Strategies for deep sleep when you have insomnia

I have such difficulty sleeping at night

I have such difficulty sleeping at night. I’ve tried every possible technique. I’ve made my bedroom a quiet pleasurable place to relax prior to falling asleep, I took the television out of the room, I’ve followed the advice of so many people all to no avail.

So what do I do or plan on doing now? I refuse to take any medication as that didn’t seem to help or if it did made me completely useless the following day. I decided to use this “extra time” to my advantage.

When it’s a day that I couldn’t fit my workout in? Guess what? I get up, get dressed and go for a brisk walk. I force myself even though I ‘fee’ tired. If it’s a day that I didn’t clean something I wanted to, I get THAT done.

Laundry is no longer an issue as that the easiest thing to wake up and do in the middle of the night without disturbing anyone else in the house! Surprisingly, once I start doing any of these things I start to feel like I can really really fall asleep and not just “tired laying there” sleep…

So now I get things done and then get right back to sleep utilizing the time much better. If I sleep just 4 hours after a cleaning spree at least it’s a good 4 hours of solid sleep, PLUS got some things done! Otherwise it would be 4- 7 hours of simply tossing and turning!

I have sleep apnea but my insurance will not pay for a sleep study

I cannot tell you how hard it is on me that I do not get sufficient sleep on a daily basis. It makes my days hard and I feel tired all of the time and have to push myself through my days.

First of all, I have difficulty falling asleep even if I am bone tired. Then within one hour of falling asleep I wake up and have to go to the bathroom. It never fails. Sometimes I can fall back to sleep right away but that is rare and most times I toss and turn for at least an hour before falling back to sleep.

Things that help me sleep more soundly are going to bed with an empty stomach so that I do not experience reflux which will wake me up and keep me awake. When I really just cannot fall asleep I try a bunch of different things.

I will try to watch some TV or read a magazine for a bit until I feel I am getting groggy again. Sometimes I take a hot, relaxing shower even if it is the middle of the night. I am not one to take drugs and medications unless it is really necessary so I refuse to take sleeping pills.

I have spoken to my physician about this and we suspect that I have sleep apnea but my insurance will not pay for a sleep study so on it goes. It is frustrating but there is not much I can do about it except try to lose weight at this point.

I have recurring insomnia

I have recurring insomnia. At first, I merely attributed it to aging. While it is true that the quality of my sleep has is poorer as I grow older, I believe my insomnia is due to stress and the increased mental activity it produces.

When I go to bed, I often find it difficult to relax. I toss and turn; feeling tired but can’t drift off. If I can’t fall asleep in an hour or so, I tend to turn on the light and read for a while.

I usually have some kind of soothing history book beside my bed for this purpose. Because I have an aversion to taking prescription sleep medication, I have not consulted a doctor about this problem.

However, I do sometimes take natural sleep remedies, drink something soothing such as peppermint tea, or take a hot shower. These things tend to help. I think my insomnia is exacerbated by the work I do on the computer in the evening.

I tutor online because that is when students need help with their homework. I have to stay alert to help them and this mental activity translates into insomnia later. Other times, I have to tutor in the small hours of the morning and then it is difficult to get to sleep afterward.

Very occasionally, I wake up at dawn and have trouble getting back to sleep. I attribute this to the newspaper delivery. As I grow older, I am a lighter sleeper and noises tend to wake me up.

Despite the fact that he is delivering the paper at 4:20am, the newspaper man makes no effort to be quiet. When I talk with my friends, I find they have similar problems. The economy is on the minds of a lot of senior citizens and our worries are disturbing our sleep.

Sleep difficulty due to a lot life changes

I started experiencing sleep problems around the age of 20. I would start to notice that falling asleep wasn’t as quick or easy as before. To this day, I still have sleep problems. On average, it takes me about 45 minutes to an hour to fall asleep, and I am often up at least 3-4 times a night.

Around my 20th birthday I experienced a lot of changes in my life. My parents divorced after 33 years of marriage, my family home I loved so much was sold, my family moved to different parts of the state, and I wasn’t used to being so far from them.

At 21 I married my husband, we moved into our own home, and at 23, we had our first baby, a beautiful girl. So within those couple of years, I have gone through quite a bit of craziness. I remain happily married, and my daughter is a toddler now, and although things are starting to feel quiet and normal again, I still don’t notice a change in my sleep behavior.

I really do attribute my sleeping difficult to the stressors of my life. I also attribute it to the fact that I suffer from high anxiety and panic attacks. I do take medication, but there are times that I am on edge, and unable to relax, and it really is difficult for me to get into a “sleeping” state of mind.

I have talked to my doctor about my sleeping troubles, but have refused medication. I would rather approach the problem on my own, and use sleeping medication as a last resort. There are some things that DO help me get to sleep, I use white noise (a blowing fan, sound spa machine) in the background and leave it on all night.

This helps me to relax. Before bed, I like to take a warm shower, and I use bath products with chamomile and lavender, which are said to aid in relaxation. Sometimes my husband will give me a back massage to wind me down, and I often like my bedroom temperature to be on the cooler side when I sleep.

If I notice, while lying in bed, that my mind is racing with thoughts about my busy schedule, family life, stressors, etc, I rechannel my thoughts and try to focus on soothing things, such as cascading ocean waves, or the breeze whispering through the trees.

I hate not being able to fall asleep, especially because I know that I won’t feel physically good in the morning. Without sleep I will have baggy eyes, feel groggy and less motivated than I would on a full night’s rest.

There are nights that I am lucky and get enough sleep to get me through a day, and there are nights that I am unable to sleep at all. Perhaps someday I will need to use medication, but for now, I am content in continually trying my own methods to get myself some zzzzz’s.

Lack of sleep is frustrating, almost panic inducing

I’ve suffered from insomnia for as long as I can remember. One of my earliest memories is of being five years old and still awake at midnight. High school was terrible for me - I got by on three hours a night most nights, sometimes even less than that.

I still did really well in school, but I wonder how well I could’ve done if I were receiving a full night’s sleep. Lack of sleep is frustrating, almost panic-inducing. I look at the clock and think, “Five more hours till I have to get up…Four more hours…Two more hours…”

And as each hour creeps by, I get more and more panicky about having to face the day with no sleep. Sometimes listening to talk radio helps me fall asleep, or putting the TV on CNN. I’ve recently discovered audio books - if the voices reading the novels don’t put me to sleep, at least I’m learning something!

I do take medication for my insomnia. I’ve tried Klonopin, Lunesta, Trazodone, and I am now on a low dose of Xanax, which seems to help the best (although it’s not helping tonight, it’s 1:01 am!).

These meds are prescribed to me by a psychiatrist. What causes my insomnia? We’re not sure. It’s probably linked to the depression that I’ve suffered from most of my life (also on Paxil for that), and honestly, I think it’s just the way my brain is- it fights against sleep when it’s supposed to be sleeping.

I get up and play on the computer when I can’t sleep. If I’m REALLY wide awake, I read. I’ve read over 170 books so far this year, so you can probably tell how much I’ve slept…

How long sleep you need when working on swing shifts

I usually need about 7 to 8 of sleep a night. I don’t always get it cause I work a swing shift so sometimes I get off from work at 11p.m. and have to be back to work at 9a.m. I’m usually wound up after work and it takes me a while to calm down and get to sleep.

After working several days in a row with crazy hours I tend to need extra sleep on my first day off. I have a hard time sleeping also when I know I have to get up early. I think I worry about the alarm not going off or oversleeping and being late so I sleep really light and wake up all hours of the night.

When I was little I couldn’t go to sleep without the radio on. I got out of this habit for a while when my children were babies but now that I are older I’ve taken to leaving the TV on. I usually can’t go to sleep without it on but I have to have the volume turned down low where it fades in to a sort of background type of noise. If it is too loud when I’m trying to sleep then it will disturb me.

Sometimes however there will be something that I really want to watch and I will sit down to watch it and fall asleep especially if it is late in the evening and I’m really tired. It seems to more I want to watch something to more likely I am to fall asleep. Isn’t that weird?

I also find if I absolutely can’t sleep sometimes eating something sweet and drinking a cup of milk will somehow help me to sleep. I think it is brought on by hypoglycemic symptoms actually and after I eat the sweets it makes me sleepy instead of giving me a sugar rush.

I have trouble sleeping some times when I get a lot of things on my mind. Like the bills and issues with my kids and my ex husband and things like that. Well another reason the TV helps it kind of drowns out all chatter in my brain that is keeping me awake.

My husband and I refer to that chatter as hampsters because of a song we heard called death to hampsters which was about that very subject.

Sleep pattern changes due to age and medications

I usually sleep around six hours. This is more sleep than I got when I was a young woman. In those days I only slept about four hours a night. I think it was because I was always so wired on coffee and cigarettes and now that I am an old woman and don’t smoke and only drink coffee in the morning so I am more relaxed when it comes time to sleep.

I have a medication that I take once a week and I find that the day after I take it, I want to sleep longer and I will sometimes add a full extra hour to my sleep pattern. I have always said that the reason I do not sleep a lot is because I am so afraid I am going to miss out on things!

I am a night owl and stay up until two or three in the morning and get up later in the day. This works because for many years I worked from my home and could set my own hours. I don’t usually have any trouble falling asleep but if I do I will sometimes take one or two Tylenol and that will put me to sleep in about a half an hour.

I will also “entertain” myself by thinking of songs that have certain words in them. I’ll pick a word (like shoe) and then try to think of lyrics containing the word. This passes the time and while I am still thinking away, I have a fallen asleep.

I am a very light sleeper and I do like it quiet before I fall asleep. I don’t like the radio on or the television and if my husband is snoring in my ear, I nudge him until he turns over! Once asleep, repeated noises will wake me up and I am always the one to hear the telephone.

I think the amount of sleep I get is probably just enough. Sometimes I might wish it was more but then I decide that six hours is a respectable night’s rest and maybe when I am a little older I will be able to sleep longer.

Sometimes I think that we overload our brains with too many things going on at once and that is why some of us have a hard time falling asleep. We were not made to have so many electronic gadgets on at all times making sleep a try luxury instead of the healing process it is.

We all need a little time away from all the noise and confusion of today’s world and we should make our sleeping time the part of our lives where we ‘regroup’ and energize our minds and bodies through relaxation.

I actually love sleeping and have very vivid dreams, which I seem to remember in great detail. I have read that sleeping and dreaming is the mind’s way to help solve the problems in your daily life but if this is really true, I must have some very strange problems!

For 12 years my sleep schedule is all messed up

I live in California and work New York hours so I get up rather early, 4 am. After work I always take at least a 2 hour nap. I go to bed rather late 11 or so so. I would say I need at least 6 hours of sleep within a 24 hour period to function.

At times my nap turns into a 6 hour nap so I will just stay up all night and go to work. Working East Coast hours. For 12 years my sleep schedule is all messed up. I can’t sleep with the TV on at night but I can during my nap.

I don’t wake up at all during my naps or night sleep. NEVER! I hear how some people do. I have been known to sleep talk or walk when I am super stressed. It is always talking about work too. Like Market tickets and such. Obviously it is always stress that makes me do this.

Sometimes I will wake up from my nap and look at the clock and when it reads 6 or 7 I freak out thinking I have slept in and now I am late for work only to find that its 6 pm or 7 pm not AM. That happens at least once a week.

Once I even started to go and wake my son up to get ready for school only to realize he was downstairs watching TV because it was evening not morning. I always think about putting a note on the clock that it is PM but I am usually too tired to do that.

I truly love my sleep and need but just haven’t found a good schedule yet and by the time I get off work my brain is fried so I NEED that nap.

Sleep deprivation due to bladder issue

I used to have trouble sleeping, that is, having an interrupted sleep. When I lie down, almost always, I would fall asleep. I would awaken every two to three hours because I had to pee. I realized then that my problem was having to do with my bladder.

This was before I did not take care of my body requirements as far as nutrients were concerned. When I consulted a physician, I started taking vitamins and minerals; I was advised to take the complete one, and a natural one at that.

From that time on, my problem on interrupted sleep disappeared. At times, when I do something later at night and I drink coffee after 6:00 p.m., it would take me at least 30 minutes to an hour to fall asleep.

Also, if I have an unresolved emotional problem, it would take me up to the wee hours of the morning to fall asleep. But now, any unresolved problem, I give it to God so it would not bother me going to sleep.

Occasionally I wake up and type out my dreams

Occasionally I wake up and type out my dreams (what I can remember). This one, like most, I find little meaning in. Please excuse its disconnected nature: I picked up my clothing and went to the bathroom to change.

After entering the handy-capped stall I realized there were other people in the room, some women. The walls of the stall were nearly a foot shorter than me. The door did not lock from the inside so I had to reach over the wall to turn the lock to keep the door closed.

Moments after I had done this the door swung open and a dashing, adventures man at least older than 50 steps in. (not sure if any words are exchanged first).

Then I notice that one of the women has now entered, by crawling under the stall wall, quite unattractive and old as well (semi-retarded and unkept look), but probably younger than the next woman who enters. She is older, but was clearly once very attractive. I appreciate her image.

She may have a cigarette on a long plastic holder/filter. They have a unique style (can’t remember much conversation, but some did take place). I ask them if they always do this. They explain that when they began they would only stand in the entrance way of random bathrooms (which were apparently wood?), which I see as many years ago.

Over time, they made their way inside. It was a friendly conversation. I am now on a bus, traveling slowly as we leave the parking lot of a stadium. I later identify this as Florida, but it seems more tropical and humid.

There is an ocean beside us with a beach. The roads are dirty and cheap. Everything has a slightly disorganized feel. There are now military personnel shouting at us, indicating that we must turn around (or something). As the bus driver moves slightly forward for legitimate reasons, a soldier standing a at simple steel gate raises his shotgun in a manner that makes me ask myself, in a concerned voice, why he did that. -This is a drug raid- We are off the bus.

They are telling us to put our possessions into our bags and leave our bags somewhere(?). I decide to keep my hat because of how hot it is. The people from the bathroom are here, as well as some other familiar faces. We are put into a queue that is shaped like a long narrow ‘U’. We are near the stadium. The queue runs down a tight alley, one side of is made of that perforated zagging metal, and the other is likely wood. ( How it looks: |U| except the U would be upside down. because we are at the end of the que, we are standing intimately close to the start, where body searches are being performed.

The woman I see first see being searched is Black. She is incredibly attractive. She is wearing a 1-piece blue dress which ends several inches above her knees. The searches appear to be full-body as a female military has her rubber glove covered finger up and inside of her.