Ironically, I fixed my moderate chronic insomnia succesfully by going to a doctor with a completely unrelated(citation needed) set of symptoms. My CBT therapist wanted me to fall asleep during the appointment to perform another technique, but obviously I could not. He said to not worry and explained a routine which I’m happy to share to those who didn’t try yet:
- lay, relax, comfort^
- do not move further
- do not put your arms into a position where your breath could disturb them
- focus on what you feel in your body
- scan slowly from head to neck to arms to belly to legs
- name every minor feeling, pain, pressure, etc in your mind
- for(;;) the above three steps, fading your inner voice to just a conception of thought
- breathe in normal, breath out slowly
- continue to scan your body
- count integers on each breath if you slip into thinking
- do not f…ing move ever
^ you may experiment with room temperatures and covering your body parts for a while; also reduce street sounds to not react to these
At the first time using this technique I spent a couple of hours semi-dreaming and turning in the bed, but in a couple of days, after waking up I could only remember the first two steps. Falling asleep in just 5-10 minutes seemed completely unreal to me, but that’s what I’m doing every day now. As a bonus, I recalled the thing my doctor wanted me to recall right at the first at-home experiment.
The theory behind that is that if your insomnia is related to an unstoppable thinking process (a form of an anxiety psychosis, I guess), then there is a hack: you cannot think when you’re focusing on what you feel in your body. You either scan yourself or think (even subconsciously), like a single core multitasking. By burning 100% cpu on sensations, you basically extinguish the fires in your mind, deoxygenating them.
Hope this helps at least some of you, guys! (And sorry if you already tried)
I try this but occasionally I mentally "wake up" as my body is asleep and I start freaking out mentally. It's a form of sleep paralysis I suppose, but without the hallucinations that other people tend to have. The feeling of being mentally alert but not being able to control my own movements or even my breathing is terrifying, and I usually try to move as much as I can and can wake my body up within a few minutes.
I perform an "optimized" version of this: I ask myself: "where's the tension?". Often, I realize quickly that I am flexing somewhere, and I just need to let go.
I suffered for a very long time of chronic insomnia, and I tried out lots of meditation techniques and even learned how to lucid dream because of it.
But for me, those techniques never worked and I had to adapt my workflow to be really "done" in the evening so I can get my mind away from code.
Last year my girlfriend discovered a random tiktok, where lots of ADHD folks responded to. Apparently there's ongoing research related to lack of melatonin and therefore the heart and the whole body cannot get really into a resting state.
The ironic thing is that I always thought that drinking a chocolate milk in the evening helped me in the past, and most of my meditation techniques from the martial arts world focussed on pulse control. But, as I got older I got lactose intolerant...and also skipped my evening chocolate milk (obviously).
Now I'm taking 1mg of melatonin in the evening and I've never fallen asleep so easily. I was kinda mind blown when I discovered it, because I've long accepted that nobody can help me and this is just how my "condition" is like.
Note this is not medical advice, but my personal experience. Please check with your doctor whether it's okay to take melatonin safely (and whether your heart is okay, too).
I've done a technique like this and it has been helpful! A problem I've also run into is that my eyes become "locked" as if they're focusing on something so I need to allow my eyes to relax and move. This is especially helpful when there is hypnogogia, allowing the eyes to relax and follow it will help ease the body into sleep more easily.
As an alternative to body scanning, I've found placing attention on 2 separates points in the body, i.e., palm of hand and chest will quiet the thinking mind. This is particular helpful if there is a feeling I want to avoid since the thinking mind is trying to avoid feeling unpleasant feelings (the mind likes to control and regulate things). Yet by placing attention on those 2 points the the mind will alternate between those 2 sensations instead. It may be a bit of a balancing act to do and if that's the case body scan may be easier to do.
I read about this technique once in the context of the military. Soldiers were trained to use this technique to fall asleep fast under stressful circumstances.
This is basically meditation and I find it very helpful. A cool trick I like is visualizing my thoughts as clouds that spontaneously emerge and pass, letting them disappear forever without remembering what they were, to give place to the blue sky that is the calm mind behind. That is, while you are counting, if a thought emerges, turn it into a cloud and let it evaporate.
I found guided meditation apps like (headspace in particular) nice to get the setup.
I don’t suffer insomnia, but when I do notice I’m not falling asleep, because I’m ruminating, I shift my attention to the random noise of the visual field of my closed eyes. I “observe” the patterns: sort of a dull swirling, shifting static; and fall asleep within a minute or two. They are somewhat mesmerizing. I’ve asked others if they can also see such patterns with their eyes closed and haven’t found anyone that recalls them.
I've discovered something similar myself. But I think you can remove most of those steps actually. They don't hurt but they aren't necessary. The necessary steps are:
- lay still
- no really, lay still
- I'm not kidding. Lay still.
- don't move at all
- obviously don't make noises and don't open your eyes
I discovered this when trying to make my daughter go to sleep. Disciple and the silent-closed eyes-still rule is sufficient.
I practice something similar to fall sleep. I play a bit ping pong and the body and wrist need to be very relaxed do to a short push. I just lay down in the bed and do the short push mentally. That way my body is relaxed automatically and I fall sleep in no time.
Another useful technique that I picked up during my meditation practices was concentration on your next thought. Sounds completely weird, but I remember trying that after I’d read about it and it worked - I got a complete silence in my head almost immediately.
Always the same old advise. Sleep hygiene, exercise, caffeine. Anyone with chronic insomnia can tell you none of that really works. For me it's always been impossible to fall into a regular day/night routine, it's actually whenever I try to force it I'm starting to rapidly feel worse. So the solution has been to just flow with it, I sleep when I can, stay awake otherwise. It's fine and I feel good, the real problem though is the schedule the world runs on.
> Anyone with chronic insomnia can tell you none of that really works.
True, but that is a self-fulfilling definition. For most people, that advice will work. For the minority for whom it does not work, they have chronic insomnia. It does not invalidate the advice, it just means that some people are out of the norm and need something else.
That being said, I agree with you. We all would be healthier if we'd just sleep when tired, eat when hungry. But that isn't how our society rolls.
There are a few things that actually make things worse that lead people to get stuck in a negative spiral. Basically alcohol makes you drowsy and helps you fall asleep. But you wake up dehydrated, not very well rested, and in some cases hungover. People drink coffee to fix that, which makes it harder to sleep. Stress levels feed into that as well as it leads to drinking and other ways for people to relieve stress. Social drinking & high stress environments are also a thing. I get sucked into that a lot and it's fun but definitely very bad for my productivity.
But understanding the causes helps. There's a bunch of things I simply don't do:
1) late night working. I can't get any sleep after that. My brain being hyperactive before bed time kills my productivity the next day. So it's a net loss. I'd rather wake up early than work late.
2) caffeine takes a long time to leave your body. I don't drink coffee after noon. Or tea. Or anything containing it. I also limit my intake to max 2-3 cups per day. I avoid the stuff entirely on weekends and try to not get too dependent on it. A nice side effect is that when I do drink coffee, it really works.
3) I don't work on the weekend. I need my weekends to reset my brain. Sleep is part of that. Not thinking about work for 2 days a week is part of that. Context switches are great for getting work out of your short term memory. I don't want to feel guilty about not working; so it's a rule I very break. It can wait and if it can't, it will have to anyway.
4) I don't set alarm clocks. I stopped doing this years ago and I wake up when I need to. It's uncanny; the rare times I do set an alarm clock because I need to be up extremely early, I actually wake up just before it goes off. Mostly on normal days I wake up around the time I would have set my alarm anyway; or slightly before that. In the rare case I don't, I apparently needed some extra sleep and its fine. Finishing your natural sleep cycle is more important than getting out of bed 20 minutes too early. I never miss meetings or get late to work (well working from home like everyone these days).
Up until my early 30's, I could never fall asleep before 1-2AM. If I could sleep until 10AM I felt great, any earlier and I felt miserable all day. This put me seriously out of sync with the expectations of the corporate work world.
In the 1990's medicinal herbs became popular and easy to get, including sleep aids. I discovered rather by accident that if I took melatonin or valerian right before going to bed, then popped a caffeine pill immediately upon waking up, I felt normal and productive during the day, even with only sixish hours of sleep. I started doing that routinely during the work week. Changed my life.
My sleep rhythms finally adjusted after about ten years of doing this, so I can now go to bed at 11pm-12 and wake up like a normal person in the morning without the aid of the herbs or the caffeine.
Just as one data point here, cutting caffeine after noon fixed my insomnia back in college. So it works for at least some people. I'm sure it doesn't work for everyone. So I'm one of the lucky ones.
The other thing that seems to have helped me has been allowing natural light into my bedroom. I used to black out my windows and sleep in, then wake up disoriented since my bedroom was pitch black. Now, the sunrise wakes me up on the morning and I'm guessing that helps with circadian rhythm.
It's still not perfect. If I have the slightest bit of anxiety I'll wake up in the middle of the night, and in general if I wake up at night I have trouble falling asleep again. But that's a far cry from my college insomnia.
> So the solution has been to just flow with it, I sleep when I can, stay awake otherwise.
For me actually following sleep experts advice helped. Particularly, CBT-I. The idea is very simple. Two important sleep factors are what your brain is used to and how tired you are. If your brain is used to wake up in the middle of the night, you can possibly change it by making yourself very tired. You start by picking a consistent sleep window that works for you. Let's assume you get 7 hours of sleep but need to spend 9 hours in bed for that. You pick a 7 hours window (e.g., 11p - 6am) and you put an alarm clock and get up regardless if you're tired or not. In the beginning you're going to wake up in the middle of the night and be very tired in the morning, but ideally after some time you'll be tired enough and sleep through the night. This sleep restriction practice can be dangerous of course, and it's not recommended unless you can get at least 5 hours of sleep each night.
Over time you can adjust your sleep window as needed. The key is to stick to your sleep routine, following all sleep hygiene tips, and maybe most importantly waking up every day at the same time even if you went to bed later than your usual bed time. That's why I still use an alarm clock even though I don't need to and some research suggest it's better to wake up naturally. So far it's been working for me, might not work for others.
Another tip I have is meditation. Other already mentioned they listen to stuff like audio books etc. When I cannot fall a sleep I would usually listen to some sleep meditation with a sleep eye mask. It works better for me than what most sleep experts recommend - leaving bed and reading book or something like that.
> So the solution has been to just flow with it, I sleep when I can, stay awake otherwise.
I did this for years. Felt great for a while, then starting having noticeable impacts on my ability to focus, my mood, and my physical health.
The same old advice took close to 6 months to really start helping me. It was an absolute grind to stick to a wake + bedtime routine. The discipline it takes is absolutely insane (weekends were the hardest). I stopped and started over and over and over again, but eventually stuck to it.
Low/medium dose ambien once or twice a week was the the thing that really got me into the habit/routine. Medication is not a long term fix (especially this stuff), but this was enough to get me through the fitful nights for a few months--it stopped me from getting out bed and breaking the routine.
Lol! You say none of the advice from the article really works, and then immediately follow that up by saying what worked for you was... advice that was in the article?
Excerpt from the linked article:
Don’t force yourself into a consistent bedtime. A regular bedtime is great if you’re sleeping well. But if you can’t fall asleep, trying to force it will only make things worse.
For what is worth, I have chronic sleep issues (not quite insomnia) and exercise helps, caffeine makes little difference and attempting to follow sleep hygiene worsens my quality of life too much.
Yep. Narcoleptic here. Sort of the opposite problem where I sleep 9 hours and wake up exhausted and continue to struggle until I fall asleep again. I mention that I'm tired and I get the whole maybe you're sleeping too much, don't look at screens before bed, try melatonin, maybe some caffeine will wake you up, get some exercise. I try not to take it out on anyone because they mean well, but if it's on the first page of Google when you look up exhausted after 8 hours of sleep, I promise you, I've tried it.
I did all the lifestyle changes. Then I got diagnosed. The drugs work. Nothing else besides low carb eating did before that.
Well, technically it's a disorder at that point - delayed sleep phase disorder, which I have secondary to ADHD.
Circadian rhythm is genetically determined and all long term studies of delayed sleep phase show it's essentially impossible to change. However it's one of those things that's a disorder only because it goes against what our societies expect.
I used to think I had insomnia for years, because I would try to sleep at "normal" times and struggled. When a sleep doctor suggested I change my sleep patterns to match my genetics, my perceived insomnia immediately disappeared. Now I just have to deal having with a sleep pattern that everyone else identifies as belonging to disaffected teenagers.
FWIW, a recent study found a physical cause for this - something about a genetic mutation that causes our sleep-signaling hormones to be created without the tails they usually have to navigate to the correct spots in the brain. So once again, the people claiming "It's just willpower" are proven wrong. Funny how the more we learn about the brain, the more we realize that willpower as a concept fully within our control doesn't necessarily exist.
When I was little I always used to sleep with my father. He had a radio on at low volume every night. I had problems sleeping all my adult life. I only recalled this memory a few months ago and started using a radio myself and I can sleep now much faster (15-20 m). Without it, my mind wanders all the time.
While we’re sharing anecdotes of what helps us sleep: I like to read ancient philosophy on an ebook reader at the lowest backlight setting. Usually within 15m I’m dropping the ebook reader on my face and wondering what I read.
I do find that I get a lot out of the reading despite having to back track constantly. It’s just interesting enough for me to open it up, and just dry enough to put me to sleep.
Last night was Seneca. He went on and on and on with tangents. The information was generally good, but it’s like you’re being sucked into a black hole of some dude ranting in the most eloquent yet benign ways.
Since about three weeks ago I cannot sleep. It’s very strange. I know the feeling of anxiety and how it leads to not sleeping, it’s something I’ve had in the past at very stressful jobs. I’ve learned techniques to deal with this, like breathing and mindfulness. But right now this feels different. I’m tired, I’m lying in bed, and I don’t have any stressful thoughts. Yet somehow I just don’t fall asleep. It feels like something in my brain doesn’t “click”. When I do sleep meditation I can feel myself “sinking” towards sleep, but then I just remain awake.
I’ve been to the doctor and all she did was give me benzodiazepines which I don’t want to try. Has anyone out there ever experienced something like this? I feel so thoroughly broken after not sleeping for nearly a month.
Over here I have the opposite. I can't stand waking up and will sleep for half the day if I can. Always have been like this. Morning are the worst.
Though, I would attribute this to my mom being a major nightowl and me being one as well. 2nd and 3rd shifts have been the highlight of my life, but those roles are so hard to come by that I just accept a WFH job where I skirt the system and work later while still handling the morning meetings as needed.
When I'm anxious, breathing meditation before sleep helps a lot.
Breath in like you normally would, then pause a little, breath out as slowly as it's comfortable. Again a little pause, then start again with breathing in as you normally would. 15 minutes of that work wonders for me. It tricks the brain into thinking you're save, because only when you're relaxed you breath like that normally. When in danger, your breath is rather fast.
The key thing is to breath out more slowly than you breath in, but don't overdue it. If you don't get enough oxygen, it will surely not help to battle anxiety.
Maybe it's helpful for someone else as well.
I, as a 33 BMI person with insomnia issues and workaholic nature, started intermittent fasting (eat between 9am to 5pm) 5 days ago and since then, I have been consistently sleeping at least 5 hours daily. By midnight, I am tired enough to not care about any pending task.
I have yet to meet someone who complains about insomnia who actually accurately follows all of the advice.
Notably usually absent or poorly followed:
- waking up early, at the exact same time, every day.
- as SOON as you get up, you need to eat a heavy breakfast of fats and protiens with as few carbs as possible. Some people think they are special snowflakes who "have never been able to eat in the morning", you need to practice it and get in the habit then you will be able to.
- ACTUAL psychological separation of bed, and screen areas.
- not sleeping in the same bed as someone else to those it applies to
- keeping your room around 20 degrees, if you cant decide, colder is the preference for sleep as we did not evolve with masses of blankets and insulation.
- understanding and handling rumination, more complex but if you handle tasks in a way that leaves you with unresolved threads all the time, you will ponder on them endlessly. This must be handled sensibly.
I'm now sleeping pretty good, after decades of struggle.
TLDR: After trying everything, most of my insomnia was resolved thru surgery, done for unrelated reasons. So I encourage every one to keep looking, experimenting.
Here's my anecdata for what actually helps me sleep.
Most of my anxiety (insomnia) was due to pinched nerves in my spine. Resolved with surgery. This possibility was never considered, mentioned. None of my care providers quite believe me. Previously, I tried everything, eg meditation, therapy, drugs. None of it helped.
I no longer consume alcohol. Not a big deal for me.
I no longer consume caffeine. I'm told my genes (ADORA2A) makes me hypersensitive. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17329997/ I love coffee, so this change was super hard.
I wake with the sun. No curtains in my bedroom. It's awesome.
I go to bed around 7:30p. Usually asleep by 9:00p.
As a nudge, I have a 5:00a alarm play soft music. I allow myself to sleep in.
I got a very active dog. At 1yo, he required at least 8 mi/day (my steps, he does much more).
I still do much of the mindfulness, breathing, stretching, and PT exercises. I like it.
Like u/rapsey, I supplement with magnesium orotate. I have chronic cramping, clinching, spasms. (Think MS or ALS.) I found the other variants upset my tummy. I also take methocarbanol; one side effect is sleepiness.
I've read about this pattern often attributed to the military. For example, The Independent describes it[1] as,
1. Relax the muscles in your face, including tongue, jaw and the muscles around the eyes
2. Drop your shoulders as far down as they’ll go, followed by your upper and lower arm, one side at a time
3. Breathe out, relaxing your chest followed by your legs, starting from the thighs and working down
4. You should then spend 10 seconds trying to clear your mind before thinking about one of the three following images:
- You’re lying in a canoe on a calm lake with nothing but a clear blue sky above you
- You’re lying in a black velvet hammock in a pitch-black room
- You say “don’t think, don’t think, don’t think” to yourself over and over for about 10 seconds.
Is there anyone who can confirm this as been part of training, or have tried it? What were your results?
Call me crazy but my personal experience has been that whenever I am in a "high" (at least for me) electro-magnetic field environment, I have trouble falling asleep, my sleep becomes terrible, chopped up and I wake up feeling like I barely slept even though I might have slept for 7-9 hours.
In contrast, in a "low" EMF environment, I fall asleep almost instantly, sleep in one go, and wake up feeling amazing. It's literally night and day for me, no pun intended.
Just my 2c, but I'd recommend trying to turn off your wifi router and your phone at night, see if it makes any difference in your life. At best it will, at worst, you will just think I'm crazy and have "wasted" one night experimenting.
Insomnia is something I've dealt with for most of my adult life. I followed everything you were supposed to do, got blackout curtains, no coffee, no alcohol, exercised, but still had issues. This article below helped me realize the insomnia is actually a form of performance anxiety. Sitting in bed tossing and turning, mind racing wishing you were asleep is the problem. You have to train yourself that you can sleep and to not fear it, gain the confidence that you can fall asleep.
The other side of this equation that isn't talked about as much is "actually getting rest when you sleep".
A problem that became worse for me over the years was "sleeping but still being tired". This manifested for me when I started falling asleep at my desk at work, or in the middle of a conversation while I sat down.
I did all the regular things, bed same time everyday, less/no caffeine, I would even workout when I got a "sleepy spell" figuring it was downtime?
I finally saw a neurologist, got a sleep study, turned out I had restless leg syndrome. Basically running marathons in my sleep! I take a pill, and things are vastly improved.
I think the idea of trying to follow the same sleeping schedule day in day out is severely misguided.
There are many variables which determine how much rest we need, such as physical state, fighting off an infection, time of year, mental state, fatigue, stress, and so on.
I've commented here before on this, but I think by far the healthiest practice (and one I've had great results with) is to sleep "to fullness" as much as possible, to allow yourself to go to sleep whenever tired, and also to not stress about not falling asleep when you're "supposed to", instead finding something else to do until tiredness overtakes.
What finally worked for me is listening to history audio books/lectures.
It takes my mind off of real life things, and since it's just audio there is no light involved. History is perfect because there aren't many conceptual hurdles to understanding the material that would require really intense focus. I start to drift off after 30 minutes to 1.5 hours very consistently. It's also easy to find new listening material since there's practically an infinite amount of it.
As a bonus, I've learned a lot about history this way.
For the past couple months I've had success with this "one weird trick" to help get to sleep: I go through the alphabet and for every letter I think of 3 unrelated words that start with each letter. When I'm tired by my mind is running, this helps me slip into sleep.
My wife and daughter have also had success with it.
I also have had success with listening to audio books or podcasts, but don't like doing that if my wife is also trying to go to sleep. Despite that she can't really hear me over her Sleepbuds.
[+] [-] wruza|4 years ago|reply
At the first time using this technique I spent a couple of hours semi-dreaming and turning in the bed, but in a couple of days, after waking up I could only remember the first two steps. Falling asleep in just 5-10 minutes seemed completely unreal to me, but that’s what I’m doing every day now. As a bonus, I recalled the thing my doctor wanted me to recall right at the first at-home experiment.
The theory behind that is that if your insomnia is related to an unstoppable thinking process (a form of an anxiety psychosis, I guess), then there is a hack: you cannot think when you’re focusing on what you feel in your body. You either scan yourself or think (even subconsciously), like a single core multitasking. By burning 100% cpu on sensations, you basically extinguish the fires in your mind, deoxygenating them.
Hope this helps at least some of you, guys! (And sorry if you already tried)
[+] [-] Rendello|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kristiandupont|4 years ago|reply
[link redacted]
[+] [-] stronglikedan|4 years ago|reply
I prefer to listen to a soft-spoken guide (guided meditation) when doing this technique. Plenty of resources online for that.
[+] [-] cookiengineer|4 years ago|reply
But for me, those techniques never worked and I had to adapt my workflow to be really "done" in the evening so I can get my mind away from code.
Last year my girlfriend discovered a random tiktok, where lots of ADHD folks responded to. Apparently there's ongoing research related to lack of melatonin and therefore the heart and the whole body cannot get really into a resting state.
The ironic thing is that I always thought that drinking a chocolate milk in the evening helped me in the past, and most of my meditation techniques from the martial arts world focussed on pulse control. But, as I got older I got lactose intolerant...and also skipped my evening chocolate milk (obviously).
Now I'm taking 1mg of melatonin in the evening and I've never fallen asleep so easily. I was kinda mind blown when I discovered it, because I've long accepted that nobody can help me and this is just how my "condition" is like.
Note this is not medical advice, but my personal experience. Please check with your doctor whether it's okay to take melatonin safely (and whether your heart is okay, too).
[+] [-] claylimo|4 years ago|reply
As an alternative to body scanning, I've found placing attention on 2 separates points in the body, i.e., palm of hand and chest will quiet the thinking mind. This is particular helpful if there is a feeling I want to avoid since the thinking mind is trying to avoid feeling unpleasant feelings (the mind likes to control and regulate things). Yet by placing attention on those 2 points the the mind will alternate between those 2 sensations instead. It may be a bit of a balancing act to do and if that's the case body scan may be easier to do.
[+] [-] vbsteven|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|4 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] tarsinge|4 years ago|reply
I found guided meditation apps like (headspace in particular) nice to get the setup.
[+] [-] skygazer|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] boxed|4 years ago|reply
- lay still - no really, lay still - I'm not kidding. Lay still. - don't move at all - obviously don't make noises and don't open your eyes
I discovered this when trying to make my daughter go to sleep. Disciple and the silent-closed eyes-still rule is sufficient.
[+] [-] yufeng66|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] allarm|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] visarga|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] azaras|4 years ago|reply
https://youtu.be/7H0FKzeuVVs
[+] [-] fernandotakai|4 years ago|reply
focus on your body, focus on your breath, try not to "pay attention" to anything.
it totally helped me, and i can now fall asleep much easier than before.
[+] [-] aardvarkr|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sarsway|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] codingdave|4 years ago|reply
True, but that is a self-fulfilling definition. For most people, that advice will work. For the minority for whom it does not work, they have chronic insomnia. It does not invalidate the advice, it just means that some people are out of the norm and need something else.
That being said, I agree with you. We all would be healthier if we'd just sleep when tired, eat when hungry. But that isn't how our society rolls.
[+] [-] jillesvangurp|4 years ago|reply
But understanding the causes helps. There's a bunch of things I simply don't do:
1) late night working. I can't get any sleep after that. My brain being hyperactive before bed time kills my productivity the next day. So it's a net loss. I'd rather wake up early than work late.
2) caffeine takes a long time to leave your body. I don't drink coffee after noon. Or tea. Or anything containing it. I also limit my intake to max 2-3 cups per day. I avoid the stuff entirely on weekends and try to not get too dependent on it. A nice side effect is that when I do drink coffee, it really works.
3) I don't work on the weekend. I need my weekends to reset my brain. Sleep is part of that. Not thinking about work for 2 days a week is part of that. Context switches are great for getting work out of your short term memory. I don't want to feel guilty about not working; so it's a rule I very break. It can wait and if it can't, it will have to anyway.
4) I don't set alarm clocks. I stopped doing this years ago and I wake up when I need to. It's uncanny; the rare times I do set an alarm clock because I need to be up extremely early, I actually wake up just before it goes off. Mostly on normal days I wake up around the time I would have set my alarm anyway; or slightly before that. In the rare case I don't, I apparently needed some extra sleep and its fine. Finishing your natural sleep cycle is more important than getting out of bed 20 minutes too early. I never miss meetings or get late to work (well working from home like everyone these days).
[+] [-] blacksqr|4 years ago|reply
In the 1990's medicinal herbs became popular and easy to get, including sleep aids. I discovered rather by accident that if I took melatonin or valerian right before going to bed, then popped a caffeine pill immediately upon waking up, I felt normal and productive during the day, even with only sixish hours of sleep. I started doing that routinely during the work week. Changed my life.
My sleep rhythms finally adjusted after about ten years of doing this, so I can now go to bed at 11pm-12 and wake up like a normal person in the morning without the aid of the herbs or the caffeine.
[+] [-] Ozzie_osman|4 years ago|reply
The other thing that seems to have helped me has been allowing natural light into my bedroom. I used to black out my windows and sleep in, then wake up disoriented since my bedroom was pitch black. Now, the sunrise wakes me up on the morning and I'm guessing that helps with circadian rhythm.
It's still not perfect. If I have the slightest bit of anxiety I'll wake up in the middle of the night, and in general if I wake up at night I have trouble falling asleep again. But that's a far cry from my college insomnia.
[+] [-] Mayzie|4 years ago|reply
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delayed_sleep_phase_disorder
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-24-hour_sleep%E2%80%93wake...
[+] [-] tinyhouse|4 years ago|reply
For me actually following sleep experts advice helped. Particularly, CBT-I. The idea is very simple. Two important sleep factors are what your brain is used to and how tired you are. If your brain is used to wake up in the middle of the night, you can possibly change it by making yourself very tired. You start by picking a consistent sleep window that works for you. Let's assume you get 7 hours of sleep but need to spend 9 hours in bed for that. You pick a 7 hours window (e.g., 11p - 6am) and you put an alarm clock and get up regardless if you're tired or not. In the beginning you're going to wake up in the middle of the night and be very tired in the morning, but ideally after some time you'll be tired enough and sleep through the night. This sleep restriction practice can be dangerous of course, and it's not recommended unless you can get at least 5 hours of sleep each night.
Over time you can adjust your sleep window as needed. The key is to stick to your sleep routine, following all sleep hygiene tips, and maybe most importantly waking up every day at the same time even if you went to bed later than your usual bed time. That's why I still use an alarm clock even though I don't need to and some research suggest it's better to wake up naturally. So far it's been working for me, might not work for others.
Another tip I have is meditation. Other already mentioned they listen to stuff like audio books etc. When I cannot fall a sleep I would usually listen to some sleep meditation with a sleep eye mask. It works better for me than what most sleep experts recommend - leaving bed and reading book or something like that.
[+] [-] bradstewart|4 years ago|reply
I did this for years. Felt great for a while, then starting having noticeable impacts on my ability to focus, my mood, and my physical health.
The same old advice took close to 6 months to really start helping me. It was an absolute grind to stick to a wake + bedtime routine. The discipline it takes is absolutely insane (weekends were the hardest). I stopped and started over and over and over again, but eventually stuck to it.
Low/medium dose ambien once or twice a week was the the thing that really got me into the habit/routine. Medication is not a long term fix (especially this stuff), but this was enough to get me through the fitful nights for a few months--it stopped me from getting out bed and breaking the routine.
Anecdote, so as usual, ymmv.
[+] [-] zachm0|4 years ago|reply
Excerpt from the linked article:
[+] [-] rapsey|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Tenoke|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] msrenee|4 years ago|reply
I did all the lifestyle changes. Then I got diagnosed. The drugs work. Nothing else besides low carb eating did before that.
[+] [-] unishark|4 years ago|reply
Uh what's the next adjective after "extreme"?
This reminds me of companies with so-called "flex time" where you have the option to come in as late as 9 if you want to.
[+] [-] Gene_Parmesan|4 years ago|reply
Circadian rhythm is genetically determined and all long term studies of delayed sleep phase show it's essentially impossible to change. However it's one of those things that's a disorder only because it goes against what our societies expect.
I used to think I had insomnia for years, because I would try to sleep at "normal" times and struggled. When a sleep doctor suggested I change my sleep patterns to match my genetics, my perceived insomnia immediately disappeared. Now I just have to deal having with a sleep pattern that everyone else identifies as belonging to disaffected teenagers.
FWIW, a recent study found a physical cause for this - something about a genetic mutation that causes our sleep-signaling hormones to be created without the tails they usually have to navigate to the correct spots in the brain. So once again, the people claiming "It's just willpower" are proven wrong. Funny how the more we learn about the brain, the more we realize that willpower as a concept fully within our control doesn't necessarily exist.
[+] [-] StavrosK|4 years ago|reply
Yeah, seriously. What's my 6 AM to 2 PM schedule? Extremer?
[+] [-] the_only_law|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chimen|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] steve_adams_86|4 years ago|reply
I do find that I get a lot out of the reading despite having to back track constantly. It’s just interesting enough for me to open it up, and just dry enough to put me to sleep.
Last night was Seneca. He went on and on and on with tangents. The information was generally good, but it’s like you’re being sucked into a black hole of some dude ranting in the most eloquent yet benign ways.
[+] [-] Clampower|4 years ago|reply
I’ve been to the doctor and all she did was give me benzodiazepines which I don’t want to try. Has anyone out there ever experienced something like this? I feel so thoroughly broken after not sleeping for nearly a month.
[+] [-] enominezerum|4 years ago|reply
Though, I would attribute this to my mom being a major nightowl and me being one as well. 2nd and 3rd shifts have been the highlight of my life, but those roles are so hard to come by that I just accept a WFH job where I skirt the system and work later while still handling the morning meetings as needed.
[+] [-] jumaro|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] matthewmorgan|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] donbox|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bloqs|4 years ago|reply
Notably usually absent or poorly followed: - waking up early, at the exact same time, every day. - as SOON as you get up, you need to eat a heavy breakfast of fats and protiens with as few carbs as possible. Some people think they are special snowflakes who "have never been able to eat in the morning", you need to practice it and get in the habit then you will be able to. - ACTUAL psychological separation of bed, and screen areas. - not sleeping in the same bed as someone else to those it applies to - keeping your room around 20 degrees, if you cant decide, colder is the preference for sleep as we did not evolve with masses of blankets and insulation. - understanding and handling rumination, more complex but if you handle tasks in a way that leaves you with unresolved threads all the time, you will ponder on them endlessly. This must be handled sensibly.
[+] [-] specialist|4 years ago|reply
TLDR: After trying everything, most of my insomnia was resolved thru surgery, done for unrelated reasons. So I encourage every one to keep looking, experimenting.
Here's my anecdata for what actually helps me sleep.
Most of my anxiety (insomnia) was due to pinched nerves in my spine. Resolved with surgery. This possibility was never considered, mentioned. None of my care providers quite believe me. Previously, I tried everything, eg meditation, therapy, drugs. None of it helped.
I no longer consume alcohol. Not a big deal for me.
I no longer consume caffeine. I'm told my genes (ADORA2A) makes me hypersensitive. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17329997/ I love coffee, so this change was super hard.
I wake with the sun. No curtains in my bedroom. It's awesome.
I go to bed around 7:30p. Usually asleep by 9:00p.
As a nudge, I have a 5:00a alarm play soft music. I allow myself to sleep in.
I got a very active dog. At 1yo, he required at least 8 mi/day (my steps, he does much more).
I still do much of the mindfulness, breathing, stretching, and PT exercises. I like it.
Like u/rapsey, I supplement with magnesium orotate. I have chronic cramping, clinching, spasms. (Think MS or ALS.) I found the other variants upset my tummy. I also take methocarbanol; one side effect is sleepiness.
[+] [-] Jiocus|4 years ago|reply
[1]: https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/fall-asleep-fast-sl...
[+] [-] makison|4 years ago|reply
There are 4 episodes(1.5h each) dedicated just to sleep. The whole podcast is great.
https://youtu.be/nm1TxQj9IsQ
[+] [-] oliv__|4 years ago|reply
In contrast, in a "low" EMF environment, I fall asleep almost instantly, sleep in one go, and wake up feeling amazing. It's literally night and day for me, no pun intended.
Just my 2c, but I'd recommend trying to turn off your wifi router and your phone at night, see if it makes any difference in your life. At best it will, at worst, you will just think I'm crazy and have "wasted" one night experimenting.
[+] [-] jaxgeller|4 years ago|reply
https://ilya.sukhar.com/blog/an-algorithmic-solution-to-inso...
[+] [-] supergeek133|4 years ago|reply
A problem that became worse for me over the years was "sleeping but still being tired". This manifested for me when I started falling asleep at my desk at work, or in the middle of a conversation while I sat down.
I did all the regular things, bed same time everyday, less/no caffeine, I would even workout when I got a "sleepy spell" figuring it was downtime?
I finally saw a neurologist, got a sleep study, turned out I had restless leg syndrome. Basically running marathons in my sleep! I take a pill, and things are vastly improved.
[+] [-] forgotmypw17|4 years ago|reply
There are many variables which determine how much rest we need, such as physical state, fighting off an infection, time of year, mental state, fatigue, stress, and so on.
I've commented here before on this, but I think by far the healthiest practice (and one I've had great results with) is to sleep "to fullness" as much as possible, to allow yourself to go to sleep whenever tired, and also to not stress about not falling asleep when you're "supposed to", instead finding something else to do until tiredness overtakes.
[+] [-] Uroboric|4 years ago|reply
It takes my mind off of real life things, and since it's just audio there is no light involved. History is perfect because there aren't many conceptual hurdles to understanding the material that would require really intense focus. I start to drift off after 30 minutes to 1.5 hours very consistently. It's also easy to find new listening material since there's practically an infinite amount of it.
As a bonus, I've learned a lot about history this way.
[+] [-] linsomniac|4 years ago|reply
My wife and daughter have also had success with it.
I also have had success with listening to audio books or podcasts, but don't like doing that if my wife is also trying to go to sleep. Despite that she can't really hear me over her Sleepbuds.