Why aspies have insomnia?

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The reason for the insomnia is the racing thoughts that we cannot turn off. Someone posted a comment about this only two slots away from your post. Link below:

http://www.wrongplanet.net/postt65139.html

I have had some terrible insomnia for the past 7 or 8 months and always had occasional problems with it. At one point, I was taking four different meds for it, either mixed or alternating: melatonin, Ambien (not Ambien CR, but the short duration stuff). Valerian and Benadryl. The meds were wrecking my life so severely that I forced myself to stop taking them even if I could not get to sleep. That was six nights ago and I have not felt so good in months, with only mild insomnia now. Several things to avoid are zinc supplements, magnesium (Maalox etc) too late at night (increases energy level), blue light at night (destroys the body's own melatonin... odd that autismspeaks should choose the blue color... maybe they are all NTs), computers late at night and anything else that makes you think too much. I find that movies late at night rather than the computer helps (and I am all about computers too), but avoid music late at night because those tunes will just keep circulating in your head.

I read about a research where they found out that people with insomnia had increased metabolism that could be reduced by cooling. Try wearing something cold around your head. It might slow down your brain and you might get sleep earlier. The numbers were that it took an average of 16 minutes for a person without insomnia to fall asleep. And it took a person with insomnia who coolded their head 13 minutes to fall asleep.

I believe that a majority of Aspies are nocturnal and the reason your brain doesn't shut off is because it simply isn't tired. I have a VERY hard time going to sleep before 4-5am so I simply don't try to. Since I've accepted that fact about myself, I simply don't try to go to bed before then and when I do, I'm plenty tired and fall asleep relatively quickly. This might only work for me, so your mileage may vary.

Several different things can cause me issues getting to sleep.

A nightly problem is that I just cannot get comfortable in bed. It doesn't matter what bed I sleep on (currently an airbed), I seem to hate the feel of anything against my body when I am trying to sleep (as in underneath me).

An intermittent issue is that when I know I need to be awake at an early time, I get to bed, and my mind starts turning and I seem to anticipate not getting enough sleep, and that keeps me awake.

Yeah, I can't stop thinking. Then when I'm truly exhausted it's very difficult to get "comfortable" enough to sleep because of my arthritis.

I take a melatonin supplement. It appears to help. Certain studies have linked autism with decreased levels of the hormone.

I don't have insomnia at all. I read a book on biology or something slow paced but interesting before I go to bed if I am having trouble.

Night is the best time to research and/or find quiet time to think.
There's no danger of someone calling on the phone
There's no danger of someone knocking at the door
There's no danger of someone asking for a favour
There's no danger of someone tapping you on the shoulder
There's no danger of someone blaring loud music
There's no danger of someone walking up to you stinking like a perfume factory

Shall I go on?
Night is the season of lowered anxiety.
Revel in it.

good question

partly i think there is a lot of anxiety generated from the reality of knowing you will have to respond to other people whom you don't understand very well. when i have gone out in the woods by myself for awhile, it disappeared--though i'd never felt it as such at the time.

it's kind of like test anxiety, except you never pass the test once & for all.

I had a strange one last night. I got to sleep with no meds (8 nights in a row now) but only dozed lightly all night, waking up several times and had to get out of bed an hour early because I just could not get any real sleep. Last night I became obsessed with a tune that kept circulating in my head all night long because I just could not remember what it was. Its either Chopin or Mozart, piano, commonly heard and last night I spent hours trying to find it online. It popped into my mind for a while, then while listening to a series of others, two other tunes got stuck in my head and I could not remember the original one. I ended up spending way too much time at the computer after I wanted to shut it off and lack of sleep eventually resulted. This continued this morning and the original tune returned to my head. It took a while, but I finally found a simple MIDI program to be able to save the tune so I would not forget it again.

Can somebody PLEASE tell me what this tune is (not perfect but good enough for the purpose):

http://www.zshare.net/audio/9250895095f310da/

noise and stress. and that's about it.