Chronic Insomnia

sarah7591

Do anyone of you have chronic insomnia? I have this and tried so many different things and medications. Nothing helps. I am at my wits end. Everything I read tell of the negative effects of lack of sleep. I just lay in bed for hours! Feeling so frustrated!

88olds

Can’t fall asleep or can’t stay asleep? How’s your sleep hygiene? Pre bed routine? Bedtime? Caffeine intake? How much screen time you putting in and how close to bed?

Sleep is an issue for me. I’ve put in considerable effort and gotten some results but still have bad nights.

NerdyScienceGrl

Another question — is it because your brain doesn’t shut off? I go through insomnia fairly frequently — sometimes mental; sometime unexplained.

corinasue1143

Yes, but like 88olds, after working on it, it’s much better. I still get an average 6 hours, and would definitely prefer 8.

sarah7591

Thank you so much for your interest and replies. I really don't know where to begin. Last night I went to bed at 9pm and laid awake until 3am. Woke up at 6:30am and feeling so tired. When I get such little sleep I can become very depressed and just want to cry all day. I retired at 62 (64 now) because I was so sleep starved at work that I never felt like I was all there. It was hard and caused me much anxiety. I thought for sure once I retired that would be magic and I would sleep like a baby. Not! My brain sometimes just does not shut off. I lay in bed and think about everything ...everything! Some nights I can fall asleep in a matter of two hours but then wake up after two hour and am awake for hours. Some nights like last night I can't fall to sleep even though I am very tired.
I generally eat healthy and exercise daily. I force myself to exercise because some days I just do not want to. Sometimes being so tired I will binge eat. That happens about once a week and usually makes me very depressed.
I do drink 3 cups of coffee in the morning. That helps me. I have tried going off all caffeine and it did not help. Only made me feel very flat and unmotivated.
I do watch TV before bed and sometimes when I wake up I will get on my Ipad and read ( I have a night filter on it). I just cannot lay there for hours and hours doing nothing.
I wonder if my cortisol levels are high? I have always had problems with anxiety but seriously thought once I retired I would not worry so much.
My doctor recently prescribed me trazadone and gabapentin to try. Neither helped. I was hoping they would work well since he said they were non addicting. I've tried melatonin ...no luck.
I had a Dr. give me Lunesta (benzo?). They worked great! They are addicting and I sure do not want to be addicted to that!
If you have read this far....thank you.

nooshi713

Yes I do and have also tried many things which haven’t helped. I am convinced my shift work in ER caused the problem. Have you talked to your doctor about it?

sarah7591

nooshi713 wrote: »

Yes I do and have also tried many things which haven’t helped. I am convinced my shift work in ER caused the problem. Have you talked to your doctor about it?

Yes I sure have. GP prescribed the gabapentin and the trazadone (don't help). Like I said the lunesta helped but it is addicting. Lunesta was prescribed to me by a psychiatrist. I really do not want to take anything addicting. I found myself wanting to take the Lunesta every night.
I should mention this really all started when I went through menopause.

NerdyScienceGrl

Like you, I didn’t want to take a prescription sleep medication. I had taken them previously — between the dependence and mental fog it wasn’t worth continuing. Stress and pain are the causes of my insomnia/lack of sleep the vast majority of time, so I’ve developed habits and strategies around those causes. Things like:

No caffeine after 12 pm
Making sure I get in some sort of physical activity each day even if it’s a short walk/stretching
Setting a bedtime during the week
About an hour before bed, I do some gentle yoga to clear my mind and stretch out tense muscles (helps with pain too) from the day (for example: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=v7SN-d4qXx0)
Trying to disengage from TV, phone, etc — electronics in general — at least 30 minutes before bed (this doesn’t happen frequently but it’s the goal)
No reading or electronics use in the bedroom

If I’m having a rough night,
I will do a combo of full body relaxation exercises and deep breathing in bed — it engages my brain in something besides whatever might be on my mind
I give myself 45 minutes to an hour to go to sleep, if Im still awake, I get up and go read/do something that engages my brain (not electronics) and isn’t too stimulating in another room — sometimes just laying down and getting comfortable elsewhere gets me to sleep too. There are nights I may have to do this 2 or 3 times. If I wake up in the middle of the night and can’t get back to sleep, I get out of bed after 15 minutes and do the above. I find this helps to stop the, “Why can’t I sleep” frustration loop that plays over and over in my head.

The biggest game changer for me was having my anxiety treated. It certainly didn’t fix everything, but I go through less frequent stints of not being able to sleep.

sarah7591

Thank you so much NerdyScience (i love science!). I will try the yoga tonight as well as some of your other tips. I also watched an interesting Ted Talk (youtube) on how to trick your body into falling asleep. Going to try that as well!

callsitlikeiseeit

i take 2 tylenol PM (the generic kind). actually right now motrin pm - the tylenol reacts to one of my prescription meds so i cant take it. both work fine for me though. better than any other OTC sleeping thing ive tried. melatonin has zero effect on me. unisom type stuff works, but makes me feel like crap the next day. and i really dont want prescription sleep aids.

that combined with some of my other prescriptions that i take at bedtime seem to be a wonderful combination. an hour after i take them... im out. but even alone, anywhere from an hour to 2 hours, depending on how much i 'encourage' the quiet sleepy feelings. I still only sleep 6 hours at the most (unless i decide to add in my anxiety pills, then i can tack on an extra 3 hours LOL). my average is 5 hours a night. But im good on that.

im one of those people who has to have a tv on to fall asleep, even if its so quiet i cant hardly hear it. it is on a timer so it turns off automatically 2 hours after you turn it on. a bit annoying if you are up and actually watching it but thats fine LOL

a lot of people find that creating a bedtime routine helps them get into the right mindset. A warm bath, a cup of hot tea (no caffeine), meditation, prayer (if thats your thing), journaling to get the thoughts out of your head and somewhere else, a pattern you can do every night in that last hour before bed to help you wind down and prepare your body for sleep.

NerdyScienceGrl

sarah7591 wrote: »

Thank you so much NerdyScience (i love science!). I will try the yoga tonight as well as some of your other tips. I also watched an interesting Ted Talk (youtube) on how to trick your body into falling asleep. Going to try that as well!

Good luck!

I will say, as odd as it feels to get out of bed and do something else and go back later, it has been beneficial for me. It absolutely breaks the frustration cycle. I figured if I’m going to just lay there and stress about not sleeping, I might as well do something with that time that is much more soothing.