Chronic Insomnia - I need help

[Anonymous Villager]

I don't sleep. Sleeping pills don't work, neither does valerian root.


I have tried all and to no avail


Can someone tell me what I need to do to cure this chronic insomnia

I am like a nocturnal animal. I am up all night and even awake most of the day - I do sleep a little bit in the day time


It's aging me. I need help! Someone please help!!

Pills don't work, even sleeping teas don't work. I just popped 3 valerian capsules and it didn't do jack.

Help me ----------------help me

I have tried avoiding napping during the day so maybe I could reset my sleep cycle. I was still awake all night.


I don't want to go crazy! I need help.

Medication doesn't work!


Help!

[Shoko Loko Bangoshe]

Hello AV.

As one hyperactive insomniac to another, I deeply sympathise.

Here are a few things I've tried in the past (along with their relative successes). What may work for me may not work for you, and vice versa - so give them a go and see what happens:



- Dreamshift. This involves imagining a random 'dream sequence' of pictures that are loosely connected to each other. The pictures can be as surreal as possible. For example, you could think of:
- a bucket full of water
- the bucket being turned over with the water splashing on someone
- the person shaking themselves of the water with drops of water flying around
- the drops of water turning into birds
- the birds flying into a single nest
- the nest turning into the mouth of a lion
- the lion's stomach expanding
- the stomach turning into a balloon and causing the lion to float away
- etc., etc.

The idea here is that you are trying to jump start the dreaming process. I had a bit of success with this, but I think you have to have a bit of an active imagination to get this to work.



- Boring Literature. Get a book which absolutely bores you to death and try and read and understand it. The hope is that you'll be so bored by it that you start to dose off. I haven't had much success with this - I end up being tired instead of sleepy.



- Boring Audio. This involves listening to a boring speech program, like a documentary or play. This is my current method of getting to sleep - for me, it works about 90% of the time. After all, we all know how we doze off when listening to a boring lecture or sermon.

The trick is how to get hold of such a speech program. I usually use the internet Audio-on-Demand service offered by stations like NPR or the BBC (this doesn't mean that all the output of these stations is boring o!) If you don't have ready access to the internet, you could get someone to record some of these kinds of programmes to mp3 and mail you the mp3 file for you to play.



- Special Relaxation Tapes. There are companies who sell tapes specifically for the purpose of relaxing you and sending you to sleep. You could try these - do an internet search and see what you come up with.



- Use Your Time Well. View your inability to sleep as a blessing, not a curse. It just means that you can do other stuff instead of worrying about trying to get to sleep. Yes, it's true that you may be too tired to do some kinds of work involving high mental input, but you can still do grunt level work like domestic chores, etc. Thing is, you find that once you are doing those things and you've stopped worrying about getting to sleep, it's then you will really begin to feel sleepy.



I hope others will chime in with their suggestions, but I wish you all the best in trying to find a solution to your problem.

Cheers,

S.

[.bebi]

SLB,welcome back.Told u u r weird.That r dream thing is funny.
AV,I suffered a similar thing 2 wks ago.I went to see my GP who refused to prescribe sedatives to me and instead advised me to take warm baths and drink warm milk before bedtime.I didnt try any of those but I have started sleeping again becos it was a transient thing due to a change in work schedule.
If u r catholic,try praying the rosary just before bedtime,it could send u to dreamland as its the wrongest time to pray the rosary.

[Auspicious]

Boring literature is my best 'sleeping pill'

[smartomoge]

Exercise. Lots and lots of it. Work your body. Abi sef, go carry cement.
Do some hard physical work. Omo, u go drop like mosquito wey dey use raid for. Abi you no hia say poor man dey sleep well? Na becos area boy or cement carry no dey easy o.

Try it and see.

[mulan]

AV,

Many good tips have been given here. In addition, try getting plenty of fresh air during the day, try a walk or a jog in the park...

[Shoko Loko Bangoshe]

Originally Posted by .bebi

SLB,welcome back.Told u u r weird.That r dream thing is funny.

Kpom Bebi,

What can I say? Yes - it's a strange idea. But if I had told you in 1993 that one day, by typing at a screen you could instantly cause your words to be accessible to millions of people, I'm sure you would have said I was 'weird', too.

Shoko (in 'Say It Loud - I'm Weird and Proud!' mode)

[Bunch17]

Originally Posted by Anonymous Villager

I don't sleep. Sleeping pills don't work, neither does valerian root.


I have tried all and to no avail


Can someone tell me what I need to do to cure this chronic insomnia

I am like a nocturnal animal. I am up all night and even awake most of the day - I do sleep a little bit in the day time


It's aging me. I need help! Someone please help!!

Pills don't work, even sleeping teas don't work. I just popped 3 valerian capsules and it didn't do jack.

Help me ----------------help me

I have tried avoiding napping during the day so maybe I could reset my sleep cycle. I was still awake all night.


I don't want to go crazy! I need help.

Medication doesn't work!


Help!

AV,

You have been given good advice by previous posters. I just want to add that you need to look at your sleep hygiene. Unfortunately you did not specify if the problem was that of falling asleep or falling asleep and waking up after a few hours and staying awake the rest of the night.

Back to your sleep hygiene, you have to ensure that your environment is ideal for sleep ie not noisy, no music, no TV on, no flat mate going around his business in a noisy manner and no light on when you want to sleep.

Some people can sleep on the runway of a major airport but a significant proportion of people need the environment to be ideal before they can sleep well.

Cut out coffee, tea, redbull , fizzy drinks as they have stimulant effects and will affect your ability to sleep well.
Don't make the mistake of resorting to alcohol to make you fall asleep. You would not want to fall into the slippery slope that is alcoholism. More over, though alcohol is a depressant and may make some people sleep, when it is clearing from your system, one of its withdrawal effects is "hyper stimulation". Basically, you wake up after a few hours and are unable to return to sleep.

If for some reason that you wake up at night, don't look at your time piece, don't think "insomnia again" just close your eyes and you will soon fall asleep. It is natural to wake up during sleep but most of us don't even remember that we had woken up. (it is said that the cut off point for being concious of this is 2 minutes).

When you have to go to sleep, don't go stressing about whether you are going top sleep or not. This actually increases your chance of not sleeping well. Relax your mind.

You need to cut out all these "medicines" you are taking and may be look at what you may be doing wrong. Unfortunately some medical professionals are quick to dispense sedatives/hypnotics for sleep problems when other non drug interventions would have been better.

Finally, if you are in the UK, try Tescos brand of apple juice nothing sends me to sleep faster than that.

BTW: What is your energy level like? Do you feel refreshed in the morning despite not sleeping or do you feel sleepy during the day?

[mulan]

Dr. Bunch,

What is it about Tesco's apple juice? I choked on a glass just now, LOL...



Shoks,

That dreamscape was surreal. Sometimes I go over what has happened in the past or imagine different permutations for what the future holds. But lions blowing up and floating off...weird...

[Bunch17]

@ Mulan,

I don't know but once a finish a glass, I am out.
First had it during a lunch meeting, went home a few hours later because I was not feeling too good. Took some time to identify it as the culprit.