Any suggestions on how to beat insomnia?

I wish I could help you out. I’m in the very same boat as you right now. It’s 2am here also and my mind is racing. I haven’t had a good night sleep (without the use of sleeping pills) in a week now. My best advice is to talk to your doctor about it. They might be able to help you decide if medication is the way to go.

Read a book? Perhaps the dictionary?

@ItalianPrincess1217 I’m on medicine for both ptsd and bipolar. They suggest that I don’t even take nyquil anymore. I haven’t gone to bed before 3 in quite a while.. but the doctor said there isn’t much to do while I’m on the other medication.

@cyndihugs I like reading the dictionary. >.<

ay! listen to classical music? It makes me relax.
[edit: i’ve read it all. i also have insomnia. Apparently i have an anxiety disorder]

When I listen to music, I relate it to things in my life. Lyrics are obvious, but if it doesn’t have words, I’ll either see patterns in my head that move with the music, or I’ll have a scene from something I’ve seen that day playing with that as the background.. So that can keep me up for hours.

I’m not crazy, I swear.

Nyquil.. ;)

@rangerr

We seem very alike in all these respects.

Although it’s not technically insomnia, it takes me an hour to fall asleep normally, and I go to bed around 5am. Not cool. The best non-medicinal thing that works for me is reading The Tale of Genji. Laff. Reading something that is monotonous for you or otherwise boring might help.

Sometimes it’s a coin-toss, though. I have gotten so tired while reading that I couldn’t keep my eyes open, but as soon as I turned out the light and officially lay down to sleep my mind turned to thinking about the book (or just ignored it completely and worried about life per usual).

Well, anyone who is still up now probably has the same problem. I can tell you that when my daughter was in college she got a white noise machine and found it really helpful.

@nxknxk I have that same problem when I try reading. That’s how I’ve ended up going through the dictionary. And encyclopedias A-T.

@Judi Is it bad that I’m not sure what that is?

White Noise Machines

I would start working out if you don’t already – a long run or swim can really help let off some steam and tire you out by the time it’s time to go to bed. If I can’t sleep, I also just get up and clean my apartment…

@Judi I DO know what those are! I’ll have to borrow one from a family member to test it out. Thanks for the suggestion. [:

@emma193 I do workout I own a horse. She’s a workout on her own too. It exhausts me.. I just don’t get tired.

Benadryl works wonders if you are predisposed to getting drowsy from antihistamines. I’m not terribly effected by them but the totally knock my girlfriend out.

Also, it’s good to make a habit of going to bed early.

I should really follow my own advice and go to be now as well.

When I’m struggling to get to sleep I listen to the radio (spoken word rather than music).

I find I focus on what’s being said for the first 20 minutes or so, which drowns out whatever I’m turning over in my mind to stop me sleeping, and then I doze off.

Helps if you have a radio that switches itself off on a timer. And if what you’re listening to doesn’t turn out to be so interesting that you force yourself to stay awake to hear it !

It’s 1:53am my time. Fighting insomnia. The Aposematics are helping me fall asleep. This song is very soothing, much like a lullaby….

I’m out

I try to do homework or other school related things. Puts me to sleep like that ;)

Find yourself a soothing reader on LibriVox and set your iPod on a timer.

Old, boring books work well. Or something like this. (<laughs>)

Alternatively, more interesting podcasts also put me to sleep—anything, really. The Week in Whedon, The Signal, RadioLab (sometimes)...it’s not “jumpy”, so it’s soothing.

NPR’s Food or Science podcast might also work, or some of Discovery Channel’s (non-video) podcasts might work. Or listen to a podcast about something you find boring—cooking, politics, painting, knitting—there’s bound to be something out there that will put you to sleep. :)

Good luck!

I second @evegrimm‘s suggestion. I get audio books and put them on my ipod. Either put the ipod in a doc or use your headphones, set the timer for an hour and then try to concentrate on the book. It works a treat for me.

As it is before 5am here and I’m not yet asleep- sadly no, I have no insomnia tips. :(

I take melatonin at night before bed. It really helps. I have problems getting to sleep at times and other times get to sleep fine but wake up after an hour or so. It sucks! The melatonin really helps and I feel really good in the morning.

Sometimes if I focus on one word or one thing I can fall asleep. Helps clear the mind, maybe it is like meditating. Carrot, carrot, carrot. :) Good Luck.

It’s also fairly important to have some sort of sleep ritual. Something that you do every night before going to bed. This prepares your mind for sleep, giving it ample time to get ready to sleep. Also, my mom taught me some meditation techniques that help a lot when I have a lot on my mind. Basically if you focus your mind on one and only one thing it makes it much easier to fall asleep, as @JLeslie mentioned repeating a phrase or image helps to clear your mind. I imagine a big white-board with writing on it (the writing represents my racing thoughts) where the writing is slowly being being erased. I can usually fall asleep within 10 minutes of laying down.

I used to have insomnia. Still do, to a point.

I used to be awake for 70+ hrs at at time. It is very counter productive. I still only get about 5 hrs. of sleep per night, but… it works.

My trick:
I used to have your problem. My mind goes too fast when I am alone, in bed. I think about everything. So, I have dedicated the rest of my day to making me both mentally and physically exhausted. Get some structure to your life. My days when I was an insomniac I had no structure. My days would consist of me waking up, playing on the computer for a while… if I felt like it id hang out with friends, play some video games, go to class… play video games again… sometimes I’d do combinations. (play video games in class with friends)

Then I started getting some structure. I got a job I had to be at every morning at 8. That made me have to TRY to go to bed every day. It wasn’t enough. I’d get home, and pretty much do nothing the rest of the night.

Then I got an idea. What if I make myself so busy, I have no time to think?

Currently, my job sucks… but the plan still works. I do nothing at work… but I have to be here from 8 AM to 5 PM. Working on fixing that… but this job neither drains me physically or emotionally. So I have to step it up in the other facets of my life. Right after work, I go to the gym. When I go to the gym, I work out certain muscles until I physically have dificulties using them to do normal tasks. It probably isn’t the best way to work out according to scientific studies… but I get what I need from it. Also, do cardio. Nothing is more draining than cardio.

After the gym, I have to kill the energy my brain has left. You will have to find out what does that for you, but for me it is doing things with people.

Every Monday I meet some friends for dinner.
Every Wednesday I have a poker game I go to.
Soon, every Thursday I will have boxing lessons.

The days I don’t have something planned, I work weeks in advance to fill up. Because I know that if I don’t fill it up, I won’t get to sleep. I am usually gone from my house from 7 AM to 9 PM every day. I wind down by watching an hour of TV. I brush my teeth, I shave, then I go to bed. When I get to bed, 3 minutes after my head hits the pillow, I am out. Nightly routines are important. they condition you psychologically for your rest.

I hope this novel helps putting you to sleep.

If this is chronic insomnia, I will suggest what I suggsted to someone else on a different question. I have read that to readjust yourself you should try pushing your go to sleep time forward around the clock until reaching the desired time. So if you want to have a regular go to bed time of 10:00pm, but you seem to not be able to fall asleep until 2:00 in the morning, the suggestion says to readjust force yourself to stay up until 4:00 in the morning, so you are very tired and fall asleep easily when you finally go to bed, then 8:00 in the morning, then 12:00 in the afternoon and so one, untill you get around to 10:00pm. I guess you would need a long weekend or some vacation time to be able to effectively try it. Plus, you should not lay in bed trying to fall asleep for a long time. Most people fall asleep in about 20 minutes, tossing and turning for hours is not recommended from what I understand.

I’ve suffered with bouts of insomnia since 2007 and I’m convinced it’s best to just give in to it, that the brain needs to search for something or figure something out so badly it will keep going like that. Eventually my body tires and I fall asleep but maybe it’s for just a few hours at a time, I try to deal because there are weeks when more sleep will come. Lately I’ve noticed if I turn on an episode of House (I really like the show) then I’ll be asleep in the first half hour, it might be the lead actors voice but it works. I even tried this the other night with my partner, he needed to wake early and neither of us were sleepy so I suggested we bring the laptop to the bed and turn on House… it worked on him too. Try House, go to hulu.com for free TV episodes.

Thanks for the suggestions, guys. I’ll try a few out over the course of the week.
Lurrrve!

Let us know what works for you.

Well.. last night I attempted to think of sheep until I fell asleep.
That led to me fantasizing the sheep were in battle. It was pretty cool.

The night before I listened to the speeches that @evegrimm linked, and they made me think and come up with my own speeches.

Borrowed a white noise machine from my aunt. Here’s to tonight.

Sure, just find a Rush Limbaugh show on TV. Puts me to sleep every time!! :)

Have you tried warm milk with honey? Does the trick every time!

Sweet holy moly, watch C-Span or QVC for an hour.