Sleep Suggestions

My nightly routine is to take a melatonin, and get into bed. Watch some tv until I start to feel sleepy. Then I put on a progressive relaxation video on YouTube, put on a sleep mask and am normally out before the video is over. When I have a hard time staying asleep, I will drink some skullcap tea before I begin my routine.

I've not had that much trouble sleeping for most of my life, but it's getting harder as I get older. It doesn't seem to matter that much if I read stuff on my phone with the brightness turned down. (News articles put me right out, usually.)

If there's something on my mind, it can keep me up. To get me to focus on something different, I'll listen to an audiobook. Actually, I'd like to find headphones that are comfortable in bed so it's easier to do that. I like the idea of a guided meditation instead of the book.

brandondanieley wrote: »

Does anyone take anything not usually known about to help them sleep or do anything specific that isn’t widely talked about to help them get good rest?

I set a bed time and wake up time and try to stick to it within an hour or so. If I can't get to sleep within 20 minutes I do a reset and get up for a short while (no phone, no TV, no bright lights). If my mind is all over the place then I try meditation practices to let those thoughts go while in bed (the "what ifs" will keep me up for hours and its not worth it). I don't eat right before bed try to give it 2-3 hours before sleep plus I stay away from acid reflux foods. No caffeine after 2pm. We also try to keep our bedroom as dark as possible (black out curtains, dim clock lights, cover any bright LEDS). We also have an air purifier (all year) and a fan that we use in the summer time that adds white noise to the room. We also keep our bedroom quite cool which seems to help as well.

I've also accepted that for me its normal to wake up in the middle of the night a couple of times so I don't stress and fall back to sleep faster.

After getting sleep studies and being diagnosed with a sleep disorder, trying different medications, etc, my therapist actually gave me the best approach.

I have anxiety. And when I lay my head down, I have a lot of thoughts I can't shut down. And I try to convince myself to turn them off to sleep.

My therapist suggested I not try to sleep. She said if I wasn't tired, to keep up and not go to bed until I was. This led to me staying awake until 4am the first night and surviving the next day on three hours of sleep. This continued on for a few days, making sure I got up and stayed awake no matter how tired I was. I soon got tired a bit earlier. And eventually, I got up to getting five hours. Those five hours had me feeling better than eight with melatonin, ambien, or anything else I'd tried.

Now I get about six hours of sleep a night, and although I'm still tired, I'm less tired once I stopped putting pressure on myself to sleep

Tart cherry juice is supposed to be a sleep aid. For me it is about the ritual - like having a “nightcap” but without the sleep disrupting properties of alcohol. Also I fall asleep with the TV but my husband can’t stand it so I started listening to a podcast or an audiobook that I had already heard so that it didn’t matter when I fell asleep.

I'm on my fourth week of reducing the number of hours a night I'm sleeping - for the first time in my entire life (not joking) - but it has required a few very specific changes to my routines to make it possible.

1) I have my phone auto-start the blue light filter at least an hour before I'm heading towards bed
2) Room temp needs to be fairly cool
3) After getting ready for bed, I prep and drink some "sleepy time" or chamomile tea while reading a paper book for 20-30 min in bed prior to sleeping, with a lamp that has a warm tint light bulb
4) Consistently ensure the alarm goes off at the same time
5) Consistently head to bed at the same time
6) TV off at least 45 minutes before sleep (and I refuse to put one in my bedroom)
7) On weekends I don't sleep in too late - I may not set an alarm, but if I wake up at 6:30 or 7 (or whenever) I get up and work on that day's critical tasks (such as reading my development book, or working on a side gig) even if the bf is still sleeping for awhile
8) I stick to my morning routine, and don't hit the snooze (although I do set two alarms 15 minutes apart to give myself a few minutes to wake up prior to jumping out of bed, but just in case I doze off again...)
9) No caffeine after lunch
10) No getting on my phone during the night (if I do wake up) or scrolling through things just before bed
11) No getting on the phone first thing in the morning, either
12) I allow a 20 minute afternoon nap if I'm feeling a bit tired (this one is new, not 100% sold on it yet)
13) Room is kept fairly dark outside of some natural moonlight that gets in the high window in the vaulted ceiling - there's a light in my closed closet that allows enough to make my way to the bathroom during the night, but all other lights (including the LED on the automatic cat feeder) are covered/turned so I can't see them from the bed

I've been able to cut back the amount of sleep per night by ~1.5-2 hours/night, which is a lot of extra time in my week! My sleep quality is MUCH better, but the key is sticking to these things so that I get higher quality sleep since I'm cutting back on quantity. If I don't follow the routine my quality goes down and then I don't function on that amount of sleep...

Mind you, my entire life (I'm 43) I was convinced I needed a minimum of 8, and was better off with 9-9.5 hours/night. Every time I got less more than a day in a row I'd be falling asleep, dragging, making poor decisions, and it was almost dangerous to drive later in the day I'd be so tired. I would take an over the counter fairly strong sleep aid if I was finding myself waking up rather than sleeping since it was so "imperative" that I get the sleep.

JbeanR0212 wrote: »

I don’t have a trouble going to sleep but my deep sleep registers very low. I‘ve always felt like my heart is racing often when I awake (even without an alarm) and at times when I awake at night. Recently bought a fitness backs and my resting heart rate during sleep takes frequent dips and climbs from 42-98 BPM. Wondering if there are others out there like me & how/if you’ve improved your sleep quality?

Have you talked to a doctor about this?