Sleeping Difficulties

Ok, I don't know if I am the only person here who suffers from this, but recently I have been finding it harder and harder to get to sleep. On a school day, I will normally not be able to fall asleep until 1am, and me having to awake at 7am, that means that I am only getting 6 hrs sleep on most nights. Midway through the week, I will normally go to bed for the entire day once I get home, but otherwise, it is the same pattern all week, 1am: bed, 7am: awake, have a restless day.

I have tried to find the problem in many different ways. The first thing I thought that might be affecting my sleeping pattern is my diet. I was not eating enough fruit/veg a while ago, but now that I am, there hasn't been much effect to anything. The second thing I tried was forcing myself to go to bed early. This didn't work either, and sometimes left me feeling even more tired in the morning.

I honestly have been finding schoolwork a major stress, and this could be key to me not sleeping very well. I do not feel very motivated towards doing schoolwork, mainly because I am finding it a struggle recently, with the change in workload much different to what I got in secondary school.

Even now I'm up at 1:50am typing this, because I have quite bad insomnia sometimes, and I also seem to reject the idea of going to bed. On weekends I find myself awaking at 12pm, and for me this is really annoying, as I have wasted quite a good bit of my day doing this.

You must be committed that you want to fall asleep.

I made this thread a couple days ago.

This thread could probably be moved to Sleep/Health (since it is an on-topic dream related sort of question) and might get more replies, but I'll leave it in the Help forum if you prefer?

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Originally Posted by Aquanina

This thread could probably be moved to Sleep/Health (since it is an on-topic dream related sort of question) and might get more replies, but I'll leave it in the Help forum if you prefer?

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That's up to you. I honestly didn't know which section to put it in. But because I see this as a problem, I thought here would be better.

Try this:

Your Personal Habits

Fix a bedtime and an awakening time. Do not be one of those people who allows bedtime and awakening time to drift. The body "gets used" to falling asleep at a certain time, but only if this is relatively fixed. Even if you are retired or not working, this is an essential component of good sleeping habits.

Avoid napping during the day. If you nap throughout the day, it is no wonder that you will not be able to sleep at night. The late afternoon for most people is a "sleepy time." Many people will take a nap at that time. This is generally not a bad thing to do, provided you limit the nap to 30-45 minutes and can sleep well at night.

Avoid alcohol 4-6 hours before bedtime. Many people believe that alcohol helps them sleep. While alcohol has an immediate sleep-inducing effect, a few hours later as the alcohol levels in your blood start to fall, there is a stimulant or wake-up effect.

Avoid caffeine 4-6 hours before bedtime. This includes caffeinated beverages such as coffee, tea and many sodas, as well as chocolate, so be careful.

Avoid heavy, spicy, or sugary foods 4-6 hours before bedtime. These can affect your ability to stay asleep.

Exercise regularly, but not right before bed. Regular exercise, particularly in the afternoon, can help deepen sleep. Strenuous exercise within the 2 hours before bedtime, however, can decrease your ability to fall asleep.

Your Sleeping Environment

Use comfortable bedding. Uncomfortable bedding can prevent good sleep. Evaluate whether or not this is a source of your problem, and make appropriate changes.

Find a comfortable temperature setting for sleeping and keep the room well ventilated. If your bedroom is too cold or too hot, it can keep you awake. A cool (not cold) bedroom is often the most conducive to sleep.

Block out all distracting noise, and eliminate as much light as possible.

Reserve the bed for sleep and sex. Don't use the bed as an office, workroom or recreation room. Let your body "know" that the bed is associated with sleeping.

Getting Ready For Bed

Try a light snack before bed. Warm milk and foods high in the amino acid tryptophan, such as bananas, may help you to sleep.

Practice relaxation techniques before bed. Relaxation techniques such as yoga, deep breathing and others may help relieve anxiety and reduce muscle tension.

Don't take your worries to bed. Leave your worries about job, school, daily life, etc., behind when you go to bed. Some people find it useful to assign a "worry period" during the evening or late afternoon to deal with these issues.

Establish a pre-sleep ritual. Pre-sleep rituals, such as a warm bath or a few minutes of reading, can help you sleep.

Get into your favorite sleeping position. If you don't fall asleep within 15-30 minutes, get up, go into another room, and read until sleepy.
Getting Up in the Middle of the Night

Most people wake up one or two times a night for various reasons. If you find that you get up in the middle of night and cannot get back to sleep within 15-20 minutes, then do not remain in the bed "trying hard" to sleep. Get out of bed. Leave the bedroom. Read, have a light snack, do some quiet activity, or take a bath. You will generally find that you can get back to sleep 20 minutes or so later. Do not perform challenging or engaging activity such as office work, housework, etc. Do not watch television.

A Word About Television

Many people fall asleep with the television on in their room. Watching television before bedtime is often a bad idea. Television is a very engaging medium that tends to keep people up. We generally recommend that the television not be in the bedroom. At the appropriate bedtime, the TV should be turned off and the patient should go to bed. Some people find that the radio helps them go to sleep. Since radio is a less engaging medium than TV, this is probably a good idea.

Other Factors

Several physical factors are known to upset sleep. These include arthritis, acid reflux with heartburn, menstruation, headaches and hot flashes.

Psychological and mental health problems like depression, anxiety and stress are often associated with sleeping difficulty. In many cases, difficulty staying asleep may be the only presenting sign of depression. A physician should be consulted about these issues to help determine the problem and the best treatment.

Many medications can cause sleeplessness as a side effect. Ask your doctor or pharmacist if medications you are taking can lead to sleeplessness.

To help overall improvement in sleep patterns, your doctor may prescribe sleep medications for short-term relief of a sleep problem. The decision to take sleeping aids is a medical one to be made in the context of your overall health picture.

Always follow the advice of your physician and other healthcare professionals. The goal is to rediscover how to sleep naturally.

If you think you’re getting enough sleep, but you have trouble waking up in the morning, struggle with daytime sleepiness, or feel tired and cranky despite clocking plenty of hours in bed, you may not be getting enough of the deep restorative sleep your body needs. In order to deepen your sleep and minimize disruptions during the night, you may need to make some changes to your sleep environment.

I get into horrible sleeping patters sometimes (taking 2 hour naps 3 or 4 times a day) and the only way to fix it is to stay up. Do this on a weekend. Try and stay up for around 24 hours, and go to sleep at the time that you're aiming for. Then wake up at exactly the time you want to wake up ( a bitch to do in the weekend, but this is the only way it'll work). Then just force yourself to sleep at the time you went to sleep the previous night etc. Let us know how it goes!

And in order to sleep peacefully I shut off all the TV's in the house, my computer (the fan is noisy) and most lights. Maybe you're easily distracted.

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Originally Posted by Rezzo

Ok, I don't know if I am the only person here who suffers from this, but recently I have been finding it harder and harder to get to sleep. On a school day, I will normally not be able to fall asleep until 1am, and me having to awake at 7am, that means that I am only getting 6 hrs sleep on most nights. Midway through the week, I will normally go to bed for the entire day once I get home, but otherwise, it is the same pattern all week, 1am: bed, 7am: awake, have a restless day.

I have tried to find the problem in many different ways. The first thing I thought that might be affecting my sleeping pattern is my diet. I was not eating enough fruit/veg a while ago, but now that I am, there hasn't been much effect to anything. The second thing I tried was forcing myself to go to bed early. This didn't work either, and sometimes left me feeling even more tired in the morning.

I honestly have been finding schoolwork a major stress, and this could be key to me not sleeping very well. I do not feel very motivated towards doing schoolwork, mainly because I am finding it a struggle recently, with the change in workload much different to what I got in secondary school.

Even now I'm up at 1:50am typing this, because I have quite bad insomnia sometimes, and I also seem to reject the idea of going to bed. On weekends I find myself awaking at 12pm, and for me this is really annoying, as I have wasted quite a good bit of my day doing this.

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You don't exercise regularly, do you?

Didn't think so. Exercise about thirty minutes a day.

A simple exercise plan you can do is squats, lemon squeezers, and push-ups. Do sets with 12, 9, and 6. One set would be 12 squats, 12 lemon squeezers, 12 push-ups, then 9 squats, 9 lemon squeezers, etc.. Do about three to five sets as fast as you can. If you have to, try not to rest for more than three to five seconds. It would probably take you about ten to fifteen minutes to complete the sets, then run for about ten to fifteen minutes. Don't worry about if you are running slow. It is kind of expected. The whole key to exercising is keeping your heart rate up.

Guarantee you will be soar. I also guarantee you will go to sleep a lot easier.

Hello friends

Everyone has an occasional sleepless night, and this is not a problem for most people. However, as many as 25% of Americans report occasional sleeping problems, and insomnia is a chronic problem for about 10% of people.
The lack of restful sleep can affect your ability to carry out daily responsibilities because you are too tired or have trouble concentrating. All types of insomnia can lead to daytime drowsiness, poor concentration, and the inability to feel refreshed and rested in the morning.
Most adults do best with about 8 hours of sleep each night until age 60, after which 6 hours may be enough. Even though the elderly need less sleep, almost one half of people over 60 experience some degree of insomnia.
The best measure of the amount of sleep needed is how you feel. If you awaken feeling refreshed, you are getting enough sleep. For some people, this may take only 4 hours. Others can need up to 10 hours to feel rested.
Using long-acting or high-dose sedatives as a "cure" for insomnia can make the problem worse, not better, over time. Antihistamines (the main ingredient in over-the-counter sleeping pills) can lead to similar difficulties. Using antihistamines over time may also affect your memory.
Strong, prescription sedatives do not produce a natural, restful sleep. In addition, you can become dependent on or tolerant of these drugs. In this case, the same dose of the drug no longer produces sleep, which may lead you to try a higher dose. Higher doses worsen the chance of dependence, tolerance, and side effects. Stopping these medications can cause a rebound insomnia and withdrawal.

Thanks for all friends

Can I request a thread lock please? This thread got heavily bumped by a certain someone.

Hello Friends......

Secrets to Good Night Sleep are

1.Read something spiritual or religious.

2.Avoid using loud alarm clocks

3.Get to bed as early as possible

4.Keep the temperature in the bedroom no higher than 70 degrees F

5.Eat a high-protein snack several hours before bed

Thanks

Mabye you could try sleeping in another room, and only go to bed when you feel like it for one night. I know that bad nights can become a vicous cycle: Cant sleep -> Panic -> Cant sleep etc. Also, when I have several bad nights, I end up tying my bed with sleeplessness, causing it (the problem) to become even worse.

Also, is school stressing you out? Stress does not help with sleep, I know that. Mabye you could try meditation before bed, I haven't tried it, but it may help clear worrying thoughts.

I know a lot of people say ‘go to bed early’, but if it is impossible to get to sleep early (is for me), an early bedtime may trigger the vicious cycle of sleeplessness. Go to bed when tired- and no midnight horror movies! If you have a lot of homework, you may want to try doing it, until you start to drift off- for one thing, homework beats a bad night! If you think that'll cause a bad night, don't do it- you know best.

If all else fails, get up and do something boring- a jigsaw mabye (no offense to jigsaw lovers). Or a book that always puts you to sleep. Or record your most boring teachers talking and listen to that :)! Try to limit light exposure- only a torch at most. Too much light exposure can wake you up. Again, do this until you feel ready to sleep.

Or you may want to find some videos to help you sleep on YouTube. Hypnosis vids, mabye? Hypnosis won't make you a slave or anything if you don't want to be- I've got a website below which tells you all the common misconceptions. Naturally, if you're uncomfterable with hypnosis, don't do it. Search for something like ‘sleep hypnosis’ or similar.

Common misconceptions:

http://www.mind-bodydynamics.com/misconceptions.htm

EDIT: Also, don't hit yourself for sleeping in- see it as recouping sleep. And don't think of 1am-7am as ‘not enough sleep’. Think of it as ‘some sleep’. Hard to do, but worth it.

There are various factors that could cause lack of sleep, restlessness, insomnia, etc. Its mostly due to worry, anxiety or an unstable life due to a huge turn in events. Sleeping disorders are common for people with MS. They can have troubles with falling asleep. They can just wake in the middle of the night or they can just wake up very early in the morning. In another words, there are initial, middle and terminal insomnia. Valerian is well known as a substance that helps in reducing anxiety and insomnia.

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Originally Posted by aloysiuscarl

There are various factors that could cause lack of sleep, restlessness, insomnia, etc. Its mostly due to worry, anxiety or an unstable life due to a huge turn in events. Sleeping disorders are common for people with MS. They can have troubles with falling asleep. They can just wake in the middle of the night or they can just wake up very early in the morning. In another words, there are initial, middle and terminal insomnia. Valerian is well known as a substance that helps in reducing anxiety and insomnia.

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What is MS?

Thanks again guys, but I posted this in February... -_-

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1.Read something spiritual or religious.

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In my opinion, worse than watching films late at night. Sorry.

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3.Get to bed as early as possible

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Soz again, but going to bed early does not work for me either. Particularly in the summer months.