[bleach152332]

This is my first post and I thought I'd try and make it useful.

Basically I just want people to post what they do which may help people get to sleep (even for a little bit of sleep).

I would suggest some of the following which has helped me a little bit….try doing the following before bed…

*Reading a book

*Avoiding coffee or tea

*Getting some exercise/get your body working

Any other suggestions from anyone would be very helpful …I hope this helped a little bit lol.

[pamela]

I am using white noise right now and it's really helping. I downloaded an app for $1.99 to my android phone. I also turn off my phone (notifications, texts, phone calls), so I'm not bothered by anything when trying to fall asleep. It's really helping. Also make the room as dark as possible. I like ocean waves the best for white noise.

[Martin Reed]

Welcome to the Insomnia Land community and thanks for sharing your tips. It's interesting on the reading fronts as many 'experts' advise against reading as it keeps the brain active. They also feel that reading in bed is a big no-no as the bedroom should be associated only with sleep (and love making). I find reading sends me off, though!

Do tell us more about your insomnia. How long have you been dealing with it and how much sleep do you normally manage?

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[PatO]

Going to bed later in the evening has worked for me on occasion. Last night I went to bed at 1:30 am and slept for approximately 3 hours.

[MarinaFournier]

'bleach152332' wrote on '31:

I would suggest some of the following which has helped me a little bit….try doing the following before bed…

*Reading a book

*Avoiding coffee or tea

*Getting some exercise/get your body working

Above all else, I have to be comfortable–the sheets not rough or itchy, the right amount of covers for the temperature, no breathing issues or coughing, no nagging pain anywhere, and at night, dark enough. I have the phone in my room on ring-off, although it has a nightmode setting, I really don't like phones ringing right next to me. My iPhone is my clock and alarm, but it's dark when not actively engaged. In addition, I have my “sleep snake”, a 24×9″ lavendar and seed filled pillow (of sorts) that drapes over my eyes and ears. As a side sleeper and a migraineur, any binding on my head leads to headache (so the masks with elastic are out) and the short eye pillows don't work on your sidesleeper. It's time to refill my snake, as you can no longer smell any trace of lavendar.

I've found that getting my body working too near bedtime is a bad idea, but earlier, not an issue. However, exercise has seldom enabled me to sleep–nor has it, if done earlier in the day, kept me from sleep, either. It's just not a factor for me–YMMV.

Certainly, avoiding caffeine seems to help many of us have fewer problems with sleep, but there are folk like my husband who drink it right up until bedtime, all through the day, and nary a problem does it give them. Hates them, I do. However, in Europe, one often has a late night cuppa to settle oneself for sleep. It turns out that lattes in Italy are frequently sipped by “kids and grannies” at bedtime, to help them sleep. Wouldn't work for me, even with the amount of milk I take in mine. Green tea or a tisane is useful when I'm chilled and up later, and doesn't impact my sleep, unless I've had too much, when it's going to be my bladder keeping me awake.

If milk at any temperature helps you sleep, it may be the feeling of a fuller stomach, as it is for me. Tryptophans never did anything for me–again, YMMV.

If I'm achy all over, I'll turn the hot tub on and soak for 20 minutes, more if there's company. In the winter, it does warm me up enough to get into a somewhat chilly bed. When the nights are still too hot late at night, I will go immerse myself in the cold water, or if I don't want to walk that far, take a cold shower until I'm cool enough to drop off before i warm up again. Sometimes, a sarong cloth gets wet & wrung out, and draped over me to prolong the coolth.

Very little non-fiction will work for me at bedtime–I have to read that earlier in the day, because it DOES get my mind active. Fiction of the non-depressing variety is good, and I will usually start getting drowsy enough to actually drop off. The downside is when the book is too engaging, and you read through the night!

Shy, if you'll look at some of the forum contents, you may see my post on how PopCap's Bejeweled2 game for the iPhone allowed me to turn off my active brain (which was my problem all along) and get to sleep earlier and more soundly. These days, my main problem, no matter how well I've slept, is getting unglued from the bed, with or without the sleepyon-generating small dogs on the bed. I will wake, and drift back off to sleep, often several times in a row. This is almost as bad as the insomnia!

Hope you get lots of interesting responses!

[wonderhussy]

I have a 3-part system for sleeping.

1. Sleep Tracks — I listen to the Insomnia Buster track at some point in the afternoon or early evening, and it primes my brain for sleep later on.

2. I turn the air conditioner up so that it's pretty cold in my room

3. I have a medical marijuana prescription, and I've found that to be the most effective sleep aid. I don't like smoking (I'm a health nut) so I take 3 drops of tincture (an MJ-alcohol infusion) under the tongue, then I eat a cookie made with cannabutter (this doesn't kick in til later in the night, and keeps me asleep). Then I take a few hits off my vaporizer…between all 3 of these, I drift off nicely!

Seriously, I am not a recreational pot smoker…but if you live in a state that has medical MJ, I *highly* (no pun intended) recommend it for insomnia. I find it to work better, and have fewer harmful side effects, than Seroquel, Ambien, Trazodone, and all the myriad other “legit” pills my doctor & Big Pharma like to shove down your throat.

If Pfizer or Merck had pot farms…everyone would be using this for sleep. But, until they do……..

GOOD LUCK!

🙂

[MarinaFournier]

'wonderhussy' wrote on '12:

1. Sleep Tracks — I listen to the Insomnia Buster track at some point in the afternoon or early evening, and it primes my brain for sleep later on.

2. I turn the air conditioner up so that it's pretty cold in my room

3. I have a medical marijuana prescription, and I've found that to be the most effective sleep aid. I don't like smoking (I'm a health nut) so I take 3 drops of tincture (an MJ-alcohol infusion) under the tongue, then I eat a cookie made with cannabutter (this doesn't kick in til later in the night, and keeps me asleep). Then I take a few hits off my vaporizer…between all 3 of these, I drift off nicely!

Don't know if I'll get SleepTracks, but I have my handy iPhone with Bejeweled, as a near equivalent (YMMV).

No A/C in this area is normal, thus we have none. We have shut the heating grate in our room, we have the ceiling fan going most of the year, the windows open (one right above the bed) during the warmer months, and on hot nights the whole-house-fan, which pulls hot air up through the roof, is going until bedtime or the house is chilly enough. If necessary, a few minutes in the unheated-save-by-sun pool will chill you down, or turn the shower on to cold and stand under it until you're chilly, then the bed.

I'm not interested in smoking, either, and the smell of pot smoke makes me very nauseated (go figure!). I think it was in the late 70's I was given some Toklas brownies. I ate half of them, fell asleep for a few hours, woke up, laid on the couch…and there were colors fuzzing about. I think I might have been a little dizzy, but the colors disappeared after 30 minutes, and the next 6 hours I had fuzzbrain. Wasn't keen on that last. I ate the rest at an SCA overnight event. I was rather giggly, didn't see anything interesting, but I sure enjoyed myself with a certain Duke (unless he was King again–too long ago for that level of detail), and then went off to sleep in the tent I was sharing. The experience didn't encourage me to experiment further.

I understand that cannabis these days is much stronger than in those days–I read The Botany of Desire by Michael Pollan, which is a botanical history of four different plants: apples, tulips, potatoes and cannabis. Easy read, fascinating details. I had already read a good botanical history of the apple, so nothing new there, and I knew a heck of a lot about the Dutch Tulip Bubble of the 18th C., but the potato and cannabis chapters were eye-openers.

I don't know about the tincture, unless there's some flavoring that keeps it palatable, but I could handle a cookie at bedtime. My asthma is periodic, and it's more like I have an asthmatic cough than regular asthma, so I have no inhaler. When I tried them, they weren't making any difference, so I stopped using any.

Your suggestions are practical, and taking care of several contributors at once is a wonderful thing.

[Author]

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