Thread: Help For A Total Insomniac?

What is your diet and daily life style like?

Okay:
Diet: Lots of meat and dairy. +4 Good sized glasses of milk per day.
Poor amount of fruit and vegetables. (I know, it's like I'm five )
Salt... So much Salt. Heart-attack-at-age-17 amount of salt.

Life Style(?):
wake up anywhere from 12 am to 5 am. Try and succeed after some difficulties to go back to sleep. Shower, eat (lots a cheese, milk, salt), leave for school at 6:45 sharp. Do s*** at school, get home at 3:00 pm. (Never eat school lunch, which is at 10:45 am, because its expensive and taste like crap) Do homework (not Really), hang out with friends (indoors) till 6 pm. Eat. Watch TV till eight, then take my 'tonin. Fall asleep anywhere from 9 to 9:30. Start again.



Edit: TRIPPY!! As I'm posting I left on a two hour long show about the human brain and Steven LaBerge is talking about REM and Lucid Dreaming. I've never seen a show about LDing before.

Hi, you don't drink any caffeine products do you? (remember that there is caffeine in not only coffee, but fizzy drinks and tea also). if so, preferably don't consume any caffeine at least a couple of hours (i think i remember reading somewhere that the recommended time is four hours) before you take you melatonin/try and sleep.
another suggestion would be to try and squeeze in some exercise into your day, as it will tire your body and you may get a better nights rest. you don't have to go and pay for a gym membership or anything, but just try and do a little walking or something simple.
I know what it's like to go to school with no sleep, it's not a good feeling at all. i hope you can overcome this.

These are my tips to you, if they apply

No caffeine or any stimulants 5 hours before bed

don't spend too much time in your bedroom before bed

meditate

reduce stress levels

clear your mind

use ear plugs, blocks sounds from waking you

clean your room, sounds dumb but a clean dust free room helps you sleep and breathe

take valerian root, or melatonin or 5htp or chamomile tea, or ALL of those if they don't work seperately

Don't eat right before bed either

Too much videogames or movies or any entertainment before bed can keep your mind too awake, try to watch something boring before bed, read something boring and uninteresting, avoid interesting subjects that may keep yourself awake

Do a search for "99 breaths" it's a guide to clearing your mind that I wrote a while back.

Thanks you guys, but how can I STAY asleep?

Better diet maybe?

I think you're going to sleep too early - your simple solution - go to sleep later.

I'm only assuming here when you say 'school' and the school's schedule that you mean high school? thus you are teenager? a teenager has different diet needs and different sleeping needs than an adult

"The researchers measured the presence of the sleep-promoting hormone melatonin in teenagers' saliva at different times of the day. They learned that the melatonin levels rise later at night than they do in children and adults -- and remain at a higher level later in the morning."

"
Though times vary for individuals, Carskadon said levels of melatonin start to rise in teenagers generally between 10 and 11 p.m. -- and don't stop until about 8 a.m. This changes when people are in their twenties, she said.
So although it's not impossible for adolescents to go to sleep before 11 p.m., or even to be alert in the morning, Carskadon said, their bodies make it hard, and in some cases nearly impossible, to do."

so if you are a teenager, you are working against your body going to sleep at 9 - which might be why you need melatonin.


I know you cant change the time you wake up - but maybe at least you'll get a full nights rest instead of no rest at all. so try going to bed at 11 instead. always allow a day or two to adjust to a new sleep schedule.


ps. the sleeping needs changes some where in the 20s. so even if say you are 21, you might still have the biological sleeping needs of a teenager. since I dont really know if you are a teenager or not, or if your schedule just resembles high school? im 23 going on 24 and only recently was I able to fall asleep before 11.

the quotes are from this article
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...0901561_2.html

but you can just google teenager sleeping needs, its old news really!

Thanks and yes I'm in high school, junior year.

based on your description of your average schedule, it sounds like you need a lot more physical activity in your routine. This would help you sleep a lot.

The funny thing is when I had lots of physical activity I couldn't sleep either. Thanks for the advice.

Stop all the herbal crap, most of that is dirt, no FDA stamp = Dirt. Go to a doctor and tell them you are having trouble sleeping they will help you, I don't like the american drug culture, but I don't agree with what people sell as supplements. Oh and if he's in school and not on a sports team, a little marijuana at bedtime, eat or smoke. Trust me I'm one of the worst cases of studied insomnia on the eastern coast. Without medication I'll go days, upto weeks without sleep, when medicated I sleep 3 hours 2 times a day. Marijuana though has let me break my dependancy on most of my havy sedatives and barbituates.

Thanks man.

In addition to no caffiene 5 hours before bed: no visual/auditory stimulation 1hour before bed. Means no computer, no tv, no non-calming music. All of these gets the brain active and into non-sleep mode. Stay out of your bedroom as much as possible except for sleeping (this limits the number of associations you have with the room so that once you're in there, you're only association is sleep). Finally, try yoga. All my teenage life it took me at LEAST one hour to fall asleep (a lot of nights, 2-3hours) until I started doing yoga. I started doing yoga regularly before bed about 2 years ago, and now it takes me 15min max. to fall asleep. All it takes is 30-45min just before bed (can also count toward the no tv/comp time too) and I'm out like a light. Hope it helps

As a brother in sleeplessness I might have a little method for you that might help you get out of your nightowl rythm and back into a daytime rythm.

It has worked pretty good for me.
It is strikingly simple. When you are still awake after 4:30 in the morning: please DON'T go to sleep. That will only mess up your biorythm more. Stay awake instead. No matter how tired you are wake all the way through the next day into it's early evening.

By this time you will be totally exhausted and probably well able to sleep that night. If you are a serverely restless one, like me sometimes, and find yourself still inable to sleep that night just continue what I said. If you cannot fall asleep before 4:30 don't bother, wake through the next day and try to sleep again the next evening/early night.


If all else fails I can only recommend Smoking a killer of a Cannabis- and/or hash- joint or Drink some strong liqour allthough drinking alcohol should never become too much of a habbit concerning addiction and toxicity. Also allways use "Substances" as a very last resort and more to help you initiate a boost into a normal, sleeping cycle again. Never use substances as THE way to fall asleep, no matter how much of an Insomniac you are, 'cuz you are teaching your body to become lazy and forget how to induce sleep all by itself; Which would leave you with a bigger problem than before.

(Especially avoid using sleep medications in this way as many of them are Heroin/Opium-like in effects and incredibly Physically and Psychologically addicting)

Originally Posted by RockNRoller123

Hey I need some help. I can't get to sleep without melatonin (not the problem) and I can't stay asleep the whole night (<--- there it is)

Uh, not to be an ass, but have you ever just asked you doctor for a sedative, Restorill is a relatively safe one and almost any doc will write this for you. It's not really insomnia if melatonin and teas help, it's malsomnia. Insomnia means you really can't sleep at all, like me I can't sleep without a sleep aid usually very strong ones. It's a chemical disorder and I can stay awake for a week at a time unintentionally. I get tired, but I can't sleep. I don't like to tell people to take most drugs but sedatives for sleep are in my opinion quiet safe if you follow dosing, now on the other hand I wouldn't suggest any of the Ambien, Lunesta, family of drugs. They mess with Seratonan re-uptake, basically antipsycotics. Or you can go the dangerous route and take herbal supplements. Why do I call them dangerous, because without being accountable to the FDA they can but dirt, shit, arsenic, whatever they want in that pill, and all they have to tell you is it's proprietary. I currently, unfortunately, take 500-600 mg of Seroquel for my insomnia, this is a drug used to treat schitzophrenia and dementia at higher doses but below about 1g it's just a sedative.

The post above suggests drinking alcohol. Don't it will actually disturb your sleep not aid it.

time released melatonin is for people who can't stay asleep.
regular melatonin is for people who have trouble going to sleep.