Insomnia

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Almost every day of school this semester I've been running on four hours of sleep or less. Sleeping difficulties are something I've had to deal with all my life, but they've never been this off the wall. I'm reaching the end of my rope; It's been this way for about four months, and I cling to the hope that this is just a seasonal thing (which is probably the cause of this specific problem), but I'm scared to death that it's insomnia progressing and I'm going to be stuck in this limbo the rest of my life. I might "go to bed" around midnight, usually around 2, and in either case not fall asleep until 4 or 5. Going to bed any earlier is useless. It seems like as soon as I hit the f*****g pillow my thoughts start racing back and forth about absolutely everything, and when I try to detach from them, I can suddenly feel every individual flake of skin of my body. Maybe there's a wrinkle in a blanket here, or this part of my back starts tingling for no reason, or I get an itch on my ear. If I try Ibuprofen PM it sedates me but the oversensitivity is still there, so I'll suddenly just jump up in bed or twitch really violently. Nyquil doesn't work. Ambien, which I've used off and on for the past two years, absolutely aggravates the racing thoughts. If I try to skip a day of sleep, or just stay up really really late, which has worked in the past, I wake up after 5 hours and can't sleep again. If I try to sleep in the basement, I'll wake up every half hour and wait and hour to go back to sleep.

Truthfully, I could write a book on this problem. It's just one f*****g old joke that I'm sick of hearing. I have other things I need to deal with, but when I'm not getting a full 9 (that's right, nine.) hours at least every two nights I'm not at my full capacity at all. I'm overly dramatic, anxious, depressed, irritable, and spacey. I can't initiate anything. I'm not asking for random suggestions from people who haven't experienced anything like this, I've had plenty of that before and it never helps. One thing I am curious about is the SAD light that I've seen talked about here before, since I notice that this problem is seasonal. Has anyone had any experience with that thing or know if it is any good for insomnia?

I have insomnia and the dr gave me Trazodone for it which works wonderfully. I'm also prone to depression, so the Trazodone is really killing two birds with one stone. I've tried tons of different medications (Ambien, Sonata, Lunesta, benzodiazepines, mood stabilizers because someone had a theory that I was really bipolar, Valerian root, melatonin.....) My dr likes Trazodone because you can keep increasing the dose to as high as you need to fall asleep effectively. None of the "sleep hygiene" advice crap has worked for me.

Now, I can't directly address your question about the SAD light therapy. However, I do have a hard time waking up when it's dark in the morning. There's no possible thing I can do to change that - it's never been different no matter how much I sleep or what meds I am taking for insomnia. I did buy an alarm clock that increases the amount of ambient light in the room while slowly raising the volume of the alarm. I bought this one from the discovery channel store..

http://shopping.discovery.com/product-61599.html

Hope this helps.

I haven't really had problems with insomnia in a couple years, but I used to have a lot of trouble with it. When I was in elementary school, I couldn't fall asleep no matter what I did, so I'd just lay in bed running fantasy scenarios through my head. In high school, I was running on 0-4 hours of sleep a night. It was the same for my first few jobs.

I read up on all of the sleep hygiene stuff, and I couldn't get it to work for me at first. It did help a little, though.

I think the biggest help was avoiding alcohol, caffeine, and nicotine. They say not to drink caffeine after noon, but that wasn't enough for me. I had to avoid it entirely. The same goes for alcohol, IMO.

The best advice I can give you is also the most difficult to follow. Don't worry about sleeping.

Another method that works for me is to drift off into a calm fantasy. I just let it take over, and then I wake up the next morning. It doesn't always work, but it's a much better way to give your mind something to do while you try to sleep than problem solving or worrying about stressful stuff.

In the end, I was finally able to get my sleep back on track (for the most part) by using melatonin. It was probably just the placebo effect, but in any case, it worked. I just took 1-3 1mg sublingual tabs as I went to bed, at the same time every night, and eventually my body took the hint. You wake up a little extra groggy, but it fades within 20-30 minutes. Miraculously, I didn't need any more melatonin after the first bottle.

I've only purchased one more bottle after that, and it did the job just as well as the first time.

Also, give yourself time to adapt. Try all the methods at once, and just try to be calm about it. Don't expect results, and don't give up if you don't see any improvement. It's a very personal, gradual process.

I wish you luck with this. It's really tough, and it's more or less impossible to expect success from using anyone else's suggestions. It's all up to you, in the end.

I go through bouts of it. They usually last a year or two where I'll be running on 2-4 hours of sleep. I get very frenetic and stop eating very much as well. I'll take a few mouth fulls and feel absolutely full and like I couldn't force myself to eat. Very strange since intellectually I know I need to eat more. Anyway, they usually pass. They seem to happen after big changes in my life. It isn't like I think about those things, but my mind is running in high gear and I can't shut it off. Like someone left the throttle wide open.

I used to get it a lot worse than I do now. What I did back when I got it really bad was take melatonin. Worked wonders.

Melatonin works very well for me when I have my occasional bout of insomnia.

I have extreme insomnia. Lately, I've been lucky to even get to sleep at night! And even luckier if it's before 10:00 AM. It's been like this since I think 2004.

I cant even remember the last time I got a good nights sleep... Lately Ive been getting to sleep between about 1 and 2 in the morning, and having to wake up at around 7 for TAFE (A 'stepping stone' to University if people did crap in high school)

I used to suffer from very bad insomnia, I would be lucky if I went to sleep before 4am. I have found taking 25mg Amitriptyline with 2.5mg of Prochlorperazine works very well.
Simon.

I not only suffer from insomnia myself, but my 17 month old son also does, so even if I'm able to sleep, he wakes me up. He wakes up anywhere from 2 to 10 times a night.

I am having an extra hard time sleeping lately b/c my husband told me recently that he expects to graduate this summer (PhD) THis is great news, since he is in his 5th year of graduate school (5 years is average for chemistry, he's not slow. )

So I am all worked up about this, even though it is months away b/c I don't know if he'll find a job. Surely he will, but WHERE will this job be? WHERE will we be moving? WHEN will we be moving? I'm going to start hyperventillating if I don't stop thinking about it, so I'm going to stop typing this.

i have some really bad insomnia if i have alot of stress, or i'm worrying about something. lately ive been waking up like clockwork at 3:30 am everymoring and staying awake untill sunrise, but i think thats because i just had surgury and i'm afraid i'm going to tear open my incison somehow in my sleep so i need to wake up to make shure everythings aok

I've been unable to fall asleep since 1969. I just lie there....HOUR AFTER HOUR.... bored...tired. It takes me 3-4 hours to fall asleep. Finally went to the Dr. out of desperation and he gave me SSRI's which helped a little. Putting a fan in the room helps too, gives me something to focus on and blocks outside noise.