What do you do when you can't sleep?

[keith ouellette]

I had a hard day today working on a fence for some extra money and didn't sleep all that well last night so i fell asleep about 9:30 pm which is a little early for me. Like every time I fall asleep early I wake up about 2:30 am which is odd because if I go to sleep at midnight I sleep for a good 7 hours but can only seem to sleep 5 hours if I go to bead earlier.

I watch a little tv and read a little. Can't make to much noise because the wife is still sound asleep so I find myself here on the creek which is usually nice.

Its the same 3 things I always do when I'm relaxing at night but when I do them at 3am when I should be asleep they all seem dreadfully boring

Why am I so board at this time in the morning when if it were 10 pm I'd be happy to read, watch tv or surf the net. What gives? I am so board.


Does anyone else have this problem? (its 4am and I'm still not tired. dang!)

And why does it say I posted at 5am when it was 4am in my area. 30min and one bowl of cereal later and I'm still board.

[Stephen Tashiro]

I see two possibilities.

A) If you are really wide awake, what you want to do is run the table saw or something that you can't do. TV, the web or reading seems too quiet an activity.

I suppose you should try something like cleaning up part of the house (quietly). Sort papers. Work on a design for something.

B) If you can't sleep because you napped a short time, drank a lot of coffee or cokes or are sick then you don't have enough energy to concentrate on reading or web surfing. (TV, you can probably handle.)

One sleep aid that I've used (years ago) was a strange arrangement where I had a pair of earphones that I could play one tape recording or radio program in one ear and another one in the other ear. It's best if both have people talking. Balance them so your mind can't focus on either presentation. That's puts me to sleep as well as most academic lectures.

[David Epperson]

And why does it say I posted at 5am when it was 4am in my area.
You need to change your time offset.
It's in the User CP area under "Edit Options" - scroll down to the "Date & Time Options" and you can change what your machine displays as the time. If you look at the very bottom of each screen, the current time is displayed as
All times are GMT +/-X. The time now is X:XX
but the GMT setting on the server also seems to be off - I should be at GMT -6 for Central time, but mine is that same hour off so I changed it to GMT -7 for the time being. I also had to turn the DST corrections off for it to take.

[Caspar Hauser]

Get up, let the dogs out, turn on kettle, as kettle boils the dogs come back in, give dogs a treat, make tea. Take tea (and dogs) back to bed/settee, it helps to rest even if you can't sleep, try an audio book/radio play with head phones, I just want to shout at the tv, therapeutic but hardly restful.

The time now is 06:54 est I'm posting in the future.

[Chris Kennedy]

I go through periods where I wake in the middle of the night, and I agree, it is a pretty boring time to be awake. I have found several remedies if I am going to try to go back to sleep:

1. Sleep in a different bed. I go into the guest bedroom usually. I would rather be in with my wife, but a different bed for whatever reason takes a little of the "I want to be asleep" stress.

2. Read an intense book. I tend to either read PD James or a linear algebra textbook (I'm a math prof). Both require concentration that your brain is not willing to commit. I start to nod off pretty quickly at that point (especially linear algebra -- it is so damn boring).

Otherwise, if I am awake, I do my office work. I always have stuff that needs to be typed up, so I will get my laptop and a warm blanket and get to work. Sometimes I get a lot done, and sometimes I feel like I may go back to sleep, in which case I do the above.

Cheers,

Chris

[Curt Harms]

i watch something that I can sort of get interested in but is not too stimulating. Watch something an hour long and set the TV's sleep timer for an hour. If I forget the sleep timer I wake to to some (loud) infomercial. Grrrr:mad:.

[Paul Ryan]

I go through that a couple of times a year. For a couple of weeks I just cant seem to sleep at night. I will toss and turn for hours until I finally do fall asleep and then I usually only end up getting 3-4 hours. What I have been doing lately when that happens is "self medicating". I get out the good old bottle of burbon. Mix myself 2 stiff ones and it usually puts me right to sleep like a baby. Tylenol PM and benadryl work too but usually I get up and feel like a was in a coma then. The booze works the best, not enough for a hang over, but just enought to sleep. If you need cola with your drink make sure you use cafine free. Other wise they off set each other.

[Steve Rozmiarek]

Best thing I have found for this is to have a baby in the house. You are always so tired from dealing with them at wierd hours that insomnia doesn't stand a chance!

[Michael Wetzel]

:

1. Sleep in a different bed.

You should suggest that defense for Tiger. :D


I hate when I wake up way too early. Not a whole lot you can do other than lay there or get up an do something.

[Mike Henderson]

Take something like Tylenol PM. Puts me to sleep within a half hour.

Mike

[Chris S Anderson]

The worst thing for me is worrying about sleeping when I can't sleep. It makes me more anxious and is self-defeating. So, the first thing I do is just accept that I cannot sleep. If it's because I am worried about something at work or another drama in my life, I just repeat a thing I learned from The Simpsons about problems: If there is something you can do about, there's no use in worrying, if there's nothing you can do about it, there's no use in worrying. This dose of reality usually puts my mind at ease.

If it's something physical, like I'm hyped up on caffeine or slept during the day or I am just not tired, then I accept that this is my time, and I can use it how I want. I could waste it by trying to go to sleep and getting nothing done, or I could use this time constructively. I am an English teacher, so for me, I can just make a reading test...which is more boring than it sounds ;), and that usually does the trick of making me sleepy.

If I know I am not going to bed anytime soon, I will read a spy novel or something like Eye of the Needle by Follett.

One thing I know for sure that does not work is getting on the internet or watching tv.

[keith ouellette]

..... If it's because I am worried about something at work or another drama in my life, I just repeat a thing I learned from The Simpsons about problems: If there is something you can do about, there's no use in worrying, if there's nothing you can do about it, there's no use in worrying. This dose of reality usually puts my mind at ease.....



v.

I know Nicole Simpson used to say that all the time about oj but look where it got her.

[Chris S Anderson]

I know Nicole Simpson used to say that all the time about oj but look where it got her.

Zing

It was Lisa, I am pretty sure, not Nicole or the brilliant Jessica.

[Jim Rimmer]

I used to use the booze trick to slow my mind down so I could get to sleep. Not a bad idea but I needed to cut down on my drinking so I asked my doctor for soemthing. I hedged the request with the idea that I didn't want a sedative. If I was going to drug myself, I would just continue the booze because I like the taste of Irish whiskey. He prescribed Rozarem (sp?), a melatonin exciter. Melatonin is what makes you sleepy. As I understand it, you have melatonin receptors and melatonin. Rozarem excites the melatonin and then it seeks the receptors and you go to sleep. No drowsiness or drugged out feeling.

I am not a doctor and do not play one on TV. Ask your doctor about this if you think it might work for you. I'm not even sure my description of how it works is correct. :rolleyes:

[Todd Trebuna]

Shameless plug for Melatonin. After 15 years of shift work, this was the best solution. Been taking it off and on for 12 years or so. No addiction, sleep fine when I don't take it. Good stuff. Especially the time release. There's several books on it, and several studies done.

[Dan Mitchell]

I find I can often keep my mind from concentrating on thoughts which are likely to keep me awake when I notice it may be heading in that direction by counting in 3's. 3, 6, 9, 12... , I rarely make it to 600. The added concentration required over 1, 2, 3 or 2, 4, 6 seems to work for me, requiring enough mental energy to keep my brain off troubling matters, but boring enough to put me out. Tryptophan is another effective OTC sleep aid, available at health food/supplement/vitamin stores.

[Stephen Tashiro]

There are well known aftermaths of not getting enough sleep. One that often strikes me the next day is that some musical tune starts playing over and over in my mind. Usually I don't know the exact words or music to a tune. Often I'm driven to looking up the darn thing on the web to get it straight!

[Brian Ashton]

I have a CD called Classical for those who hate classical. I rarely hear the end of it when I put it on. There are the odd times when my wife knows it's particularly sleepless night when she hears the CD start up again. I still get to sleep within about 3 of 4 songs but then wake up when the CD ends. So I hit play again and fall asleep again (my stereo doesn't have a feature that allows continuous play)

For some reason Pachelbel and Bach settles my mind and lets me sleep.

I've requested, if the eventual happens sooner than later, that Pachelbel's Canon in D be played as I die. The first time I heard it the first thought that came into my mind was that song would make dying fearless. Don't ask I don't get it either...

[Jon Lanier]

I like Ambien.:p

[Chris Kennedy]

I like Ambien.:p

Good stuff, Ambien.

[Belinda Barfield]

Another vote for melatonin if you can take it early enough. I am a very light sleeper and I frequently wake up somewhere between 3 and 4:30. Once awake I start thinking about work, or some other bit of trouble and can't seem to stop. So, I go to my mental quiet place which is a single chair on a deserted beach. I sit and stare at the waves until I fall asleep. Sometimes I build an elaborate fantasy in my mind. The effort of maintaining the visual images and managing the character dialogue works pretty well and sometimes even rolls over into a dream.

[Larry Frank]

I turn on an iPod connected to a speaker system and play old time radio all night. Currently, I have the complete CBS Radio Mystery Theatre and there are 1399 episodes each about 45 minutes. I often wake up in the night with my back hurting but the old time radio gives me something else to concentrate on rather than my back and I just listen for a bit and fall back to sleep (hopefully).

[Jacob Mac]

this might not be your thing, but I lift weights. Squats, Deadlifts, etc... Helps me get to sleep. Otherwise, I stay awake all night worrying about my job.

[Ed Griner]

Sleeping is great!! When I'm tired daytime,nighttime,anytime,I go to sleep.At any one time I have a million things to do,read a book,do woodwork,go out an check on the critters. The paper arrives about 2:30,then make a big cup of coffee,read the paper,go on the computer(SMC). My nearest neighbor is a Friends cemetery(no-complaints there).I do watch TV in the closed-captioned mode (no-noise). By this time I'm ready to go back to sleep,an hour or two hours later,I love afternoon naps. Sleep is a good thing,listen to your body. It seems my limit is about 4 hrs. Consider becoming nocturnal. Ed


PS:Being self employed allows flexibilty.eg

[keith jensen]

I'm on the plan Steve R. posted about. I am just getting past 2.5 years of infant/toddler sleep deprivation...hopefully the transition into toddler/toddler will reduce this a bit. I don't really have much first hand advice since I've never had much trouble sleeping (outside of the kids waking me up). I think a couple people mentioned booze. Seems like you could drink some red wine, get the health benefits and maybe some sleep too. Two glasses per day they say!

[Pat Germain]

I know everyone is different when it comes to sleep. But, I'm surprised so many people can use TV and radio to get to sleep. Good golly, if there's a TV or radio on, I cannot sleep at all no matter how tired I am.

Some of the best advice I've heard to avoid insomnia is to use your bed for only two things: sleep and, well, you know. When people read, watch TV, eat and do puzzles in bed, it makes it harder to settle into sleep.

Vitamins help me to sleep. I don't know why. If I take a multivitamin shortly before bed, I usually go to sleep quickly and stay asleep.

When vitamins don't work, I take a Benadryl, or a generic equivelent. I asked my doctor about this and she said it was a good idea for occasional use. She said if I took it often it wouldn't work as well. But boy, that stuff almost puts me in a coma!

My wife wanted me to try Tylenol PM once when I couldn't sleep. That stuff just made me feel weird and not sleepy.

Of course, I think we could all try to slow down and relax a bit in our everyday lives. I know this is tough or impossible for some people. Strangely, I find if I take a 20 minute cat nap during the day, I actually sleep better at night. Maybe it relieves stress. Maybe the Europeans figured this out a long time ago since have a siesta or tea time each afternoon. :)

[Joe Mioux]

It happens every night for the past 20 years.

I usually log onto the computer for an hour then go back to bed.

[keith ouellette]

I turn on an iPod connected to a speaker system and play old time radio all night. Currently, I have the complete CBS Radio Mystery Theatre and there are 1399 episodes each about 45 minutes. I often wake up in the night with my back hurting but the old time radio gives me something else to concentrate on rather than my back and I just listen for a bit and fall back to sleep (hopefully).

we used to have a radio station near by that played old radio shows at night. I listened to things like the jack benny show (I loved Rochester), fibber magee and molly, burns and allen, and some others comedies. It never put me to sleep though. I thought they were funny and actually woke my wife up a few time from laughing.