I hate insomnia
 

Really nothing much more to say than that. I hate it. I only got 4 hours of sleep last night, and yet here I am, at 1:30 in the morning and I'm not tired... This is gonna be a dog tomorrow. Just gonna have to get up and hope my body learns its lesson...

There are things you can do such as not to drink alcohol 2-4 hours before going to bed.
Don't exercise 2 hours before going to bed.
Go to bed at the same time each day so the body gets conditions for sleepy time.
1 hour before going to bed, do something relaxing and not thought provoking.
Exercise on a daily basis but not close to bed time.
Don't take a long nap during the day, limit it to no more than 45 minutes.

I hope this help and have a good night.

I had insomnia bad many years back. I was reading the book of Esther in the Bible at the time, and the king in the account was also suffering from it. In order to battle the insomnia, he asked a servant to come in a read him the chronicles of the kingdom or Persia.

I thought, well, why not do the same thing? I got a pillow speaker and played Alexander Scourby reading the book of Chronicles and... ZZzzzzzzzzzzz

Been listening through the Bible this way for the past 20 years. And though I have bouts now and then, at least I have something worthwhile feeding my soul while my body tosses and turns.

Just letting you know what solved my experience. :)

Lay off the redbull... coke etc, and dont eat or drink anything before going to bed

And always... No... NEVER eat Oreos before bed!

Is it "never", oh...that explains a lot of things...

Actually, one of my normal reason for being up late is that I always forget not to eat a bunch of sugar. I'll find myself in the kitchen munching on a cookie at 11pm, and suddenly remember I'm supposed to be going to bed and I might be making sleep really hard on myself by eating a cookie :).

This time through though I think I'm having a recurrence of jet lag. I was told this could happen...but I didn't really believe it till now. Suddenly I'm tired in the late morning and early afternoon (night time in China), but not tired at night when I should be. I just hope that it will be simpler to get over this jet lag than it was the first time I had it...

Yep, that will do it! Coming back from Israel for the creation of my interactive CD really left me in weird states. My internal clock was all messed up.

Stay away from chocolates, caffeine and sugar. Rather, for a night snack, consider a warm milk and apple slices. If I slip and drink coffee too late in the day, I will take 1/2 of a Melatonin tablet just before bed. I will feel a slight "lull" and then I'm off. If I need a little more umph, I will have half an Exedrin PM (not Tylenol)--but not the two together or at least within an hour of one another.

Duh! Of course regular hours improves sleeping. Jumping that many time zones has got to be a problem.

Not to worry though, you will sleep when your body gets tired enough and your system will equal out.

Medical consultation can help, but then so will a six pack. If neither work, then take your wife (or significant other) with you next time... then you'll have something to do to pass all those sleepless hours when you get back. I'm thinking of scrabble of course.

I should point out, in order to avoid any one else thinking I'm daft, that I got back from China 6 weeks ago. I thought the jet lag was gone, but as I found out, it can recur. From what I've read, the second time it shows up is generally pretty brief. I wonder why it happens though...

And to reiterate something I said last night at about this same time (3:30am): I hate insomnia. I'm just getting up at 8 tomorrow and forcing my body to be tired by the time the sun goes down, thats my new plan. Maybe I'll jog all day to keep awake...

Some years ago, I was back and forth from England to Boston quite a few times interspersed with back and forth trips to LA. I found the most effective (for me) method of mitigating jet lag was a walk in the sun. For example, I'd fly into London the day before I was on deck arriving at the crack of dawn, drive to my hotel, sleep for 2 hours, and then take a long walk outside. Before the pubs closed, I'd have two pints. I'd be fine the next day. Coming back in my body's late evening, but in reality around 3 in the afternoon, I did the same thing -- a bike ride outdoors. I think the sun on your skin resets your circadian clock.

Sounds like a good idea... I'll give it a shot.

I used to hate insomnia. (I've had bouts of it for as long as I can remember.) But the aggravation and anxiety made it worse. Now I just accept it; I've decided I'm largely nocturnal by nature - much of my artwork is created during the wee hours.

Fortunately, I seem to require less sleep than the average person, but when I'm not getting enough, a mug of hot chocolate and a book will almost always work. Another trick I read somewhere - and it works quite well for me - is to stop trying to sleep and focus on trying to stay awake. Another option requires the cooperation of the missus - and is therefore less reliable.

I read something about that somewhere too, I think.

Oh, but the story gets better. I work from home (for Apple, for those who have forgotten), and I'm behind work now because I can't rip myself out of bed before 12:00. So now, in order to hit my deadlines, I'm going to have to feed the insomnia for a couple days... Come Monday, when the deadline is past and I'm trying to get back to normal, I will be the living dead.

The production of melatonin by the skin helps to regulate your circadian rhythms. Circadian rhythms are also impacted by both the color and intensity of light on the the retina, which in turn acts on the suprachiasmatic nucleus via the retinohypothalamic tract. The suprachiasmatic nucleus is the portion of the hypothalamus that is responsible for regulating circadian rhythms.

Exposing yourself to sun is a great way to re-sync your circadian rhythms. When trying to recover from jet lag, however, keep in mind that the body typically only tolerates shifts in circadian rhythms well in increments up to an hour or so per 24 hours (without additional light and melatonin therapy). So for an 8 hour time shift, allow yourself 8 days before you expect to feel completely normal again.

I've never suffered from insomnia (I'm one of those PITA folks who goes to bed and falls asleep in 15 seconds), but my wife does. My brother is like that too (and it annoys his wife as much as it does mine).

Discussing that once with our wives and some of our kids, we came to the conclusion (those of us who were instant sleepers) that the "trick" is the ability to clear your mind -- to partition off both today's events and tomorrow's. Most of the sleepers did that by thinking about something else -- something pleasant -- a hobby, a sport, etc. Neither my wife, nor my brother's can do that.

You know, it's funny you mention it because I have three things I will end up thinking about before I go to sleep. One option is that I'll think about things I still want/need to do, and that will keep me awake. Second, I'll worry that I'm going to die in my sleep. Yeah, kind of strange. It used to keep me up all night as a teenager. I've worked past it mostly (and it's not the cause of the current problem), but every now and then...

The last thing I'll do is daydream. I have to choose to do it, but I can. I find I fall asleep a lot faster. But I'd never made the connection before now. Yet another trick to throw in the bag I suppose.

The current problem is that I have to be tired for the daydreaming to work (I think), so I haven't been getting to sleep because I'm not tired at all. Just need to start getting up a bit earlier, that's all...

The key to that (for any sedentary worker -- I was a University Admin) is exercise at some point in the day. Initially, I walked from a ferry to work and back (20 minutes each way) and when that became inconvenient because I needed a car during the day, I used to have a 40-minute walk (with my wife) every day after supper. We went in all weathers (dressed appropriately), and always enjoyed the time for a chat away from the phone, etc. Arthritis has broken the habit now, but we both try to do something every day.

I've heard (though I can't confirm, as I don't have arthritis) that swimming is a good replacement for walking, etc when you have arthritis, as your own buoyancy takes some of the pressure off of the joints. My local pool has special exercise programs specifically tailored to people with reduced mobility due to arthritis (among others).

I'll bet it is. I'll look into it.

My mum found her arthritis improved when she gave up apples.

Yes, but wouldn't using Windows cause a whole host of other problems... :D.

Okay, now that the obvious joke has been taken care of... I wonder why that diet change helped?

I also have a difficult time getting to sleep, despite being physically tired. Brain keeps churning.

My wife suggested, and seems to help quite a bit, various herbal/homeopathic supplements.

In preparation for hitting the sack, I'll ingest a supplement called GABA, and one called 5-HTP. About 20 minutes later, I'm feeling much more relaxed.

Then, when climbing into bed, I put a couple Melatonin 2.5mg sublingual homeopathic supplements under my tongue.

This combo has been helping quite a bit for the last couple years.

I don't tend to have trouble getting to sleep initially but if I'm woken any time after 4am my brain calls it a night and starts working on any unfinished programming I might be working on.

How are GABA or 5-HTP herbal/homeopathic? The first is a neurotransmitter and the second is an amino acid (this particular one is a precursor to another neurotransmitter). I'm assuming that you spoke to a physician before putting yourself on this regimen?

Herbal/homeopathic in that you find them at places that purvey herbal/homeopathic stuff, and my herbal/homeopathic leaning, wooee-wooee friends/colleagues call them such. No idea of the strict definitions.

And yep, my primary care practitioner was consulted, and recommended some of the wide variety of junk I find myself ingesting daily. Your comment is very appropriate, and others should take heed.

Glad to hear you talked to your doctor.

[sermon to the masses]Herbal medicine definitely has a place alongside modern medicine, but it concerns me that many people do not regard herbal medicines as drugs and thus do not accord them the necessary respect or caution. Anything that you put in your body that has the capacity to alter your mental or physical state should be regarded as a drug (even foods - an overdose on salt can be just as deadly as an overdose on morphine). Herbal medicines can even have unwanted interactions with pharmaceuticals, so it's wise to tell your physician and pharmacist if you are taking any herbal medicines.[/sermon to the masses]

I just wanted to second that. I've taken a variety of herbal medications for different things, and it is always important to research them thoroughly before using them. Never just believe the label! Make sure that a qualified medical professional has studied the medication and can give a detailed explanation of it's effects and side affects. Anything short of that is just foolhardy...

Probably the most famous of adverse reactions is St. John's Wart with other MAO inhibitors.

Here's an interesting link:

Medicine - Herb/Food Interactions

My insomnia's been killing me lately. Last night I think it was about 5 am when I finally got to sleep and I had to get up at 7 am to get my daughter ready for school. I feel like a short tempered zombie.

I have immense trouble with this as well -- the can't get to sleep pattern, not the wake up at 4 pattern. I'm quite sure I really come from a planet with a 27-hour day. Ideally I would like to go to bed at 2, sleep eight hours and wake up at 7.

Valerian and St. John's never did a thing for me, melantonin makes me feel like *****, what I tend to do is take sleeping pills (the tranquilliser kind, not the barbiturates) in VERY small doses, breaking the pill into quarters -- because for me there's obviously a placebo effect. I've taken something, so I can sleep, so I do. If someone switched those pills for vitamin pills behind my back, I'm sure that would work, but unfortunately I can't do that to myself.

BTW, many people find that two hours of sleep make them feel considerably worse than none at all, so next time you find it's 5 a.m., get up.

Wow...speaking of zombies, here's another one of my threads back from the dead! My posts are like bell bottom pants! (or 'boot-cut' as they have been so usefully renamed).

This topic though is still, uh, topical for me. The sad thing is that, since it's summer, my insomnia usually just leads to me sleeping during the day as I often will have very little to keep me awake. For example, my wife was out of town for three weeks on tour recently, and in that time period my schedule switched completely from night to day. I was going to sleep at 10am and waking up around 6pm....

Usually what ends up happening is I get fed up with it, take a sleeping pill, and that puts me right again. Then I'll start exercising, which will keep my schedule in place until, invariably, I stop remembering to exercise. So my schedules gets off again...wash, rinse, repeat, that's me :).

Yeah, I certainly considered that (getting up). I just hoped the 2 hours might make me slightly less dangerous behind the wheel.

As a person (as is my brother) who goes to sleep in about 15 seconds when I go to bed (and no, I'm not narcoleptic either), I've never understood what it is that keeps tired people awake. My wife suffers from occasional insomnia, so I'm aware that it's quite a problem for its sufferers, but she is unable to express what it is that keeps her awake.

I'm convinced (and I don't mean to belittle anyone) that it's an inability to "partition". By that I mean an inability to force yourself to ignore everything except what you're doing (in this case thinking about how your whole body is relaxing and you're drifting off) to the exclusion of all other concerns. My wife can't do that. Is that the case with other insomniacs here, and if it is, can it be learned?

I've known people like that, who could go to sleep hanging off a wire hanger in the closet. If I ever found Aladdin's lamp, to be likewise would be my first wish. The beautiful women would have to take a number. Priorities!

I'm not convinced you've got that right. In my case it's more an overconcern about whether I will sleep or not. Given that my eyes can't cope with a computer on too little sleep, the longer it takes the more I fret about not getting enough sleep, and the fretting keeps me awake, and so on round the mulberry bush. It can end up as a full-bore anxiety attack. The less reason I have to get up in the morning, on the other hand, the better I sleep and so the more I can.

So for me, thinking about how I'm falling deliciously asleep would mean that I'm not. After all, you cannot actually experience the moment at which you fall asleep, can you? And if you try, you keep yourself awake.

Or on a pile of wet sail bags on my off shift in a race.

When I think about my own experience some more, I realize that I don't think about going to sleep either -- I relax and direct my thinking to something without stress or emotion. I think my wife worries about not getting enough sleep and/or not waking on time.

Exercise definitely helps in more than one way. I ride my bike back and forth to work everyday (for a total of 1 hour round trip) and I notice that my sleeping is sounded and I have less stress. However, you shouldn't exercise near nighty night time otherwise it will have the opposite effect.

The other thing is that if you are sensitive to light or sound, use a ciesta mask and ear plugs. In addition to exercise, the ciesta mask keeps me asleep even when the sun is waking up.

Some insomnia is caused by stress and so even when you are tired you sometimes can't get asleep. It's kind of like a feedback loop. You are stress, so you can't sleep; you can't sleep, so you get tired; you are tired, so you feel even more stress. This was the source of my insomnia sometime ago and when I realized it, I reduced my stressed and now all is find. In addition, I did all of this without medication or drugs of any kind.

Stress is definitely a factor for me. I will find myself going over things in my head instead of switching off. I have never actually resolved an issue in this state as it tends to be kind of circular thinking with out an exit. And as the hours pass the sleeplessness becomes another source of stress. I tend to calculate as I go "Right if I go to sleep now I can still get in five hours.. four hours.. three.. two and a half... aw crap."

Yes! Yes! Yes! That's how it is.

My advice then it to learn to relax by doing something that helps to relieve stress (It's probably not work). You can take a yoga class or just go for a walk. Take a camping trip or something that brings you back into focus with yourself. I view stress as a sign that the mind and body are out of sync. Find something to laugh about everyday as this helps to reduce stress. You might want to consider discussing this with someone.

That count down is something else and is really disastrous when you thing about it. When this occurred to me, it gave me a sense of being haunted by the past, present, and future events of life. Whatever the source of this stress, you must eliminate it!

Two things: When you are not in bed you maintain tension (muscle tone) on thousands of muscles that maintain your position. Learn to think about relaxing them a small group at a time. Also, a routine is very helpful -- in my case, drink a can of beer while reading for 15 or 20 minutes, then upstairs, undress, a bit of ablution, and into bed in exactly the same position every night. The position should be both comfortable and one in which you're aware of any muscle tension. I'm gone shortly after the light is turned off.

Actually you do have to concentrate on sleeping
 

I think we skipped past this point a bit to quickly. I think this is a key to it, and to prove it let me use a quick example.

I have ADHD, quite severely actually. About a year ago I started taking an herbal remedy that (thankfully) actually works for me. One of the upsides (and downsides) of the remedy is that it's non-addictive, so I sometimes forget to take it, which leads me back into being my normal ADHD self, which means I forget to take it, which creates a cycle, etc etc.... Anyway, let's just go with "sometimes I'm taking it consistently, sometimes I'm not."

How does this relate? Well, when I'm on the medication it is a very simple thing for me to stop myself from thinking about the day when I'm about to go to bed (provided I'm not super stressed out for other reasons). This allows me to go to sleep at a decent time on a regular basis. When I'm not on the remedy, that's when my schedule starts pushing itself back. If I let it, it will go at about an hour per day. (More on this phenomena a bit down the page).

Reason being: When I'm not on the remedy, I need to be "dead tired" before my mind will allow me to "concentrate" on sleeping. Where as with the remedy I just need to be "tired".

Now, to answer the question of whether or not this can be learned (and to clarify what I mean by "concentrate").

One of the great things about being off and on the remedy is that I start to notice the difference between the two states, my ADHD self and my "remedied" self. I started to notice that concentrating on sleeping actually is part of the process for me to go to sleep, and that it is much easier for my body to do naturally when I'm on the remedy.

What I mean by "concentrating" is this. When I go to sleep naturally my body says to me, "start daydreaming". So I start thinking about flying airplanes or fighting dragons and before you know it I'm asleep. To some of you this might sound like, "well he's just stopped thinking that's all." I disagree, starting to daydream is an active state, you daydream you aren't daydreamed at. It's a choice most of us take for granted because we generally do it naturally.

Anyway, I found that if I could get my mind to head in that direction, I would go to sleep without fail. The hard thing is getting my mind to "concentrate on sleeping" by daydreaming. So far I've found one possible solution, and here it is:

I've been studying meditation for a few years now, and one of the major skills I've picked up along the way is deep-breathing. I've found that if I use deep breathing to become aware of myself that I can lock out most of my minds whirlwind of thoughts (for more info, see this). From there I can start daydreaming about flying or saving the world from Microsoft or what have you. If I do this for a couple of minutes my body will notice it, and take over from there. Pretty soon I'm asleep.

Of course, the hard part for me is to convince my ADHD addled mind that it really wants to meditate because cruising the internet for another hour isn't as fun as it actually sounds... One step at a time, eh?

As a side note, the eventual goal with all this meditation stuff is to be able to use it to replace using my herbal remedy. It's nice to have a remedy, but I'd like to think I can get to a point of being functional without it. I'm sure I'll always have some weird kinks to my personality, but that's fine, so long as I feel like I'm in control.

Ya know what I hate even worse than not being able to get to sleep? I hate getting a frantic phonecall from a Windows Vista using relative, two and a half hours after FINALLY falling asleep, asking for help before I've even thought about coffee or a morning smoke, or honestly, of even being awake.

What makes this problem worse yet is when I ask what's wrong with the computer. What is it doing, not doing, etc? This is a direct quote of the answer I got. "It keeps rebooting!!! Windows has ecountered a problem blah blah blah blah."

Now, don't get me wrong, I used Microsoft products for two decades, and still use Windows when I have to, so this isn't my first time troubleshooting a problem, and this is NOT an anti microsoft rant. Far from it, its more of an anti relativescallingforfreetechsupportsotheydon'thavetopayforit rant. Just because I enjoy tinkering with my own computers does not mean I enjoy getting woken up to fix yours, know what I mean?

LOL. First the parallel rant, then the suggestion.

I'm not a techie, but have nevertheless been asked to troubleshoot people's Windows from time to time. However, never in the middle of the night. On the gripping hand, I have a certain other skill, with public licence, and what I really-to-the-100th power hate is when long-lost-touch-with-friends, old neighbours or even nodding acquaintances call me up out of nowhere and pretend to care how I am before asking me for a freebie from my own particular competency. I can tell from the voice when this is going to happen, just as you can tell from the voice whether "Is that Mr. John Smith?" is a customer, the police or a telemarketer. Loyal friends get freebies, people who've forgotten my existence until they need my skill, don't.

Marlboro Man, do these relatives have anything you want? If so, how about calling them up at the same hour to ask for it?

Unfortunately no. However if she ever needs someone to perform a wedding on no notice, she can ask someone else. Heh.

You could be onto something there. Between work and the family I have pretty much zero time to myself. And working from home as a programmer I have limited contact with anyone outside of work emails. My kids certainly give me things to laugh about but they also give me equal amounts of frustration. Ah the joys...

I went to bed with a headache at around 10pm tonight, took some tylenol and woke up around 2am. It's now 5am and I feel wide away but will probably go back to sleep after 6am.

I haven't had a headache in a long time but I know it can keep you awake if not treated. I tried avoiding taking the tylenol by going to a hot tub. While I was in the hot tub, the headache went away but shortly after I got out of the hot tub, it reappear again. So I took the tylenol to get rid of the headache.

Speaking of insomnia, what do you do if you have pain prior to sleeping? This pain could be a headache, toothache, or anything that is painful. We haven't touch on pain as being a source of insomnia and I'm wondering if people here think of this as the source of their insomnia. If so, what is your practice for dealing with such pain prior to attempting to go to sleep?

I was wondering when someone would touch on that issue. I've personally been dealing with second and third degree burns, and the multiple skin grafts required to get them to heal for the last couple of years, and I have found that simply taking an ibuprofen is sufficient to quell the pain so I can fall asleep. My biggest problem, however, is that after this long I am almost used to being in pain all the time, like its a normal part of existence, so I forget to take the pill, toss and turn for a few hours, and finally remember to take the pill at 3am. It then takes an hour for it to do anything, so I'm still up till 4.

I try to avoid taking them any more than absolutely necessary, as they don't do anything kind to my stomach but now that the burn is almost completely closed, I have found one tablet twice a day does the job quite well. It beats the brain fogging meds my old doctor prescribed when I first got hurt and after the grafts.

On a related note, skin graft donor sites hurt worse than anything I have ever experienced, kidney stones included. The graft site didn't hurt at all due to the nerves basically being toast by that point, but having something like a cheese grater used to take off several layers of skin is NOT something I would recommend that anyone do for fun. All this talk of cheese graters and toast has made me hungry.</bad joke>

That is a bad joke, but I laughed not the less.:eek:

You gentlemen still have old age to look forward too -- that time of life in which some part of your body is in pain virtually all the time. You do get used to it, surprisingly, or I least I have -- it doesn't interfere with my life or sleep.

That's good to know. However, I personally don't like pain. Mild pain I can deal with but anymore than that I will have to alleviate it with medications. But I'm wondering if some pain relievers are prone to keeping you awake more than others.

Folks have very different pain thresholds; the point at which they rate a pain as "serious" as opposed to "ignorable". What you might classify as "mild pain", I might classify as "discomfort". In addition to pain threshold, however, there's pain tolerance; the level of pain an individual can withstand without impairment of mental faculties, i.e. without the pain dominating their thoughts. When pain is fear-inducing it has a profound effect on an individual's performance, but if the source is clearly understood (i.e., you banged your funny bone, barked your shin, or hit your thumb with a hammer) you can shrug it off after a few gasps.

Funny, the exact opposite is what puts me to sleep.

Couple beers in the evening, and I get real sleepy.

If I can't sleep for whatever reason, I'll jump on the elliptical machine and run 2-3 miles. After that, I pretty much konk out from pure exhaustion.

5-HTP is most commonly taken by people that use MDMA. They believe that taking a large dose before and after using the drug helps prevent or lessen the crash the next day when their body has no seratonin left. I don't know if anyone has ever actually tried to clinically prove this hypothesis.

I'll second that -- a few beers while I watch the late news is exactly what I need (both to survive the news and to make me sleepy).

I'm weird. In this as well, I mean. :) If I go for a seven-hour hike, I don't sleep. Not having been in the army, I have never discovered a level of exercise that gives me a good night sleep. After coming home and taking my boots off, I might conk out on the sofa etc., but when bedtime comes, I am even less likely to sleep than normal, because the exertion has made my legs kind of twitchy in bed, and my feet have become intolerably hot, I have to get up several times to run a bowl of cold water to soak them. Or if in a foreign hotel, go stand in the bidet. ;)

I used to drink red wine like this too and would fall asleep only to wake up in the middle of the night. I am told that the alcohol is breaking down into sugar or glucose and that is what's causing me to wake up in the middle of the night. So I has to stop this practice before going to bed. I'm sure there are certain sensitivities or thresholds to all of this but I appear to be more sensitive to alcohol in this regards. The same things goes for caffeine I guess. If I drink caffeine past noon, I will have problems sleeping.

I am told that most of these sensitivities and thresholds may be genetic and it will be interesting when we find out what genetic code is responsible for such sensitivities and threshold to insomnia.

Anyone care to start the research?:)

So that’s what those are for! :cool:

.

.
To paraphrase something I read once:

"Insomnia comes to visit me.
She says nothing.
I say nothing.
We communicate
in this way."

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We could open up a whole new comment thread on exercise practices (no, I'm not suggesting that, it's hyperbole with a point :).) Of course excercise, like sleep, is different for everyone. I, for example, usually do better to jog very first thing in the morning and follow that up with some meditation. I'll sleep better that way.

Exercising in the evening is weird. If I do that, I have to go to bed almost immediately, and then I'll conk out. If I wait a bit (say, take a shower or something), then I'll be up for hours.

That being said, it also depends on the exercise. If I've been hiking all day, I'll go straight to sleep as soon as I hit the sack...

She says nothing
I speak foul language of insults
We communicate in this way

When I had insomnia, I once thought I was cursed and wonder why I was going through this when in fact I had a clean conscience. I don't steal, cheat, lie, murder or anything like that so why am I haunted by insomnia? I would think that people that do those things would be curse, but not me.