Insomnia

Post if you are suffering

used to have a lot of trouble with it, still have bad nights………..feels lonely doesn’t it
watch what time I eat, have woosa time every night and try not to worry about it too much, used sleeping pills for about 2 months to create a habit then came off them

Hmm. Prob not insomnia, just a lot on my mind. Haven’t had a decent nights sleep since Tuesday night.
One (new) wean in hospital with mum, another here with me and likely to get up at spprox 5.30am give or take half an hour….. Joy.

Routine is the key I guess..
And forcing yourself to not sleep during the day after eventually falling asleep at 5 am!!
In my experience anyway..

only get it if i get on an adrenalin cycle, being knacked, then adrenalin kicks in to ‘help’ but you can never switch it off? can go for days and nights, brain gets fried, you also have moments of hypo, i suppose thats what bi=polar sufferers have to cope with,poor sods…. any how i use lavender pillow, oils, in the end exhaustion wins….. till the next time…

took many years to learn to just go with it, no point lying in bed staring at ceiling may as well read a book etc.
the hardest part though is trying to relax when you have a hard day ahead and are still awake at 5 then start stressing about it.

Work patterns bugger me up. Day shifts/night shifts, time off…

Routine is all that works for me, and keeping off Caffiene for the 6 hours before bed.

suffered for most of my life…fun when it was party time but now im older not so much 🙁
come to realise i just need to feel PHYSICALLY exhausted (not a 2hr ride-10hrs on site) and now i sleep like a lamb. (well i still wake up a 6 am but hey) went back to building work and am so much happier just cos i get to sleep at night. not been in work today so still up at 3:09 but at least its not every night any more

I used to get it bad, now I spent time consciously calming my mind down during the day so when I go to bed My mind isn’t racing as much and its pretty much sorted it out.

Good morning. Well I got almost five hours sleep! Riding today all day so hopefully that will help with the next one.

Good tune…i can’t get no sleep…

Mine seems to not be too bad at the moment. Got a good 4 hours last night which is great. Calming your mind down is good but I find that only helps if you can’t nod off in the first place which normally I have no problems with. I typically wake up after an hour and *then* can’t get back to sleep.

seadog101 – Member

Work patterns bugger me up. Day shifts/night shifts, time off…

Routine is all that works for me, and keeping off Caffiene for the 6 hours before bed.

I’m exactly the same, I regularly work odd shifts with some finishing at 2am and getting to bed about 4am and it plays utter havoc with my sleep patterns. I’m often still wide awake at 4am knowing I have to get up at 6.15 for an early shift. The research that suggests I’m shortening my life and storing up all sorts of future health problems doesn’t help either!

I’ve just had two weeks off work and, for the first time in ages, I got into a lovely sleep/wake cycle and have never felt so good. Shame I have to work, eh? 😕

used to work in merchant navy, work ‘patterns’ developed during my time on various ships probably have had an adverse effect on my life. If i am woken, am alert instantly, very hard to relax after.

didn’t think of it at the time,but eight years of no regular sleep patterns and often very long hours of work(and play :wink:)– has left me with disrupted sleep problems ever since…..

suffer with it all the time ,buy the time ive dropped of its time to get up,i hate going to bed has i no im not going to sleep,got a 5 and 3 yr old which donot help,keep meaning to go to the docs,but ive found a bottle of night nurse does the trick 🙁

I find mine is worse when I’ve been riding! If I slob around all day, I sleep like a baby at night. 😐

Now alarm is set for daily pre-dawn meds and invariably can’t get back to sleep afterwards.

There really is no hope. 🙁

My insomnia wasn’t I could get to sleep initially but more I’d wake at 3am with my mind racing. Some good technique out there to deal with it.

Meditation, zma and promethazine. Not ideal as the promethazine makes me a bit groggy the next day, but I now get about 6-7 hours rather than 2-3.

It may all turn out to be unnecessary; there’s a growing belief amongst sleep specialists that it’s actually more natural to take your night’s sleep in two separate bits, waking up at around 3 for a chat, a drink, a wazz, even a smoke then going back off to sleep. The Tiv people in Nigeria even talk about first sleep and second sleep. The biggest problem is the obsession with a good solid night’s uninterrupted sleep, which gives everyone a hangup if they happen to wake up.

I’ve always been a bit habitually nocturnal.. it’s quieter, I feel more inspired at night, and the tV and radio programming is a gazillion times better.. but I’ve always been fortunate enough to be able to sleep late and still get a good 10 hours..

Until now.. I now have two small boys to care for, both of whom keep me on my toes from dawn and one of which who wakes me pretty much every hour between midnight and 6am..

I still rarely turn in before 2am though.. but I’m starting to feel very on edge now after six months of this..

an old cycling friend, who was into eastern ways, insisted on sleeping in three hour blocks,he reckoned that either 3 or 6 hours was good, but if disturbed during this time it would make him feel groggy.

Think people need different amounts of rest/re charge time, but there are so many variables, somehow we seem to get by….

Great tune…

Can’t believe it’s 17yrs old…. 😯

The sleep version..

Yup. I hear ya.. I get by on 4hrs a night… Really wish I coud do more, but can’t 😡

Recently I’ve reverted back to using a trick I used years ago: When I want to go to sleep, I imagine myself going through a situation I particularly enjoy in real-time. In this case, I imagine myself riding the Whistler Bike Park: I start by being in the lift line at the bottom, with all the sights, sounds and sensations (including getting a drink, having my lift pass scanned, checking the bike etc), and I’m about to head up for my favourite run down.

If I stick to real-time, I rarely get to the point of putting my bike on the lift before I nod off.

promethazine can you buy over the counter

I’ve been reading about these grounding/earthing sheets and mats. Some people are experiencing good results.

Insomnia’s been an issue for me long as I can remember. These days camomile tea can help. I even drink Horlicks sometimes. (Makes a bit of a change from the “self medication” I always used to smoke near bedtime). The doc gave me pills, but I’m so afraid of getting hooked on them, I use them very rarely (eg on business trips). These days, I find the best thing is not to fight it, but to get up, drink a glass of milk and read or surf for a while.

It may all turn out to be unnecessary; there’s a growing belief amongst sleep specialists that it’s actually more natural to take your night’s sleep in two separate bits, waking up at around 3 for a chat, a drink, a wazz, even a smoke then going back off to sleep. The Tiv people in Nigeria even talk about first sleep and second sleep. The biggest problem is the obsession with a good solid night’s uninterrupted sleep, which gives everyone a hangup if they happen to wake up.

It used to be quite normal here too- 18th/19th centuries I think?

EDIT knew I’d read it on the BBC: Myth of the 8 hour sleep
Bit earlier though- started to decline in the late 17th C apparently.

Globalti –

The Tiv people in Nigeria even talk about first sleep and second sleep. The biggest problem is the obsession with a good solid night’s uninterrupted sleep, which gives everyone a hangup if they happen to wake up.

Agreed, I work away from home on a ship. Getting out of bed during that mid (non)sleep gap, faff about a bit, then get back to sleep for a second slot. Not fool proof, but can help. Hacks off Mrs Seadog when I’m home though….

Try melatonin? Something like this.

I seem to be suffering too lately. Too much happening each day at work, my brain takes another 24 hours to process it all! I can’t switch off.

I think I’m getting addicted to surfing on my phone to take my mind off it. Just means I don’t go back to sleep! Come 7am I usually feel sh*t.

“When you have insomnia, you’re never really asleep, and you’re never really awake.”

If I can’t sleep it’s always because I’m tense. The best way to deal with it is to lie on my back and actively force every muscle to relax by allowing the bits of the body to sink into the mattress, starting with the lower legs and working upwards, finishing with the jaw, which by then you’ll have realised is locked solid.

I suppose some “self-medication” as previously mentioned doesn’t work for you?

But like anything chemical it can be habit forming.

Global ti – was taught that exact technique years ago by a masseuse I was involved with – works a treat for me too

A technique I’ve found very useful is to play my day back in reverse, helps to soak in the day and focus on something rather than let your mind jump around uncontrolled.

Also, reading a good fiction book helps (anything non-fiction doesnt have the same effect, no does tv or surfing the net – will stimulate the mind too much)

bought some sleep calms today

WELL ive been up since for reading,so i thought i would jump on here,i may buy me a model to start and build p when i wake p,come 7am im ready for bed

3rd night now!

I think it might just be excitement because I’m picking up my new camper van today! Perhaps if I sleep in it tonight I’ll be cured….

Yeah, that 8 hour business is a joke. I have no idea how people can do that. If I stay in bed longer than 6 hours I start to feel fidgety and have to get up. I like the idea of two sleeps, that’s pretty much how I sleep anyway when I do get a good night.

My son (17 years old) can get into bed at midnight and still be fast asleep at midday. That’s just odd.

I only sleep 4 to 5 hours max ,i would love to sleep midnight till midday

5 hours is a lie in. Twelve hours is a coma. I might sign him up for the army.