries contain melatonin. apparently non-pealed kiwi fruit is good too ... but id rather not sleep than eat that
    - freen 5y ago
      For what it’s worth, kiwi skin is delicious. Tried it once, and now would rather have an unpeeled kiwi. Just my $0.02.
    - Talanes 5y ago
      Kiwi skin is good, the contact point of the fruit and skin is an amazing tart flavor. A semi-aggressive wash can get a lot of the "hair" off the outside if the texture is what puts you off.
wickoff 5y ago
For me the most impactful thing by far was leaving the phone in the other room. Instant gain of 1-2 hours of sleep per night.
wenc 5y ago
I find brown (not white!) noise really helps too. I particularly like Alexa's brown noise mix. I tell Alexa to "play brown noise" and the droning sound calms my mind in minutes. Also writing therapy helps -- writing down all the thoughts bothering me and then crumpling it up and chucking it in the trash really helps me let go. There's something about externalizing one's thoughts that helps one let go of them.
- mgkimsal 5y ago
  agreed - white noise is too tinny. I use a mix of brown and grey throughout the day. I use Bose sleep buds for sleeping. It was life changing. The 'warm static' mix they offer is a great brownish noise for masking out external sounds and helping get to sleep.
maroonblazer 5y ago
Meditation has been a big help to me when I wake up in the middle of the night. But sometimes letting thoughts go isn't enough. I've often found that the muscles in my body simply don't want to relax enough for me to be able to fall asleep, so I need to put extra effort into helping them relax. This can be anything from the traditional 'body scan' where you start at the crown of your head and work your way down, focusing on relaxing every part of your body (head, neck and shoulders are the big ones for me). Or I sometimes imagine getting a full-body massage, and that can do the trick. Of course if you've never had the experience of a full-body massage this likely won't work.
agumonkey 5y ago
I did one thing in the last years: wake up early, and directly go for a walk to the bakery. 45min ~ it was surprisingly mentally refreshing and after 3 days my body got a natural alarm clock as if the reflex of walking was now preset.
sofixa 5y ago
> Breathe through your nose. It can be hard at first but it gets easier over time I'm stumped here. Isn't that the normal way to breathe? Why would it be hard, unless you have some medical condition like sleep apnea, which requires treatment in itself?
- User23 5y ago
  When I was a child mouth-breather was an insult. I’ve also always thought one should breathe through one’s nose.
- toast0 5y ago
  I have to actively try to breathe through my nose, it's often congested (having a pet despite allergies doesn't help), and it's just simpler to breathe through my mouth, cause that just works. Medical interventions are possible, but I'm not thrilled with the side effects of the medicines I've tried, and surgery has some really awful tail risks, so there's that. I was recently recomended to try B1 (thiamine) suppliments related to sleep apnea, not sure if it helps with that, but it does seem to open up my nasal passages, and taking it before bed seems to be helpful with breathing during sleep. YMMV, not medical advice, etc.
  - f1refly 5y ago
    Why would you get a pet when you're allergic?
    - aspyct 5y ago
      Gain > Loss, I suppose
    - nefitty 5y ago
      My baby poodle is on the couch with me, fast asleep. Her little legs twitch. Sometimes she does little yips in her sleep. I wonder what she dreams about. I hope she feels love for me, close to what I feel for her. Oh, allergies. Yeah they suck. Dogs are nice though.
    - 5y ago
veidr 5y ago
I also significantly improved my sleep with this exact same list (plus fasted cardio every morning and progressive weight lifting 3x/week).
raducu 5y ago
I my case the things that helped the most: 1) Melatonin 300mcg (2 drops) -- usually after 2-3 days, taking it I found I don't need it for another 3-4 days. No tolerance at 300mcg. I've tried other drugs that I still use for when I'm stressed (zolpidem which I actually like recreationally but won't take it when there are others in the house, antihistamines, or benzodiazepines). I cannot stress how good it feels to know that I have options in case I can't sleep. The same with panic attacks I had a few years ago -- once I knew I had lorazepam/alprazolam in my wallet and I could end any panic attack in 15 minutes, the panic attacks stopped by themselves. Just having the option gives me peace of mind. The same for polydrug usage that helped with my BPD -- having the ability to just change the way you feel was such a blessing and the beginning of the end of BPD for me (70% was dealt with by therapy). 2) Actually fixing the problems in my life -- when I'm happy with my work, my child, my wife, I exercise a little (even just a bike ride in the park), I practice my hobbies, I socialize a little -- in such days I sleep like a baby. 3) The whole sleep sleep hygiene thing -- it's just a cherry on top of the cake, if I had a good streak of days where I was content/happy, I can basically do everything sleep hygiene says but in reverse and still get a great sleep.
kaiwen1 5y ago
> Breath through your nose. I used to be a mouth breather at night due to a nasal passage so narrow that it would essentially close shut on inhale. If the air was very humid - like 100% – I was fine. Otherwise, I would wake several times during the night practically choking from a dry throat. What solved this was a cheap silicone nostril tube insert. It dilates my nostril letting the air flow. It took a few days to build the habit of sleeping with my mouth closed, but this little tube massively improved my sleep.
ipython 5y ago
If you have problems with breathing through your nose or snoring, go get some breathe right strips. It’s just a metallic strip with adhesive to help keep your nasal passages open - super effective.
dosethree 5y ago
re: nose breathing. What i’ve been doing is using Simply Saline (easier than a neti pot) and using breath right strips. Optionally use a mouth guard which can help you avoid mouth breathing
citrin_ru 5y ago
> Expose yourself to bright, outdoor light every morning Bright outdoor light is a luxury not everybody has. Where I currently live it is cloudy most of the time and feels dark even at noon, especially in winter (when the sun is low). I wonder how people do adapt to such climate.

clumsysmurf 5y ago

I'd also add 8. Don't eat within 2 hours of sleep (at least, maybe more). 9. Exercise earlier in the day, rather than later

fleddr 5y ago

Can't agree on reading. It's cognitively stimulating, assuming you read something that interests you. I don't know about you, but I can't just close the book and forget about it.

NoPicklez 5y ago
Complete opposite for me, no matter how good the book is, at night I still find myself becoming extremely tired from reading.
- 7thaccount 5y ago
  Yeah, if it's night time and I start reading something technical I usually pass out in like 20 minutes, even if I'm enjoying it.
op00to 5y ago
Read something you’ve read a hundred times. I use Hitchhikers Guide to go to sleep.
mikenew 5y ago
For me it really depends on what I'm reading, and I do agree that sometimes it can be too stimulating. I don't think there's a hard and fast rule here of reading == good, TV == bad or anything like that. For example I can watch twitch before bed, but only a replay, not a livestream. I suspect it's something about the feeling of being able to interact with a streamer vs it being totally passive. I think it just really depends, and it's worth just paying attention to how specific things affect you.
kmtrowbr 5y ago
There are morning w/coffee books and, nighttime books. For me, history works well for night time. The 18th or 19th century. Ancient works. YA novels. Something which will take you out of your day and into another place mentally. Examples of bad books to read before bed: business books, technical books, self-help.
wenc 5y ago

mettamage 5y ago

A couple of things worked on there for me as well, but the biggest one for me personally is 0.3mg of melatonin I started with 3mg, way too much, went to 1.5mg, still too much. Then did 0.7mg, that was fine but still some small side effects. Then 0.4mg that was fine. Then 0.2mg, that didn't work. Then I did 0.3mg and it seemed to be the sweet spot. I can just barely perceive it working and it is just enough to make me feel a bit woozy, which is what I cannot do myself.

mikenew 5y ago
My understanding is that melatonin is a threshold kind of thing, so it makes sense to dial in a specific dose. For me I found that 1mg gave me as much "get to sleep" effect as 10mg, so I would just use 1. I wasn't able to find dosages less than 1mg so I never experimented further. For me, I took melatonin before bed for a month or two and then stopped, and when I stopped I didn't notice my time-until-sleep being any different. My assumption is that my natural melatonin production eventually started happening at the right time once my circadian rhythm was fixed and the supplemental melatonin wasn't needed.
- raducu 5y ago
  > I wasn't able to find dosages less than 1mg so I never experimented further. I was like you, but I just roughly broke the pills in half or 1/3 and it worked even better. Now I have this melatonin syrup drops, 150mcg per drop so it's easy, 2 drops for me.
- mettamage 5y ago
  In The Netherlands they are sold at 0.1mg at the lowest granularity. I used those to test it. Eventually, after figuring out my dose, I now resort to a comfortable yummy (it's sweet, helps with placebo effect :P) 0.3mg melatonin + 1mg CBD tablet.
xattt 5y ago
Most melatonin tablets are available in 3 mg formulation. What sort of microtome are you using for dosing?

hashimotonomora 5y ago

It may seem paradoxical but also not worrying about sleep itself, not writing down lists, not trying to dissect and optimize sleep, may actually improve your sleep much more. Animals have slept and evolved for literally millions of years. Unless there’s an actual clinical condition, having faith in your own body and just relaxing should be enough. At least that’s my case.

zemvpferreira 5y ago
It is paradoxical and rooted in our duality as thinking animals. Many sleep disorders (mine included) are rooted in anxiety. They will respond to these little hacks and tricks, but (in my experience) only insofar as they allow you to feel in control and tune out your thought stream. For the record I practice all the common wisdom and more 90% of the time (and melatonin, earplugs and blindfold close to 100%). I might sleep 7-8 hours a night and wake up fully rested or I might wake up totally blitzed, depending on my mental state. I might fall asleep easily the night after or toss and turn for hours. I might fall asleep easily from exhaustion and wake up 4 hours before I'm supposed to with a racing mind. It's not environmental and it's not any state of my body. It's my/your thoughts and emotions. It sucks but since I've found the root cause, I've been better at controling the downward spirals. (Still need my little rituals before going to bed to feel right though)
nickjj 5y ago
> just relaxing should be enough. At least that’s my case. Yep, this is a very important one. I've been fortunate enough to have a pretty good ability to fall asleep and generally wake up feeling rested. Most nights I'll wrap up with a movie and often times I'll fall asleep in what feels like about 10 minutes after I decide "ok, I'm going to sleep now". I believe this is very tied into not feeling like I must wake up at a specific time. It allows me to goto sleep when I'm tired and wake up when I naturally wake up. There's no laying down and thinking "ok it's 11:17pm, I have to be up at 7am". This could easily turn into "it's now 11:58pm, why can't I sleep, crap I have to be up in 7 hours" to "...how the heck is it 1:30am, this is bad, I need to be up in 5.5 hours" and now you're done for, your sleep quality is going to be bad because you'll for sure think if you can't fall asleep in a few minutes you're going to risk sleeping through any alarm. But without the pressure of having to be up on a schedule, 99.99% of the time if I went to bed at 11pm I'll be up at about 6:30am or 7am without an alarm and feel good about it. This has happened to me time and time again. Any time where something comes up and I "must" be up at an early hour with alarm it affects my ability to fall asleep the night before. Usually the more important the thing is the harder it will be to fall asleep. Like ensuring I'm up to catch a flight or anything with a hard line on the time.

munificent 5y ago

I really like your list, but I also want to point out that humans have way more variability than we realize. A sure fire solution for some will do nothing for others. It doesn't mean it's bad advice, just that context is everything when it comes to health, diet, and fitness for people. A few other things I would suggest that might help some. 8. Cut down on caffeine. The whole point is that it's a stimulant. I have had many conversations with people where they complained about chronic insomnia but also drank six cups of coffee a day. Caffeine has a longer half life in the body than you expect. Drink less and drink it earlier in the day. Personally, I have only one cup of coffee in the morning, and that's it. If I have any caffeine in the afternoon, I'm up all night. 9. Journaling. If I'm awake with the same anxious thoughts going through my head, I find writing them down helps massively. It's like my brain understands that I don't have to worry about forgetting it in any more and lets it go. 10. Exercise. Doesn't have to be super vigorous, but just going for a walk helps. We are animals. Animals need to move. Gotta get the wiggles out.

drzaiusapelord 5y ago
This is such a good point. /r/decaf has a lot to say about how life changing quitting caffeine is.
ulrikrasmussen 5y ago
Anecdotal, but cutting caffeine completely for at least a month is something that I think anyone with sleep issues should try. I drank at least five cups of coffee every day for the last couple of decades. While I have tried to keep away from it for a week now and then, I have never managed to eliminate caffeine entirely, and still ingested some from other sources like tea and soda. Until last year, when I started taking some medication that interacts with caffeine, forcing me to drop it could turkey. Aside from the splitting headache and flu-like symptoms that persisted for three days straight during withdrawal, my sleep almost instantly improved. For most of my adult life I have been a very light sleeper, waking up easily and having a hard time falling asleep. While I still have some nights where I can't fall asleep, the number of those have reduced significantly. Finally, I can actually remember my dreams again, and they are often quite vivid.

medo-bear 5y ago

good list the following addition is gonna sound weird, but here it goes :) one thing that was recommended to me and which worked is eating a handful of sour cherries before sleep. don't get ones in a jar (contains added sugar). instead get frozen ones and defrost them so they are ready before bed also here is a great podcast about topic of sleep by the author mentioned in advice #7: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbQFSMayJxk&t=5768s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbQFSMayJxk&t=5768s "Dr. Matt Walker, Professor of Neuroscience and Psychology and the Founder & Director of the Center for Human Sleep Science at the University of California, Berkeley"

Guest42 5y ago
Same, I’ve heard that red berries work well in general. I’ve used raspberries but will have to try the sour cherries. Not sure the science behind it but I’ve noticed a difference.
- medo-bear 5y ago
  well sour cherries contain melatonin. apparently non-pealed kiwi fruit is good too ... but id rather not sleep than eat that
  - freen 5y ago
    For what it’s worth, kiwi skin is delicious. Tried it once, and now would rather have an unpeeled kiwi. Just my $0.02.
  - Talanes 5y ago
    Kiwi skin is good, the contact point of the fruit and skin is an amazing tart flavor. A semi-aggressive wash can get a lot of the "hair" off the outside if the texture is what puts you off.

wickoff 5y ago

For me the most impactful thing by far was leaving the phone in the other room. Instant gain of 1-2 hours of sleep per night.

wenc 5y ago

I find brown (not white!) noise really helps too. I particularly like Alexa's brown noise mix. I tell Alexa to "play brown noise" and the droning sound calms my mind in minutes. Also writing therapy helps -- writing down all the thoughts bothering me and then crumpling it up and chucking it in the trash really helps me let go. There's something about externalizing one's thoughts that helps one let go of them.

mgkimsal 5y ago
agreed - white noise is too tinny. I use a mix of brown and grey throughout the day. I use Bose sleep buds for sleeping. It was life changing. The 'warm static' mix they offer is a great brownish noise for masking out external sounds and helping get to sleep.

maroonblazer 5y ago

Meditation has been a big help to me when I wake up in the middle of the night. But sometimes letting thoughts go isn't enough. I've often found that the muscles in my body simply don't want to relax enough for me to be able to fall asleep, so I need to put extra effort into helping them relax. This can be anything from the traditional 'body scan' where you start at the crown of your head and work your way down, focusing on relaxing every part of your body (head, neck and shoulders are the big ones for me). Or I sometimes imagine getting a full-body massage, and that can do the trick. Of course if you've never had the experience of a full-body massage this likely won't work.

agumonkey 5y ago

I did one thing in the last years: wake up early, and directly go for a walk to the bakery. 45min ~ it was surprisingly mentally refreshing and after 3 days my body got a natural alarm clock as if the reflex of walking was now preset.

sofixa 5y ago

> Breathe through your nose. It can be hard at first but it gets easier over time I'm stumped here. Isn't that the normal way to breathe? Why would it be hard, unless you have some medical condition like sleep apnea, which requires treatment in itself?

User23 5y ago
When I was a child mouth-breather was an insult. I’ve also always thought one should breathe through one’s nose.
toast0 5y ago
I have to actively try to breathe through my nose, it's often congested (having a pet despite allergies doesn't help), and it's just simpler to breathe through my mouth, cause that just works. Medical interventions are possible, but I'm not thrilled with the side effects of the medicines I've tried, and surgery has some really awful tail risks, so there's that. I was recently recomended to try B1 (thiamine) suppliments related to sleep apnea, not sure if it helps with that, but it does seem to open up my nasal passages, and taking it before bed seems to be helpful with breathing during sleep. YMMV, not medical advice, etc.
- f1refly 5y ago
  Why would you get a pet when you're allergic?
  - aspyct 5y ago
    Gain > Loss, I suppose
  - nefitty 5y ago
    My baby poodle is on the couch with me, fast asleep. Her little legs twitch. Sometimes she does little yips in her sleep. I wonder what she dreams about. I hope she feels love for me, close to what I feel for her. Oh, allergies. Yeah they suck. Dogs are nice though.
  - 5y ago

veidr 5y ago

I also significantly improved my sleep with this exact same list (plus fasted cardio every morning and progressive weight lifting 3x/week).

raducu 5y ago

I my case the things that helped the most: 1) Melatonin 300mcg (2 drops) -- usually after 2-3 days, taking it I found I don't need it for another 3-4 days. No tolerance at 300mcg. I've tried other drugs that I still use for when I'm stressed (zolpidem which I actually like recreationally but won't take it when there are others in the house, antihistamines, or benzodiazepines). I cannot stress how good it feels to know that I have options in case I can't sleep. The same with panic attacks I had a few years ago -- once I knew I had lorazepam/alprazolam in my wallet and I could end any panic attack in 15 minutes, the panic attacks stopped by themselves. Just having the option gives me peace of mind. The same for polydrug usage that helped with my BPD -- having the ability to just change the way you feel was such a blessing and the beginning of the end of BPD for me (70% was dealt with by therapy). 2) Actually fixing the problems in my life -- when I'm happy with my work, my child, my wife, I exercise a little (even just a bike ride in the park), I practice my hobbies, I socialize a little -- in such days I sleep like a baby. 3) The whole sleep sleep hygiene thing -- it's just a cherry on top of the cake, if I had a good streak of days where I was content/happy, I can basically do everything sleep hygiene says but in reverse and still get a great sleep.

kaiwen1 5y ago

> Breath through your nose. I used to be a mouth breather at night due to a nasal passage so narrow that it would essentially close shut on inhale. If the air was very humid - like 100% – I was fine. Otherwise, I would wake several times during the night practically choking from a dry throat. What solved this was a cheap silicone nostril tube insert. It dilates my nostril letting the air flow. It took a few days to build the habit of sleeping with my mouth closed, but this little tube massively improved my sleep.

ipython 5y ago

If you have problems with breathing through your nose or snoring, go get some breathe right strips. It’s just a metallic strip with adhesive to help keep your nasal passages open - super effective.

dosethree 5y ago

re: nose breathing. What i’ve been doing is using Simply Saline (easier than a neti pot) and using breath right strips. Optionally use a mouth guard which can help you avoid mouth breathing

citrin_ru 5y ago

> Expose yourself to bright, outdoor light every morning Bright outdoor light is a luxury not everybody has. Where I currently live it is cloudy most of the time and feels dark even at noon, especially in winter (when the sun is low). I wonder how people do adapt to such climate.