I know my nametag is chronicinsomnia so it shouldn't be a big surprise that I have sleep problems. However, it is becoming more and more of an issue to me. I am only able to sleep roughly 4 hours a night for weeks at a time. I literally lay awake staring at the ceiling in the dark for hours. After a few weeks I will crash like the Hindinburg and sleep an entire day away then it starts all over.
Has anybody here ever heard of this kind of sleep problem or have any advise as to what I can do to alleviate this. Any help would be very much appreciated. For the past 7 days I have slept a total of 24-25 hours tops. It is starting to effect my ability to concentrate at work.
Thanks in advance.
Have you talked to a doctor? I'd be inclined to take the advice of a proffesional over some guys on a cougar/t-bird forum.
I take my super-anti-histamines before bed, so I never have trouble sleeping.
do you work or do anything all day?
come on now,, you actually trust the doctors? If you in to being their test case on the latest and greatest drug out on the market then go for it. otherwise,,,
go natural.
A beer before bedtime works for me.
Camamile tea mixed with honney or ginger also works great.
A hot Toddy is great for sleep and colds(shot of wiskey mixed in a cup of warm lemon / honey tea.
lavender/sage tea
valarian root (yucky tasting)
warm bath followed by a glass of warm milk
meditation and relaxation techniques.
try to listen to your own heart beat by lying on your belly with one hand palm against your chest. You will feel and hear it (two senstations which will give you mind something to do)
dont do anything in your bed other than sleep or you know what :) ,,your brain will start to associate your bed with sleep. Under no cirspoogestance should you stay in bed while you are awake. If you cant sleep,, get up right away and do something.
Dont read or work on the bed,, basically stay away from it except for its intended purpose.
all this was brought to you by my wonderful wife who knows the herbal and natrual ways of going about life.
if u have alot on ur mind that could do it. how stressed are you during the week?
yeah he's right the only time i seem to have that trouble is when i can't seem to shut my mind off.
I've lately been taking these "Sleeping Pills" that aren't really anything to that nature, but they work. You can find it in the vitamins section of most any store as well as health food stores and it's called Melatonin. It's a synthetic hormone that "resets your biological clock". It's worth a try if you can't afford the dr. That's my method of falling asleep. Either that or alcohol, but not both!
Do what I do and smoke a fatty :banana:
for some reason smoke a fatty and that dancing bananna made me laugh pretty hard :rollin:
Nothing wrong with melatonin and alcohol together.. I do it all the time. I often get my best sleep from a melatonin and a light beer buzz.
I've been taking melatonin for a year or two now.. 3mg a night.. I've found that it's better (for me) if I alternate taking it every other night. According to something I read a month or two ago, you don't always get the right kind of sleep with sleep aids like that. I'm thinking of buying a bottle of the 1mg pills, and maybe using those on the alternate nights as opposed to not taking them at all.
Other things that help: Not having caffeine for at least 6 hours before you plan on going to sleep. I think it was said somewhere that caffeine takes 12 hours to get out of your system completely.. but 6 hours seems to be a reasonable compromise. I used to drink pen 15e classic right up until I was ready to go to bed, when I was in my teens/early 20s.. which, combined with a lack of a set schedule most of the time, is probably why I have the sleep problems I do.. a sleep schedule slowly rotating out of control. (although whenever I've had a job with regular hours, I've still spun out of control on sleep.. which is really awkward)
Also, don't do mentally involving tasks right before bed. Even stuff that seems mindless enough, like when I'd play a first person shooter right before bed, was enough to keep my mind active for a couple hours afterword. Let yourself wind down before you lay down. Even a little mindless TV is better than doing something involving right before bed. (I'm still guilty of the doing stuff right before I lay down thing.. and it still causes me problems.. so yeah, it's easier said than done sometimes)
I am with ifixyawata. drug isle sleeping pills are the best way i have found to fall asleep. During school days or when I work I rarely sleep more then 5 or 6 hours. but during the weekends I just crash. I have slept for 20+ hours from lack of sleep. Pills will get me to sleep. I usally dont wake up until the alarm. But I have problems not going right back to sleep. I also feel alittle disoriented for a couple of hours after.
A little hippity dippity might help before going to bed.
am i the only teenager who doesnt have a hard time sleeping?
It's not so much that I have a hard time sleeping... it's that I don't ever go to bed when I should. Melatonin is also supposed to increase the quality of the sleep you do get. The reason I said not to take the pills with alcohol was because one night I took one then had a couple beers. I've never slept so well... but I also didn't wake up when I wanted to. "What alarm?" I usually have 2 - 3 going off in the morning as well as my g/f calling me to wake my ass up. Doesn't always work. So I guess it's not harmful, just reeal effective.
You just have a hard time remembering to close up the car before that sleep.. :p
(I had t-tops leak on me one time, when we had several days of flooding rain.. had a couple small plants growing in the carpet afterword.. so I know how the soaked interior thing goes)
I've had problems getting to sleep for years, but once I get there I usually sleep OK.
How's your caffeine usage? I've had to quit using it because it has started staying in my system much longer than it used to. My doctor blames it on impending old age :dunno: & said quit. Now I have to go to Arkansas to get caffeine-free Mountain Dew.
The problem with the over-the-counter sleep aids (not including melatonin) is that they can interfere with normal sleep cycles, diminishing the quality of sleep. This can mess with your thinking processes the next day because the normal restorative effects of sleep have been compromised. Most of those pills are just Benadryl (generic name diphenhydramine), which is an anti-histamine that causes drowsiness. It makes me quite groggy the next morning, & I feel a little stupid for the rest of the day, so I don't use it. The same applies to some older prescription insomnia remedies, but some of the newer ones either don't affect that part of your brain as much, or don't hang around long enough to cause too much of a problem.
Personally I cannot fall asleep unless my mind is mentally idelling not running at WOT. Thinking of work, cars, TV, women, whatever will keep me awake (unless I'm really tired) It isn't all bad, on a few occasion I have driven 1400 strait miles with out sleep with no problems.
I had the exact same sleeping problem you do! I finally noticed that the slightest little sounds woke me up. So I bought some ear plugs! Helped me last week anyway.
Other things you might want to consider:
Don't watch television right before you go to bed. Watching TV makes your mind work and it's hard to relax.
Don't eat a full meal within an hour before you go to sleep. Eating makes your blood pressure rise and heart rate go up. Not only does it affect your sleep sometimes, it's hard on your body as well.
Take Tylenol arthritis. Works for me sometimes!
Exercise if the key! A daily routine of exercise helps your body maintain it's natural balance.
Reduce the intake of spicy foods. Example: pizza.
Mama's ol' remedy. Drink a glass of milk.
Don't try to go right to sleep just as soon as you get home. Kick back and relax for a while before lying down.
Things I found to work for me!
Derik
Im surprised no one mentioned Kava! Thats what I used to take if I had trouble sleeping or anytime my mind needed to go numb. I cant buy it here anymore, they took it off the shelf because of people using it wrong! It enhances the affect of alcohol and other drugs. So now I take valarien. Melatonin never worked for me.
I cant sleep without the TV on so I turn on an old move that I know by heart so I dont have to watch it. Thats probly why I dont wake up to the alarm tho...
You could always go back to school...
When I was in trade school going through ASEP training (GM Master tech training) our two teachers were nicknamed SLEEP-EZE and NYQUIL. Those two could put you to sleep even after a dozen cappuchino's!
Awesome! I thought I was bad going to nearly every store in a three county radius to get a case!! I love it, it tastes just like the regular but no bad side effects! You rule!
Here you have to go further to not find it. You can find diet and non caff but no real dew. Well you can find the orange, "black" and red. But the orange isnt caffinated, grape bothers my stomach, and red makes me throw up. If it wasent for walmart, I would never have drank real dew.
I am really apprecitating all the info. As far as alcohol I can't do that I used to have a pretty serious drinking problem. NO CONTROL. Anyway, these other ideas seem pretty valid.
To answer some questions.
1) I work 10-14 hour days at a fairly stressful job.
2) I avoid caffinee like the plague.
3) I exercise everyday for an hour after work.
4) I don't eat within 3 hours of bedtime.
5) I do have a pretty hard time turning my mind off at night.
I think I may give the melatonin a try. I have heard some pretty good stuff about that. If that doesn't help I am definitely going to the doctor.
jimfulco: I am in Magnolia, Arkansas. You are only about an hour away from me. Good to know that their is board member that is that close to me.
Wish I'd checked in here more recently. I just cleaned Magnolia out of CF Dew last night. :D
And hear I am dying of thirst.
p.s. I am trying the melatonin and am getting pretty decent results so far.
good to hear, i had to go on sleeping pills a couple years ago due to severe tension headaches worse than migraines. It was pretty hard gettin any sleep at all after i quit taking them, but i was going full nights without sleeping before i started taking them. So don't start taking them if you don't have to.