Trouble Sleeping Thread

[d_b]

Melatonin, and avoid electronics like 1 hour before you go to bed.

 

[Marginal]

A possibility to cure sleep apnea is to lose weight by doing regular exercise perhaps it may cut the cloginess that blocks air flow through the passages. But there are ppl who got sleep apnea by heritiage.

For the exercise part, learn to play the didgeridoo. It apparently works all the right muscles.

On the sleep thing in general:

Don't bother with sleep drugs. They're all habit forming, and they decrease the quality of the sleep you do get.

Don't exercise a few hours before bed. Don't eat before going to bed, and if you're not falling asleep, go do something else until you're ready to fall asleep. Stressing about not falling asleep makes it harder to do so.

Also it may be worth going to a sleep clinic. Have them monitor your sleep. Most sleep "problems" are perceptual. If they don't find any abnormalities with your sleep, odds are your sleep problems will vanish with the clean bill of health they give you.

 

[hotX]

Melatonin also worked for me when I was younger, but the effects can be different for everybody.

 

[Alexandra]

Oh, my god. How old are you? That sounds EXACTLY how it used to be for me when I was in high school (down to the lying on your stomach and your heart seeming to race more).

After it progressed to the point where I just wanted to cry because I couldn't sleep, I completely cut carbonated drinks out of my diet. I probably drink one like everyone 2 months or so now. I got really bad headaches for a while after I stopped but that may be why I can sleep a bit better now.

The working out in the morning thing may or may not help you. It used to help me but...I dunno what happened.

I also noticed that I sleep rather easily and heavily if I sleep with someone else (the only problem is that I'm a pretty wild sleeper so I tend to wake the other person and myself up a lot).

I think I know exactly what you're going through, though. I fuckin' hated when I'd lie down for hours and not fall asleep, only to have to get up and feel like a zombie.

Seriously, though, try the melatonin (or you can get a prescription for Ambien, but, like I said, that stopped working after a while for me. Still, the trippiness was fun!). It may take a couple of days for it to really start working, but I think that's why, for the most part now, I can get tired and go to sleep at night. Also, of course, once you get a sleep rhythm going, try to stick to it. I have a lot of energy and, like you said, my mind's always racing, so I tend to like to be doing stuff, but, if you feel yourself get tired at night, lie down and try to go to sleep. If you're the same way, if you wait, you honestly won't be able to get to sleep.

I'm 16. I recently stopped drinking cokes for like...two-three weeks because I'd been having this amazing drink from Whole Foods. I feel like it might be my body reacting to the extra caffeine it didn't get for two weeks. This only started a couple days ago, and I used to be able to be on the computer or play video games until I felt like I needed to sleep. What may be the source of my problem is, when I go on my video game binges, I used to play nonstop but now I find myself sitting there, looking at the menus or something. I guess I'll try to actually PLAY video games tomorrow and see if I can fall asleep when I feel like it. At this point I think that's the only thing keeping me awake, because the little energy and brain power I use on that must tire me out enough to actually sleep. Hoping to fall asleep like a regular person after I leave for vacation Wednesday morning, since I have to wake up at 6 am. I'll be sure to play something that makes me lethargic and tired before I go to sleep. Uncharted possibly? I don't know. I'll probably be forcing myself to play ME3 Extended Cut tomorrow. Anyways, thanks for the help and I hope this is only temporary. Here's something nice to leave you with tonight.

 

[LP]

Don't bother with sleep drugs. They're all habit forming, and they decrease the quality of the sleep you do get.

That's not true in the slightest.

I also have no clue what you mean by sleep problems being perceptual...but that's a whole different thing.