What do you do when you can't sleep?

[Edwin]

Some people count sheep from what I understand, and that should put anyone to sleep! Some of you may be so exhausted from long hours of working that you may be just dead asleep all night long. There was a time when that was my situation.

Often when I can't sleep I get out of bed, start up the computer and get on the internet for a short time. Then I feel so tired that I decide it is time to crawl back into bed. That is what I usually do when I wake up in the night and don't go back to sleep right away. They say that you shouldn't fight to try to sleep if you are not sleeping, as you are not relaxed enough to sleep, so you just toss and turn as your back is tense, and by getting up, reading, or getting on the internet you put yourself back into a relaxed mode, where you have no choice but to go back to sleep.

Last night against my own better judgement I stayed in bed. I relived my flight to the Philippines last fall. I sat there watching the altitude, ground speed, and map of the citied on the ground as we flew over them. It was Asiana Airlines, and I thought about them bringing food and beverages constantly for us to drink. Going over I was so interested in the flight details and the cities we were flying over that I didn't sleep at all. But, just dreaming about that again made me go right back to sleep. It was 3:30 a.m. The reason I didn't get out of bed was that I knew we were planning to attend church this morning, and I didn't want to sleep through church. Also I thought about our dinner celebration we were all having, and I wanted to feel alert and well for that. My stomach did hurt before dinner, but I figured out as I started eating that it was because I needed to eat, because as soon as I put food in it, my stomach felt fine. Our Post Master friend and I both fell asleep while we were supposed to be visiting with everyone, but dinner was over, and rest was need, so we sat there and slept off and on. That was the finish of a great dinner celebration, which was the 4th of July a day early!

[crisipicada]

Actually I have an insomnia. Sometimes I wake up at 2am and can not go to sleep then. Sometimes I go back to sleep at 4pm and it is hard for me to wake up early before work That is why I need to go to bed late so that I have a deep sleep but then I sleep early at 8 or 9pm

Someone can advise what to do so that i wont get insomnia?

[Edwin]

Actually I have an insomnia. Sometimes I wake up at 2am and can not go to sleep then. Sometimes I go back to sleep at 4pm and it is hard for me to wake up early before work That is why I need to go to bed late so that I have a deep sleep but then I sleep early at 8 or 9pm

Someone can advise what to do so that i wont get insomnia?

I am the same. If I go to bed too early I will wake up in the middle of the night, and then it is hard to go back to sleep. If I go to bed later I will usually sleep all night. If I am really tired without enough sleep I will go to sleep sitting in a chair, or anywhere. I very seldom ever lay down in the middle of the day because I will sleep longer than I want to. If I sit and sleep I will not sleep as long, but enough.

[jadegil6]

Actually I have an insomnia. Sometimes I wake up at 2am and can not go to sleep then. Sometimes I go back to sleep at 4pm and it is hard for me to wake up early before work That is why I need to go to bed late so that I have a deep sleep but then I sleep early at 8 or 9pm

Someone can advise what to do so that i wont get insomnia?

Crisi,
This is some information that I have gathered for you concerning insomnia: The number one cause is caffeine intake, but also can be caused by low blood sugar, indigestion, lack of calcium and magnesium, anxiety, poor diet, lack of excercise, and food intolerance. To help overcome insomnia you should follow these tips:
Set your body's biological clock with sunlight by spending at least 15 minutes in bright early morning sunlight...between 7 to 9 AM.
Drink only decaf tea or coffee.
Don't let your bedroom be an office...use your bedroom for sleeping so that you will associate sleep with that room. Avoid using a TV or a computer in your bedroom.
Get vigorous excercise on a regular basis...research shows that those who excercise fall asleep faster and sleep longer than people who do not excercise. 9.Exercise regularly. As exercising increases alertness and raises body temperature, doing it around 4 hours before time makes the body temperature fall down during sleep, facilitating faster sleep. However, exercising close to bedtime can stimulate you and disrupt your sleep patterns.
Too vigorous (to exhaustion) exercises must also be avoided. Our body recharges and repairs itself during sleep and the more vigorous and demanding your exercise, the better sleep you need for your body to recharge to its optimum. But as sleep is poor in insomniacs, their body cannot recharge itself and if the routine is continued, fatigue can result in.
Go to bed at the same time every night; drink a cup of honeyed herbal tea (herbal tea with a spoon full of honey stirred into it)
30 to40 minutes before bedtime, or a cup of chamomile tea; don't drink alcohol close to bedtime; for many people drinking warm milk helps.
If you can't get to sleep, then get up and go to another room and read or play solitaire or listen to music. Or lay in bed with your eyes open and look at the shadows in your room.
Comfort yourself with this thought: "I'm suffering now, but it won't last forever. In the next day or two, things will return to normal, and I'll be sleeping peacefully again".
Meditate for 15 minutes or so before going to bed. Majority of the sleep problems is due to the inability of our mind to be able to relax and be in the present moment. In one study conducted, the researchers found that our mental state during bedtime determined the levels of cortisol (stress hormone) in the blood the following morning. So those who were stressed during bedtime had high levels of cortisol compared to those with a blissful state of mind prior to sleep. So if you spend your bedtime planning and worrying about the next day, your mind dutifully obliges by staying busy throughout your sleep! Meditation is only way you can keep your mind under control. Therefore the more you meditate, the less busier your mind will be and the more restful your sleep will be.
Drink lots of water. According to Chinese medicine waking up many times during the night can be due to weakness of the Jing which is stored in the kidneys. Drinking plenty of water flushes out toxins and help support the kidneys. However, minimize your intake of water after 6 pm to prevent sleep disturbance due to need for urinating.


Here are some more natural remedies collected from various sources that will help you sleep better:

1.Ensure that the room you sleep in has adequate ventilation and is peaceful.
2.Do a small prayer before retiring to reduce stress.
3.Reading good, inspiring books will help you sleep better.
4.Two drops of sesame/castor oil applied to foot and eyelids will make you sleepy.
5.A blue colored bed lamp will calm the brain and induce peaceful sleep.
6.Certain classical music ragas like Bhairavi can work wonders on hard core insomniacs.
7.Soak your feet in warm water for ten minutes before retiring.
8.Take deep breaths. With each breath you inhale, smile and imagine you breathe in happiness and positive energy, and with each outgoing breath imagine you are exhaling stress, worries and tension


Hope these suggestions will help a little.

[Edwin]

Thank you very much, Michael, for the helpful sleep suggestions! They all make sense. I do the milk and honey thing each evening with a little peanutbutter thrown in for good measure. i heard that a long time ago about too much activity just before bedtime. Meditating on God, His goodness, and His word will help. I know from personal experience about the negative effects on sleep that worrying about the next day can have! It is very true about the importance of exercise each day. I agree about the negative effect on sleeping that caffine can have, and I don't drink coffee or tea. If I am offered a natural tea, I will drink it and enjoy it, but I don't as a rule care about drinking tea. I like some of the natural flavored teas. We have camomile growing all around our house, but it is dried up now, since it has not rained for a few days, and has been hot for part of that time. Going to bed at the same time is important, and I pretty much do that all the time. I never thought of setting the time clock by being in the sunlight, but that makes sense. I have my window partially covered over where the sun comes up, but it shines through anyway, and that is probably partially what wakes me up.

These are very good, positive, and helpful ideas, and I know that Crisi will appreciate them, and anyone else who suffers from insomnia.

[crisipicada]

Thank you so much for the information about insomnia.

[Edwin]

My wife, Carol, often complains that she can't fall asleep like I do. Usually my head hits the pillow, and I am sound asleep within 5 minutes. If I am tired I often fall asleep sitting in my chair, and I would rather sleep in my chair during the day time than to lay down. I never lay down during the daytime because I will sleep too long if I do, and I would rather sleep at night than during the day.

[Edwin]

I have heard that when people get old the first part of the paper they read are the obituaries. I had an uncle who came to live with us for a short time before he died. He came back to where he had been when he was a young guy. He lamanted that all the people he knew as a young guy were dead, and he was mostly right, being in his 80s. I find myself valuing the obituaries because I was born right down over the hill from here, and went to school earlier on in the next valley over the mountains until I was in my 9th grade, and then I went to school just 2 miles from where I was born. My Dad migrated here from near the Washington/Oregon border, and my Mom's family has been here since the early 1900s, so we have a lot of history here. Many times when I read the obituaries I either knew the person who died, or I knew some of their family, so it is like a walk down memory lane. It is happy to remember, but sad when I think that they are gone. But that is life; all of us are going; just not at the same time. It simply makes us think about meeting God, and being prepared for that day. I saw the obituary of a person who was a couple of years younger than I a few weeks ago. She was in the high school band with me. She and her sister were good freinds of my sister. She was nice, and I liked her as a friend. She was very talented in music and taught music in a school not far from Seattle until her death from an anorism sp?. It was somewhat of a shock because I remember her as a young attractive girl. She was the County Fair Queen, and of course I was gone by that time, so I didn't even know that until I read her obituary. I found out that she was related to some people that my family knew, and my family even rented a house from her relatives to stay in town the winter I was born. I read an obituary last night, and the lady's name was Johnson, which didn't mean a lot to me, but some of her adult children either never married or they kept their maiden name because the obituary said that she was preceded in death by her daughter Claudia Johnson. The Claudia Johnson I knew was in my grade in high school, and she was a very nice person, and a talented pianist. I admired her abilities at the time, probably because I had tried to learn to play the piano, and it didn't work very well for me. I have since found out that you have to be willing to put the effort into it to learn to play, and I thought I should be able to learn to play the piano with much less effort. I read just a few days ago someone saying that it takes 10,000 hours to learn to play the piano smoothly. I got the impression they werre saying after already knowing how to play the piano it takes another 10,000 hours to learn to play it well. Using the internet I thought I might be able to find out about her death, but you know what, I think she is still alive, because the name Claudia Johnson is quite common, and none of the palces and dates matche us for her to have been int he same school I was in. Judgeing from the age of her mother, I think this Cladia Johnson is abou the same age as the one I knew and that is what first led me to think it was her. Anyway I woke up thinking abou this and I couldn't sleep until i got back up, read her obituary again, and after searching, I determine that it swas not here, adn the Claudia Johnson I knew is probably still alive somewhere. In 2 more years we will have our 50th class reunion, and even though I have never gone to one of them, and I have not seen most of the people I graduated with, I may go to the 50th class reunion.

[edeline]

I am just watching movies when I can't sleep. Watching movies make me sleep,,hehe

[Edwin]

Edeline, the last job we had we worked pretty hard, and we were tired a lot of the time. I stayed up as late as I thought I dared, and I still got up early enough to be on the job when I needed to. The last 2 years we lived right where we worked. Carol was suffering from being worn out, and a lot of times she would have to go up stairs where we lived and sleepl both of her breaks, as well as her lunch break to make it through her work day. She was past ready to retire, and decided that she was just not phycially capable of working at a job any more. A lot of times I would fall asleep siting onthe piano bench playing the piano. I was just tired from too many hours, but after a night's rest I was ready to go the following day. We stopped watching movies because we would put on a movie, and shortly into the movie both of us would be asleep. There was one movie we tried to watch several times, but we only saw the first part, as after that we were asleep. Now that we are retired, Carol sleeps as long as she needs to any time, and I do pretty much the same. I stay up normally until midnight, and then I am usually up and going between 6:30 and 8:00 a.m. This morning I got up at 5:00 a.m. and now I am stil going close to midnight. I did sit in my chair and slept for a little while, but I am doing great this night. I am now alternatively churning butter and playing the piano!