There is a podcast called Sleep With Me that I highly recommend for those times you can’t sleep because your mind is racing. It’s weird - this guy just kind of meanders and talks nonsense but in this very soporific way, it’s hard to explain. I put the sleep timer on for 30 minutes or so and put the podcast on. It’s so boring that it puts you to sleep, but not boring in a way that you are thinking about how boring it is. Hard to explain but really works for me.
I listened to this all the time for awhile!
Also, the In Our Time podcast by BBC. They’ve got different categories, and I learned I had to stay away from the history ones because they were super interesting. Philosophy, on the other hand, is insanely boring to me, so I’d plug in the headphones, get comfy, and British people would talk me to sleep and it was glorious.
Post by lifetaketwo on Jan 16, 2020 9:53:20 GMT -5
For me, looking back, it would have been much more hhelpful to not immediately jump to fix it mode. I had anxiety about life stuff which was effecting my sleep and I turned it into severe anxiety about sleep itself.
My mantra is this. Maybe it’ll help you.
It’s totally normal for sleep to be messed up when you are anxious. I’ve slept normally for 30 something years. I am not broken, and I am perfectly capable of sleeping . This is just how my anxiety plays out. The ability to sleep is tonight is not related to my ability to sleep last night. If I don’t sleep tonight, yes tomorrow will suck, but it will be okay because I can handle it.
This happens to me occasionally and it is frustrating. For me, I simply move my pillow to the foot of the bed, lay on top of the comforter with a throw blanket on top of me and read my kindle. Within minutes I am always asleep.
There is a podcast called Sleep With Me that I highly recommend for those times you can’t sleep because your mind is racing. It’s weird - this guy just kind of meanders and talks nonsense but in this very soporific way, it’s hard to explain. I put the sleep timer on for 30 minutes or so and put the podcast on. It’s so boring that it puts you to sleep, but not boring in a way that you are thinking about how boring it is. Hard to explain but really works for me.
I listened to this all the time for awhile!
Also, the In Our Time podcast by BBC. They’ve got different categories, and I learned I had to stay away from the history ones because they were super interesting. Philosophy, on the other hand, is insanely boring to me, so I’d plug in the headphones, get comfy, and British people would talk me to sleep and it was glorious.
There are free stories on YouTube where you can listen to Stephen Fry telling you endless stories about lavender fields and such. His voice is the softest voice I have ever heard and it is impossible not to fall asleep. Since my divorce in 2014, I have so much trouble sleeping! When my anxiety medication (that helps to sleep), is not strong enough to help with my continuous overthinking, I listen to him. I find that alcohol in the evening also keeps me from falling asleep. Hello menopause! Good luck
I am a progressive muscle relaxation evangelist. Basically, PMR is a process of tensing and then relaxing different muscles in the body while laying in bed so that your mind focuses on the physical sensations and at the end your body feels super relaxed. I find it really helpful when I'm anxious or my mind is wandering. There are tons of PMR recordings on youtube, so find one with a voice that's relaxing for you. I think the recording I use (from a CD my therapist gave me ~9 years ago) is about 20 minutes long but I usually doze off within 10 minutes.
Also, I really like Olly Sleep gummies. It's melatonin with some other supplements so it doesn't make me groggy the next morning. The recommended dose is 2 gummies but 1 usually does it for me.
I also went through bad insomnia— waking up at 4am every morning. I followed every suggestion — meditation, ocean wave soundtrack, theta wave soundtrack, magnesium powder, CBD, limit caffeine, lavender spray, warm baths with Epsom salts, massaging feet, no screens after 8pm and nothing really solved it. Melatonin worked although sometimes it caused me to oversleep.
The real game changer was acupuncture and Chinese Herbs proscribed by a DOAM to treat adrenal fatigue. I can’t recommend it enough although it did take a few tries to get the right blend and give it time to take effect. Another contributing factor was switching industries and obtaining a job that paid much better with an easier commute and fewer egotistical personalities.
But ITA with previous poster that you can’t purposely go out or you way to try to sleep at night. Because a “good sleeper” would not have an elaborate ritual trying to get your body to sleep. Your sole purpose has to be rest and simply being. The book explains it really well.
It is hard though accepting some sleeplessness and not fighting cycles of bad sleep. That is where I am still stuck with
Post by RoxMonster on Jan 16, 2020 19:43:22 GMT -5
One thing I just kind of thought of that probably isn't helping is that before I started struggling with this last week, I was occasionally sleeping on the couch due to illness. I got an awful cold right after Christmas, and I had to sleep sitting up on the couch so I could breathe. Then it turned into a double ear infection and laying down had too much pressure in my ears. I did go get a prescription for my ear infection, but unfortunately I'm still having some issues with my ears feeling plugged and it's exacerbated when I lay flat. My antibiotic lasts through Monday and I may have to go back in if it's not better. Ugh :/ So I'm also hopeful that when I finally can kick this maybe that helps my sleep too.
if its legal in your area i recommend canabis. in small amounts it gets me to a state where I am blissed out enough to relax.
It is legal now, but even so, we are not allowed to use at my work.
I hate this. Its crap that people can enjoy a drink off the clock and it affects nothing, but because THC has a longer time in the body people can't enjoy a recreational substance that is legal.
I’ve struggled with insomnia since I was a kid. I’m nursing right now so it’s been a bad year again
One thing that helps me is remembering that as long as I am lying still my body is recharging for the day. I’ll then focus on each limb or part to relax all the muscles as much as possible, and I’ll mentally walk through a Savasana yoga relaxation script. There are many on YouTube but I just talk myself through the process. The unintended consequence of doing this for years is that I often fall asleep at the end of my yoga class.
One thing I just kind of thought of that probably isn't helping is that before I started struggling with this last week, I was occasionally sleeping on the couch due to illness. I got an awful cold right after Christmas, and I had to sleep sitting up on the couch so I could breathe. Then it turned into a double ear infection and laying down had too much pressure in my ears. I did go get a prescription for my ear infection, but unfortunately I'm still having some issues with my ears feeling plugged and it's exacerbated when I lay flat. My antibiotic lasts through Monday and I may have to go back in if it's not better. Ugh :/ So I'm also hopeful that when I finally can kick this maybe that helps my sleep too.
I had a similar issue - what helped me to transition back to the bed was to actually sleep with more pillows on the bed so that I was propped up similarly to when I slept on the couch. It did help and then I slowly transitioned back to sleeping with my one comfy pillow over time.
Post by turnipthebeet on Jan 17, 2020 9:36:12 GMT -5
It sounds counter intuitive, but I had a therapist suggest that for the times that I cannot fall asleep, I get up and do something that I don’t like doing - cleaning the inside of my cupboards for example. Or just any cleaning task because I hate all of it. Her reasoning was - if I laid there thinking about it I would work myself up and stress. If I was going to up anyway I might as well get a task that I dread completed. Plus without fail, as soon as I started doing something I didn’t want to do, I would find myself exhausted and fall right asleep.
How is your vitamin D level? Low vitamin D can cause insomnia (and exhaustion), and it's not hard to be low in D when it's winter. Simultaneous exhaustion and insomnia sounds impossible but it really can be from needing a bit more vitamin D.
"Can they check this with a routine blood test? I have bloodwork scheduled for the end of Feb. but I think it's just checking kidney and liver bc of a medication I'm on. I could ask about Vitamin D."
Somehow I screwed up the quote box, I'm sorry.
I think it's routine to run for vitamin D but in February just ask. Like a PP said, it's not uncommon to be low in D. I think after a certain age they just check for it anyway when they take blood, but just ask when you go to make sure - and to alert your doctor that you would just like to know.
Seems like the ladies here had great helps for you, and I hope you are able to get better sleep soon (if not already!) Take care, Rox.
I also have problems with insomnia and end up with anxiety about it.
Things that have helped me:
I have a prescription for ambien and will take it on occasion. Just knowing that I have it available helps the anxiety. I have also found that when I do have a bad night or two and go ahead and take a pill, it seems to help reset things for me. I also take it pretty liberally when I travel. I get bad insomnia when I'm jet lagged and I don't want to be miserable on vacation. I figure I'm not going to get addicted in a week or two and if I do, I'll deal with it when I get home.
I try very hard to never look at the clock. Watching time pass makes the anxiety and then the insomnia worse.
I often fall asleep quickly if I move to the sofa too. I don't worry about it. I'm just happy to fall asleep. When I wake up in the middle of the night (as I always do), then I go back to the bedroom.
Post by RoxMonster on Jan 19, 2020 18:38:38 GMT -5
Honestly, I've just been sleeping on the couch lately. I was so dead from getting 3 hours of sleep a night, that I could not function well at work and was worried about falling asleep on my drive to work. I just needed some sleep.
I did try sleeping in bed Friday night but after an hour of laying there, I went back to the couch. I feel like I need to get my ear situation cleared up first because laying flat just makes my ears get a lot of pressure which is uncomfortable and making it hard for me to sleep lying down. Also, I think I never noticed because I would fall asleep almost as soon as my head hit the pillow, but now that I lie there for awhile, my DH's snoring is making it hard to fall asleep ugh lol. And I've gotten used to having some low noise from the TV downstairs but we don't have one in the bedroom. We are actually looking at putting one in so we can go up to bed earlier and watch TV there instead of falling asleep on the couch (both of us) and then having to get up, go up to bed, do our whole bedtime routine and by the time we lie down, we feel wide awake again.
I also went through bad insomnia— waking up at 4am every morning. I followed every suggestion — meditation, ocean wave soundtrack, theta wave soundtrack, magnesium powder, CBD, limit caffeine, lavender spray, warm baths with Epsom salts, massaging feet, no screens after 8pm and nothing really solved it. Melatonin worked although sometimes it caused me to oversleep.
The real game changer was acupuncture and Chinese Herbs proscribed by a DOAM to treat adrenal fatigue. I can’t recommend it enough although it did take a few tries to get the right blend and give it time to take effect. Another contributing factor was switching industries and obtaining a job that paid much better with an easier commute and fewer egotistical personalities.
I can't restrict myself a daily dose of caffeine, currently it's reduced to one cup of espresso per day. As for the acupuncture, that never worked with any of my issues, I mean back pain. I feel a little better after building an adjustable bad as advised here, I fall asleep better but I'm still an early bird. What should I do? I read this article and doubt any herbs would do a thing...
Post by mrsukyankee on Jan 24, 2020 4:46:42 GMT -5
White noise machine was the solution for me with my H's snoring (not always snoring but often enough). And it somehow helps to relax me. We now use an air purifier that has the same effect (white noise) while also cleaning the air a bit.
I also went through bad insomnia— waking up at 4am every morning. I followed every suggestion — meditation, ocean wave soundtrack, theta wave soundtrack, magnesium powder, CBD, limit caffeine, lavender spray, warm baths with Epsom salts, massaging feet, no screens after 8pm and nothing really solved it. Melatonin worked although sometimes it caused me to oversleep.
The real game changer was acupuncture and Chinese Herbs proscribed by a DOAM to treat adrenal fatigue. I can’t recommend it enough although it did take a few tries to get the right blend and give it time to take effect. Another contributing factor was switching industries and obtaining a job that paid much better with an easier commute and fewer egotistical personalities.
I can't restrict myself a daily dose of caffeine, currently it's reduced to one cup of espresso per day. As for the acupuncture, that never worked with any of my issues, I mean back pain. I feel a little better after building an adjustable bad as advised here, I fall asleep better but I'm still an early bird. What should I do? I read this article and doubt any herbs would do a thing...
You’re asking for advice and I’m afraid there aren’t any silver bullet evidence-based insomnia treatments out there. I have a Masters of Public Health and am a firm believer in evidence-based guidelines. Historically, I would never take unproven woo-woo products endorsed by the likes of Goop. However, I developed this awful insomnia four years ago and when I told my good friend who is a psychiatrist about it, she cautioned me against going on prescription insomnia meds. Those meds are intended for short term use only and can have all kinds of negative side effects if used long term. She advised me to try eastern medicine since insomnia is really complex and has both mental and physical causes.
Although Chinese Tradition Medicine has been around centuries longer than most western treatments, it’s hard to study with solid epidemiological methods and there is a huge lack of evidence compared to western treatments. The doctor examines your tongue and pulse and asks about symptoms to determine a diagnosis rather than ordering blood tests or a sleep study. My diagnosis is Adrenal Fatigue, which doesn’t exist in western medicine. In fact if you look it up on the Mayo Clinic website, they say that this isn’t a real condition and it is more likely that you’re actually depressed or have an anxiety disorder.
It took a couple of tries with different TCM formulas, but all I know is that I’m sleeping much better on my current mix of herbs. The actual acupuncture made me relaxed in the short term but I don’t know what was affected beyond that. Perhaps it is all a placebo effect, but at this point, I don’t care because I can sleep!!! After 4 years of averaging 6 hours a night, I’m now sleeping around 8 hours and I feel SO MUCH BETTER!
TL;DR There are no evidence-based silver bullet solutions to insomnia. Eastern medicine/ traditional Chinese medicine was a leap of faith but I was able to find a formula that works.