what do you guys do when you are not able to sleep?
I sometimes suffer from insomnia, and can spend the whole night without sleeping or sleeping 3/4h latest. i know that good habit is to go to another room and read or do something else (no monitors or stuff) but was wondering if this happens to you guys as well and how do you cope with it
unfortunately for me, also living with other friends is difficult to go around the house without annoying or waking up other people so I could get stuck in bed having little or no options.. and this leads to thoughts related to work or problems in general, hence more anxiety -> less ability to sleep
curious to hear from you and if you take any supplement (consider in the UK things like melatonin are not legal and stuff like lorazepam difficult to get)
Exercise, UV light therapy (15 min in the morning usually), warm cup of caffeine free herbal tea, reading a book (not Kindle), Marijuana (indica) if you are so inclined- works like a charm but don't smoke right before you need to fall asleep, meditation.
Put your heating on at maximum temperature. Also spray sleep mist on your pillow and use blackout blinds.
Edit: eat loads of pasta with loads of cream and cheese and bread in the evening. That also makes you sleepy.
Heating at maximum temperature? I find it incredibly difficult to sleep in a hot room.
Yes, do not listen to this advice. Research has consistently shown that the ideal sleeping temperature is about 64-66 degrees Fahrenheit- you want it to be as cold as possible (obviously within reason). Good rule of thumb is that if you have to use a blanket, it's cold enough. Since we're approaching winter you won't have a crazy AC bill so just play around with the heat settings. He is right about blackout blinds though, I would go one step further and wear a mask as well. Also, I don't know about others but I cannot sleep with white noise or anything like that so a good set of earplugs might do some good. That combo of earplugs and masks will help right off the bat since you'll feel much more disconnected from the outside world, which will help you get in a mental state more conducive to sleep. Also, make sure you're doing the best you can to avoid high levels of blue light about an hour bed- looking at your phone here and there won't kill you but playing Warzone at maximum brightness will definitely affect your body's ability to produce melatonin (now if its a must for your job that's a different story). Finally, only as a last resort, you can play around with some supplements, but only after you've researched all of the ingredients thoroughly and are sure it won't affect you the next day or cause a dependency (stay far away from sleep aids like Nyquil or Tylenol PM). One that I would highly recommend is called RESTED AF by Steel Supplements; its technically marketed for weightlifters, but the ingredients not only help you sleep faster and make your mind and body more relaxed, but actually help you transition to deep and REM sleep faster, so you can get away with less sleep overall (for example, it can make 5-6 hours feel like 8 because almost all of it will be quality, deep sleep). Also, I don't know what your activity/exercise level is but if you're going pretty hard, lack of sleep can definitely make it harder to recover so this stuff will help mitigate that. If you do all of these (or even some of these), you should be on your way to getting more consistent sleep. It might not happen magically in one night and might take some practice (especially if you have a demanding work schedule), but hopefully some of these tips will produce a little more shuteye. Good luck!
Do you not get sleepy in the car if the heating is on full blast? It's literally the best way to knock kids out btw. My parents used to do it all the time.
This guys a serial killer, check his garage
If there's something that keeps me awake, the temperature getting too hot makes it worse, so I highly doubt this will ever work out.
I recommend distracting your mind. Online chats, reading, youtube videos generally work for me.
Melatonin pills
Melatonin (5mg) or weed. IMO, weed is much more effective if you don't mind smoking. CBD could work for you too
weed makes me have nightmare no idea why haha but yeah i do take melatonin even if not sure if 5mg might be too much?
To be honest you don't want to be supplementing with melatonin consistently. Its fine here and there if its just a random night that you can't sleep but unlike other supplements, melatonin is an actual hormone that's secreted by your body. This means that taking it every night or even on a somewhat regular basis will diminish your body's ability to create it naturally, so it just becomes a rabbit hole of having to take more and more to feel the effect (like any drug) until you're at borderline dangerous levels, kinda like how taking HGH or other steroids is gonna shrink your nuts since they think they don't have to produce the hormone anymore. There are many other routes you should take, like valerian root, chamomile, GABA, etc. (or better yet, just find a product that has all or some of these in one, like the one I mentioned). Plus, you mentioned that its illegal in the UK so there are really no pros of going that route. It won't help you build consistent, healthy sleep habits and will only lead to more problems down the road.
Alcohol can help you fall asleep
Maybe a hot take, but I'm going to say to completely disregard almost all of the advice here and hypothesize that your insomnia is all in your head.
I suffered consistently from insomnia for a year and a half. My type of insomnia was "sleep maintenance" insomnia, which meant that I could generally fall asleep without too much issue (within a half hour or so) but I would wake up like clockwork after 3-4 hours of sleep and struggle to fall back asleep.
I tried everything; Melatonin, Sleep Restriction Therapy, Sleeping in a cold room, practicing "good sleep hygiene" (no phone a half hour before bed, only reading before bed, spending no extra time in bed doing anything other than sleep and sex, etc). I tried listening to music, white noise, "boring" or "sleep" podcasts, and guided meditations. I tried getting out of bed and going to a different room when I had trouble, I tried limiting fluids or eating too close to bed, etc.
What finally clicked for me was the discovery and realization that my chronic insomnia was the result of an anxious reinforcing cycle that was all just entirely in my head. I became stressed about getting good sleep, which made it hard to get good sleep, which made me more stressed about making up for it the next night, and so on. The mind is incredibly powerful and you need to figure out what thought process you need to find to make your brain actually believe it, but I almost guarantee that your insomnia is purely a psychological/cognitive issue and not a physical one.
What worked for me was literally writing down on a piece of paper all the ways that this is true. I literally wrote down the following sentences:
- i have always slept fine before this
- when i was in college i could sleep for 12 hours straight on saturday's
- even if i do not sleep 8 hours, I have demonstrated that that's okay and i can function just fine
- sleep is as natural to the body as breathing
- my body is ready for sleep, all I need to do is accept it
- My mind is lightweight and read to float away and drift in the rising tide of sleep
Then I would lay down for bed with my eyes closed and literally quietly repeat some of these ideas to myself. I am now running about two weeks straight of consistent sleep no matter what I do before bed, including watching TV, being on my phone, smoking tobacco, drinking, showering, whatever. For me, it was 100% in my own head.
The more you focus on things like sleep hygiene, the more you'll stress yourself out trying to isolate or solve for whatever variable is the problem. I am convinced this is the case for most people struggling with sleep. As counter intuitive as it sounds, stop "trying" to sleep and just let yourself do it.
^This. He's 100% right- all of the stuff I suggested is far less important than your actual mindset. I went through the same stuff as him with trying to have perfect sleep hygiene but then not actually being able to fall asleep. You have to get to a point where you see these habits as simply part of a routine, not as what causes you to fall asleep. It's easier said than done, but not focusing on going to sleep is probably your best course of action. That one line "even if I do not sleep 8 hours, I have demonstrated that that's okay and I can function just fine". Whenever you feel yourself staying up late not being able to fall asleep, just remember that it is not the end of the world. Long story short, all the stuff I mentioned before is very important, but the absolute most important thing is the attitude you have towards sleep; healthy sleepers don't "think" about sleep, it just comes naturally, because like he said, everyone's body is wired for sleep, so understanding that will help you realize that there's nothing 'wrong' with you and that you've spent too long thinking sleep is something you have to force or coax out of your body.
I wonder if this method would also work with erectile dysfunction
Part of sleeping well requires you to work hard during the day or workout hard and then deal with your anxiety and be at peace with it before hitting the pillow. If you have loose ends, its going to affect your ability to sleep.
Best answer here. Goal is to tire yourself out as much as possible, and that is mentally and physically. I noticed that my sleep always got worse during periods of time i was off exercise....humans not designed to sit all day and then head straight to bed
My sleep schedule got 10x better when I started waking up at the same time every morning and going (trying) to sleep at the same time every night
CBD...effective does 100mg
Nyquil
Benadryl
Reading
Exercise
Masterbating....
wtf really? That's weird that something like that in OTC in the US but you can't get it there. In some parts of Europe, I found that more things than in the US were OTC.
Ahah thats so bizarre isn't it
I was listening to a song while lying down
Protect Gotham from crime.
.
I had no clue melatonin was illegal in the UK, I’ve got a whole stash which I just finished which I brought with me for the states and have been using for a year. Surely it’s available via prescription?
Just beat yo meat like the rest of us
Daily? You wild
I have struggled with this as well; partly due to excessive caffeine intake, mostly due to occupational stress/anxiety in the first 2 years of working and even before that, a highly strenuous academic/social/extracurricular college and high school experience. A few things I have done over the past few years to try to take control of this, nothing too crazy, maybe some of it will help you:
1. Work out HARD in the morning. Gets me out of bed early and starts the day's routine, the physical tiredness doesn't hit until way later in the day, I feel energized in the morning, and I've always felt that evening workouts before bed made it so much harder for me to fall asleep (still have the adrenaline/endorphins flowing)
2. Stopped drinking any and all caffeine. Was really tough for a few weeks but now I don't even think about it. I was a caffeine fiend, 8-10+ servings per day. Probably could have just moderated but wanted to cut cold turkey. At minimum, would recommend sticking to only decaf past noon; the placebo effect of the smell/warmth/taste of decaf should still help you feel a bit energized, but won't bother you at bedtime
3. No big meals late at night (I stop at ~4pm). Someone also told me a long time ago (perhaps not a reputable source) that eating close to bedtime might keep you up because the body starts producing/using energy to digest food. Have seen conflicting info on the web so I might be totally wrong - I'm in finance, not science
4. Doing something intellectually challenging before bed, unrelated to work, away from a screen, not in bed. For me, it's either reading a really left-brain book (something about math, science/health, psychology, or history/geography usually), studying something from a textbook, doing some sort of puzzle, or playing something like chess. Forces you to focus your mental energy away from work and towards something tiring in a different way.
5. Doing something relaxing before bed. Calling or hanging out with a friend, family member, reading a novel or something, or going for a short walk outside usually do it for me. Also stretching.
6. Herbal tea at night, my preference is chamomile & peppermint + a bit of honey + a bit of milk
7. Burning the same candle around bedtime during #4-6. Taught my brain to associate the same smell (+ the tea) with bedtime... Hope the candle is never discontinued!
8. If I can't sleep at the usual time, I'll go back to the living room and do some combo of 4/5/6/7 until I can fall asleep. If you don't have a quiet living room due to flatmates, would consider a small cozy reading chair in your room if you can fit it (goal is to use bed for just sleep). I used to start doing crackhead things like ironing my clothes or reorganizing a closet at 2am but have since learned that isn't helpful at all
9. Sleep in a very cold room with heavy blankets and a weighted blanket (20lbs). Have read that there is also some sort of physiological benefit to sleeping with socks on, but I know that's a divisive topic...!
If I can't sleep - TikTok till I pass out
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