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Why Can’t I Sleep?

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Re: Why Can’t I Sleep?

#131

Post by iand »

koheripbal wrote: post #117
codingdave wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Anyone with chronic insomnia can tell you none of that really works. True, but that is a self-fulfilling definition. For most people, that advice will work. For the minority for whom it does not work, they have chronic insomnia. It does not invalidate the advice, it just means that some people are out of the norm and need something else. That being said, I agree with you. We all would be healthier if we'd just slee…

I found something that works for me. One of the things that prevents adults from sleeping is worrying about life problems. Getting your brain to shut up about problems that you cannot fix at night is the problem. My trick is to listen (not watch) to old television shows ...all night. I selected a few hundred hours of old television that'd I'd seen many times before, got a pair of very comfortable ear buds to sleep wi…

I just put on a twitch stream and listen along until I fall asleep. As you say it just allows my brain to switch off and allow me to sleep.

Re: Why Can’t I Sleep?

#132

Post by koheripbal »

syspec wrote: post #126
koheripbal wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I found something that works for me. One of the things that prevents adults from sleeping is worrying about life problems. Getting your brain to shut up about problems that you cannot fix at night is the problem. My trick is to listen (not watch) to old television shows ...all night. I selected a few hundred hours of old television that'd I'd seen many times before, got a pair of very comfortable ear buds to sleep wi…

That's exactly what I do! I slowly switched to listening to an audio book with my eyes closed. But I am with you, old tv shows where I already know the ending are distracting enough not to think about tomorrow, but since I've seen them already I don't stay awake to find out what happens

New content keeps me awake.

...but it also cannot be the same content every night, so I have a few hundred hours of several old shows hosted on my Plex server that I play each night.

It's novel enough that it keeps my brain occupied, but not so new that I care about missing anything.

It's a nice sweet spot.

My next step is selecting very specific episodes that I think have good stories that I actually want to reinforce. I find I really internalize certain scenes if I happen to be in the correct part of my sleep cycle while it's playing.

Re: Why Can’t I Sleep?

#133

Post by fighterpilot »

jillesvangurp wrote: post #62
sarsway wrote: post #31

Always the same old advise. Sleep hygiene, exercise, caffeine. Anyone with chronic insomnia can tell you none of that really works. For me it's always been impossible to fall into a regular day/night routine, it's actually whenever I try to force it I'm starting to rapidly feel worse. So the solution has been to just flow with it, I sleep when I can, stay awake otherwise. It's fine and I feel good, the real problem t…

There are a few things that actually make things worse that lead people to get stuck in a negative spiral. Basically alcohol makes you drowsy and helps you fall asleep. But you wake up dehydrated, not very well rested, and in some cases hungover. People drink coffee to fix that, which makes it harder to sleep. Stress levels feed into that as well as it leads to drinking and other ways for people to relieve stress. So…

I stop drinking water 2 hours before bed so I don't need to pee while lying down trying to sleep

Re: Why Can’t I Sleep?

#134

Post by iandinwoodie »

StavrosK wrote: post #66
unishark wrote: post #36

> ...extreme night owls (who might naturally sleep, for example, from 2 to 10 a.m.)... Uh what's the next adjective after "extreme"? This reminds me of companies with so-called "flex time" where you have the option to come in as late as 9 if you want to.

> Uh what's the next adjective after "extreme"? Yeah, seriously. What's my 6 AM to 2 PM schedule? Extremer?

If 90's marketing taught me anything it's that you triple the x's.

Exxxtreme

Re: Why Can’t I Sleep?

#135

Post by disease »

rapsey wrote: post #5
Clampower wrote: post #4

Since about three weeks ago I cannot sleep. It’s very strange. I know the feeling of anxiety and how it leads to not sleeping, it’s something I’ve had in the past at very stressful jobs. I’ve learned techniques to deal with this, like breathing and mindfulness. But right now this feels different. I’m tired, I’m lying in bed, and I don’t have any stressful thoughts. Yet somehow I just don’t fall asleep. It feels like…

Yes and it was a magnesium deficiency. Try a pill with a good amount of magnesium (400+ mg). Jamieson magnesium + vitamin d 500 for instance: https://www.jamiesonvitamins.com/products/magnesium-d3

I had severe bouts of anxiety and insomnia about a decade ago and by far the biggest improvement I saw was when I started taking magnesium supplements.

Re: Why Can’t I Sleep?

#136

Post by pindab0ter »

koheripbal wrote: post #117
codingdave wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Anyone with chronic insomnia can tell you none of that really works. True, but that is a self-fulfilling definition. For most people, that advice will work. For the minority for whom it does not work, they have chronic insomnia. It does not invalidate the advice, it just means that some people are out of the norm and need something else. That being said, I agree with you. We all would be healthier if we'd just slee…

I found something that works for me. One of the things that prevents adults from sleeping is worrying about life problems. Getting your brain to shut up about problems that you cannot fix at night is the problem. My trick is to listen (not watch) to old television shows ...all night. I selected a few hundred hours of old television that'd I'd seen many times before, got a pair of very comfortable ear buds to sleep wi…

What would you recommend for comfortable earbuds?

Re: Why Can’t I Sleep?

#137

Post by swader999 »

koheripbal wrote: post #117
codingdave wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Anyone with chronic insomnia can tell you none of that really works. True, but that is a self-fulfilling definition. For most people, that advice will work. For the minority for whom it does not work, they have chronic insomnia. It does not invalidate the advice, it just means that some people are out of the norm and need something else. That being said, I agree with you. We all would be healthier if we'd just slee…

I found something that works for me. One of the things that prevents adults from sleeping is worrying about life problems. Getting your brain to shut up about problems that you cannot fix at night is the problem. My trick is to listen (not watch) to old television shows ...all night. I selected a few hundred hours of old television that'd I'd seen many times before, got a pair of very comfortable ear buds to sleep wi…

I'm going to try this. Maybe start with Bob Ross.

Re: Why Can’t I Sleep?

#138

Post by ta1234567890 »

sarsway wrote: post #31

Always the same old advise. Sleep hygiene, exercise, caffeine. Anyone with chronic insomnia can tell you none of that really works. For me it's always been impossible to fall into a regular day/night routine, it's actually whenever I try to force it I'm starting to rapidly feel worse. So the solution has been to just flow with it, I sleep when I can, stay awake otherwise. It's fine and I feel good, the real problem t…

> the real problem though is the schedule the world runs on.

Yes!

People have different circadian rhythms. Also teenagers tend to naturally be night owls. But the world doesn’t care much.

Even having schedule flexibility at work, if you have kids that you need to take to school, then you have to follow their schedule.

Re: Why Can’t I Sleep?

#139

Post by swader999 »

Ozzie_osman wrote: post #76
sarsway wrote: post #31

Always the same old advise. Sleep hygiene, exercise, caffeine. Anyone with chronic insomnia can tell you none of that really works. For me it's always been impossible to fall into a regular day/night routine, it's actually whenever I try to force it I'm starting to rapidly feel worse. So the solution has been to just flow with it, I sleep when I can, stay awake otherwise. It's fine and I feel good, the real problem t…

Just as one data point here, cutting caffeine after noon fixed my insomnia back in college. So it works for at least some people. I'm sure it doesn't work for everyone. So I'm one of the lucky ones. The other thing that seems to have helped me has been allowing natural light into my bedroom. I used to black out my windows and sleep in, then wake up disoriented since my bedroom was pitch black. Now, the sunrise wakes…

Cutting after mid day is wise. Every liver clears caffeine differently. There's a threshold where your liver won't actively process caffeine if you don't drink enough. For me, I sleep better on two cups in the morning but just one will keep me up all night.

Re: Why Can’t I Sleep?

#140

Post by handrous »

bloqs wrote: post #91

I have yet to meet someone who complains about insomnia who actually accurately follows all of the advice. Notably usually absent or poorly followed: - waking up early, at the exact same time, every day. - as SOON as you get up, you need to eat a heavy breakfast of fats and protiens with as few carbs as possible. Some people think they are special snowflakes who "have never been able to eat in the morning", you need…

If we were looking at kids with sleep trouble who stayed up late with bright screens blasting hyper-stimulative entertainment and carnival-bright indoor room lighting, and we believed that sleep quality and quantity had gotten worse for kids over the decades as room lighting had gotten brighter (y'all seen a '50s or earlier house with electric lighting that hasn't been re-wired? They're not lit up like a modern house, usually, and lower-light set-ups continued to be fairly common, if less the overwhelming norm, through at least the 70s) and electronic screens per house had moved from "none" to "one tiny one" to "several per person, in many sizes", the very first thing we'd do is cut off their electronic screen-having devices—all of them, not just cell phones, all of them—and lighting brighter than ~100 lumen per room strictly at sundown. "Well of course they can't sleep!", we'd say, tutting and looking on with the authority and perspective of parents.

"But I'm having trouble sleeping and I'm bored, can't I just watch a couple episodes of something?" they'd say. NO, we'd say. "Well how about I work on some homework on my computer?" NO. "Alright, well I guess I'll text my friends" NO. "But..." NO.

And if sleep across the population of kids had indeed been getting worse over that time period, I'd bet that'd fix it for most of them.

We have trouble enforcing rules like that on ourselves, though, and maybe even trouble recognizing what's surely suspect #1 in any kind of declining sleep quality epidemic.

(as for any "tricks" we're all sharing, the ones I've had success with are: a loud and powerful fan for air circulation and noise-masking; keeping the thermostat for our bedrooms quite low at night, even in the Summer; heavy curtains; and a weighted blanket, which if nothing else is very good at keeping any sheets or other blankets under it in place all night—and yes, I'm terrible at sticking to the obvious solution above, just like everyone else, but damned if it doesn't work like a charm on my stupid "I think I might have an abnormal sleep cycle LOL yeah, must be that, not all the low-effort hyper-stimulative entertainment" ass)

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