Insonia cures?

[woodsmith]

Anyone got any tips or tricks for combating insomnia beyond the usual cutting back on cafeine, booze, screen time and taking warm baths, regular bedtimes etc etc before i end up taking a bath with the toaster?

[ootini]

Nytol works for me... not great I guess, but it does help

[Rob S]

A good day's climbing or cycling usually works for me, plus sex of course

All joking aside, I haven't slept properly apart from the odd night for years. It's not that I'm not feeling tired either, sometimes I'm exhausted but my mind still won't let me sleep. So I have some idea of what you're going through.

If I'm working away I will take Nytol tablets with me (buy them over the counter), they help, but only for a couple of days on the trot. You need a few days off them then as your body gets used to them.

Hope things improve for you soon.

[ledburner]

A good day's climbing or cycling usually works for me, plus sex of course

All joking aside, I haven't slept properly apart from the odd night for years. It's not that I'm not feeling tired either, sometimes I'm exhausted but my mind still won't let me sleep. So I have some idea of what you're going through.


Hope things improve for you soon.

li no personal experience, but lavender oil drops on the pillow worked for the kids. also hop pillows are soporific.
they were thd only thing that would knock my daughter out..
a few years later the sleep walking started..
[edit:]
I'm not suggest hops or lavender will do that, but no harm trying

[benconnolli]

I struggled in the past and it took so long applying sleep health practices before they came to anything. Definitely got worse before it got better. We're talking about a month, but it's super personal and situational.

I had this elaborate sleep health routine, same playlist, hot chocolate, candles, hard bedtimes and wake times. Restricted napping too.

In those situations where I just couldn't a friend suggested stop trying and failing. Just get out of bed. Sit on a sofa or the floor and listen to a podcast or something chill. Then, if the eyes start drooping, give sleep another go, otherwise at least you've had the podcast time. Appreciate this may be logistically difficult if you share a bed but ehhh. Another less rogue version of this is that your body should fall asleep 20 mibs from getting into bed. If not, switch yourself off and on again by physically leaving bed to look in the mirror, gaze at the moon, brush your teeth. Then repeat until it works.

My podcast was "the boring talks" on BBC sounds

Worth considering that the insomnia could be a symptom of something else. A gp trip may be beneficial? I didn't find NHS particularly helpful for MH but like personal situation ect ect.

[gairym]

I've had fairly nasty insomnia since the mid-nineties and a couple of years ago I spent about six months seeing a 'sleep therapist' in order to try and get a handle on things.

The order of play for us was...

- make sure it's not medical first.

- then work on environmental / lifestyle factors.

- look at conditioning / habit.

Medical:

If you're overweight then it's highly likely there's sleep apnea going on. Do you snore? I did.

The cure for this factor was loose weight, lay off the booze, get a humidifier, sleep on my stomach/side not back - any/all of the above.

She was insistent that I not overlook the importance of getting sleep apnea under control as there all kinds of future health implications (insomnia is just the tip of the iceberg).

Environmental / Lifestyle:

Next up was sorting all the little contributory factors that were adding to the problem.

No screen time for at least an hour before bed, no phone on the bedside table, no caffeine after X o'clock, actual light blocking curtains, no food before bed and so on...

It sounds like you're well aware of these issues.

Conditioning / Habit:

Finally we were into changing things to create a new normal.

Now this is where we stopped as life/work etc... got in the way and so I never actually went through this process but I'll explain the plan below...

The idea was that I'd wear a gadget that would determine how much actual sleep I was actually getting each night on average.

Then I would select a regular getting up time.

Then I would stay up until X number of hours (the amount of sleep I was currently getting) before Y o'clock (pre-determined regular getting up time) for 2-3 weeks.

Then slowly move back the going to bed time a little bit at a time (like +/-15 mins every 2 weeks or so) until a sensible and healthy amount of sleep was being had.

Apparently this is brutal but really effective.

So.....personally I found that sorting the sleep apnea was a large part of the problem and that the environmental factors really helped too.

I still wake up a LOT and, if I'm stressed, I often stay awake for hours once I've woken up but...I'd now say that I periodically have mild-moderate insomnia instead of consistently having really debilitating insomnia - I'll take that.

Up to you what, if anything, you do with all of the above but it's an overview of the current professional approach to helping sort insomnia.

Good luck.....

[gairym]

...hard bedtimes and wake times. Restricted napping too.

This too ^

I was told no napping at all.

...a friend suggested stop trying and failing. Just get out of bed. Sit on a sofa or the floor and listen to a podcast or something chill. Then, if the eyes start drooping, give sleep another go...

And this ^

Something to do with associating bed solely with sleep, not failing to sleep. To be fair I still don't do this but when I did I found it really helpful.

[ton]

i suffer pretty badly with it. when i was working it was a problem, now i have retired it is not a issue.
i go to bed pretty much at the same time most nights, 10.30. if i dont dropoff quickly i listen to some quiet music on earphones.
if this fails i get up and have some warm milk and just sit until i start nodding. half a hour usually works.

[Boab]

My wife was suffering from terrible insomnia, got put on HRT and things are much better. She still wakes up loads though, but just reads her kindle till she drops off again. The number of times I've been woken up by it hitting the back of my head as she drops off...

[Bearbonesnorm]

Firstly, I don't think I've ever suffered from Insomnia in the true sense but there are times when my brain refuses to shut down and there's a million things banging about in my head preventing me from dropping off. My solution (and this might sound weird) is to mentally build a little log cabin I begin by working out the general lay out, then add a door, window etc. I put some stairs in and a stove ... I've never really got beyond that stage.

I assume it's not the actual mental building but the focusing of thoughts that helps?

[Verena]

When I wake up in the middle of the night and can't get back to sleep, I listen to Radio 4, and as has been said already, I stop trying to sleep, but instead try really hard to listen to whatever fascinating stuff there's on the world service...works every time for me

[jameso]

Another vote for

In those situations where I just couldn't a friend suggested stop trying and failing. Just get out of bed.

Hope you can get this sorted woodsmith. I've never had what I'd call true insomnia but I can have periods when sleep's not great if there's a lot on my mind. I can always drop off but at times I wake up not long after and can't drop off again - getting up to read for a bit is a mental distraction/reset so I can sleep afterwards. The other thing is write down all the things that are on your mind and thing it's all there waiting for a more suitable time (or just ignore it!). Not sure if that helps if you can't doze off in the first place though.

There's 2 other things that help me with sleeping outdoors, somewhere unusual or when I've been away with work and jetlagged. Again, unsure if they work with true insomnia. One is a relaxing muscles process. It's hard to drop off if you're tense so start at your fingers and hands and work up and into your shoulders, down to your toes, relaxing every muscle and consciously feeling the looseness and lack of tension. Suprising how often I realise my jaw is tense for example.

The other is meditation of sorts, the mind-emptying process of acknowledging thoughts as they arise then dismissing them rather than simply trying not to think of anything. Dwell on something briefly then park it and go back to a mental image of something calm and neutral. If I'm awake mentally this is a better thing to try to do than the alternative of thinking about anything stressful or complex that I don't have control over. Stu's point about the log cabin is a good one - something you can control, something simple and creative.

Sometimes it's hard to escape the mental churn though. Lying awake feeling the weight of the world or general to-do list stress. I think our brains function differently throughout the day, ie some of us are more creative in the late afternoon and evenings or more analytical in the mornings - but analytical brain waking up at 2.30am is a bit early and trying to reset that pattern may be about light exposure and habit. Blue light early in the morning is said to be key to setting your circadian rhythms and I'm a big believer in the importance of that cycle and how it can influence us mentally. Early morning sunshine is so valuable in that cycle as well as harder to get in winter. Getting out for an hour in morning light doing anything is worth it, even sitting in the room that gets the best morning light.
Along similar lines getting out of bed in the morning when I wake up, 4.30am or 7am, whatever, seems to be a good habit. As others have said, bed is associated with sleep. When my brain wakes up I get up and it's when I'm better at those tasks needing some thought, I guess I let my mind work the way it naturally wants to in that 24hr cycle. Better to be thinking that way at 6-10am than 12-4am.

One other idea - try an electric heater in the bedroom, on a timer so it doesn't really get or stay hot. Electric blanket maybe. A brief warm-up might work? Creeping warmth in the evenings always makes me sleepy.

[Dave Barter]

Anyone got any tips or tricks for combating insomnia beyond the usual cutting back on cafeine, booze, screen time and taking warm baths, regular bedtimes etc etc before i end up taking a bath with the toaster?

Firstly can I say that you will come out of this. The worst thing is the feeling that it is there for life, but it isn't. I suffered badly many years ago. The single cure for me was to drop the anxiety about it. Sounds easy but it's not something you can just do. I had to work hard on myself to accept that I functioned just as well without sleep as I did with/ I had a stressful job and many responsibilities but seemed to do OK even at the height of 1-2 hours sleep a night. Once the anxiety went then the sleep returned although I do have to stick to a specific set of rituals for it to happen (we are running out of goats in Brixham).

You'll find your cure somewhere in all of this advice and your own personal struggle. I think it is different for all of us. I tried hypnotherapy and acupuncture. Both were a complete and utter waste of time but worth it for the lolz. Please leave the toaster in the kitchen where it belongs.

[Bearbonesnorm]

Weirdly, just seen this - I appreciate that it doesn't help.

[rufus748]

Like many others here I don't have what I would call real insomnia however 30 years of shift work destroyed my body clock to such a point the only way to get more than two hours sleep was to "drop a zop" particularly when having finished a night shift. This was very much a last resort for me however nothing else worked. It transpired many of my colleagues of a similar age were also prescribed the same medication for the same reason.

Having retired it took 18 months to get a normal body clock back. During this time I found this: https://medium.com/s/story/combat-teste ... d5307b7606

To say I was sceptical would be an understatement however after a couple of weeks I really noticed a difference, not only in getting to sleep much quicker but also when I woke up in the middle of the night the "don't think" mantra really helped. I also pictured the words being written at the same time as saying them in my head, it seems the (my) brain can visualise and 'speak' at the same time but nothing else, all other background thoughts are blocked out.

I generally tried to fall asleep on my side however noticed I always woke up on my back so I then swapped to falling asleep on my back. The relaxation process is noticeable, I often thought I was relaxed until I worked down from the head and felt certain muscles relax and then almost sink into the mattress.

5 years into retirement and I still use it. I can fall asleep in a couple of minutes and get back to sleep almost instantly. Had a lot going on recently and I've been using it nightly, also got my son and daughter (14 and 21) using it who both find it very helpful.

[Hamish]

I am being hypocritical here… but if you are really suffering; please go and seek expert help. I am useless at asking for help for anything so I know it’s hard to do. But I think it would really be worth it.

[frogatthefarriers]

plus sex of course

The only thing that's better than the Sleep of the Just, is sleep of the just after..

[Rob S]

plus sex of course

The only thing that's better than the Sleep of the Just, is sleep of the just after..

That's a quote I'll remember!

[barney]

I struggled with insomnia for a while, like other people mentioned it was a vicious circle, couldn't sleep and then it was thinking about not sleeping that was keeping me awake.

My personal problem was I was doing all the usual stuff ie remove telly out of bedroom, drop caffeine, look at diet and exercise, warm bath in the evening etc. I was going to bed about 10pm and finally getting to sleep about 7am the next morning resulting in me needing to take time off work.

I ended up on zopiclone but refused to take it unless absolutely needed to because it can be quite addictive.

Luckily I'm mostly okay now (touch wood) although have the occasional sleepless night. I find sleeping with the bedroom window open and listening to a white noise app on my sleep headphones works for me but appreciate it's very much what suits the individual.

Hope you get it sorted soon.

[woodsmith]

Thanks to everyone for there help, support, advice and personal experiences. I'm trying to be phillosophical about it and not worry too much, knowing that that can only make it worse. I'm sure it's just the physical manifestation of all the worry, anger, despair, anxiety and frustration that we've all experienced over the last two years.
After I made the original post here, I had my one bottle of beer of the week ( Spitfire ) and actually had the first reasonable night that I can remember in a long time. Perhaps just getting it off my chest was the first step.
If you missed it, its worth having a read of the link which Rufus kindly posted. While it didn't send me off to sleep in 2 minutes ,it did go a long way towards calming and relaxing me, allowing sleep to come far quicker than I've been experiencing of late, and I will certainley continue to use it in the future.

https://medium.com/s/story/combat-teste ... d5307b7606

Toaster is safely ensconced in the kitchen.

[adjustablewench]

Watched a really good lecture about sleep cycles and understanding your own circadian rhythms to enable you to attempt sleep at the right point in the cycle.

I dont have the lecture notes but did have a book pop up on my Amazon suggestions call the Circadian code or something similar.

I'm sure if you have a Google you can find it, there is also an alarm app that works in a similar way - you set the alarm time but it wakes you when you are in the best phase of sleep to wake from

[Bearbonesnorm]

when you are in the best phase of sleep to wake from

I'm not sure I have any of those.

[rudedog]

Since getting the COVID vax, I’m now a tinnitus sufferer so I listen to pod casts in bed to help tune out the high pitch ringing. I’ve found they also help as a distraction for those times when you can’t sleep as you have a million thoughts whizzing through your head.

[MuddyPete]

I suggest asking your GP for a gadget that monitors your breathing overnight whilst you sleep. You may be going through a sleep/wake cycle caused by interrupted breathing patterns.
Simple to monitor, but could provide a few evidence-based courses of action to consider.

[ledburner]

I dont have the lecture notes but did have a book pop up on my Amazon suggestions call the Circadian code or something similar.

it your Google foo is as good as mine, it might take you all night to find it... ..