Anyone know a good cure for insomnia??? Other than prescriptions or reading my old stats book? I've had trouble sleeping for years, but this week has been really bad. I feel like I'm a zombie just barely stumbling through life...
I've tried teas, tai-chi, and just about everything else...
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Best thing to sleep well is exercise. This is hard to do in when it's so cold out, but as soon as the weather warms up, try taking an afternoon walk for about an hour or more. If you can walk somewhere nice, like a park area, then it is very relaxing and it settles you right down later that night.
I have taken Melatonin. It gives you that lazy sunday morning under the warm covers feel, but it wears off after a couple of hours and if I wake up, I still have a little trouble sleeping.
My wife has much more trouble sleeping than I, and she has taken some of the new prescription drugs that you see advertised, but she doesn't like them and claims that you still don't feel rested afterwards.
I walk everywhere I go, which means that when you factor in walking to and from work (not the most relaxing place), I usually put in 3-4 miles a day, and then I walk a mile or two at work as well.
I've tried melatonin. It helps me get to sleep, but like you said, it doesn't help me stay asleep. The slightest noise, or a cat sticking her nose in my face, and I'm wide awake.
You can't count walking to, from and at work, really. Everyone does that to a certain degree. I mean walking for pleasure. I started walking around a local lake - three miles. I did it at brisk pace all spring and summer until daylight savings ended. Walking and looking at things that were not work related and getting tired from just doing something fun let me sleep much better.
You've got to get your mind off work and problems and responsibilities and do something very different from day to day stuff. It helps if it tires you out a little without killing you, like walking.
Swimming at the local YMCA could do it. A yoga class at the Y or the cummunity college could do it. (I hate that new age mystical stuff, but if you ignore the philosophy, yoga is a relaxing workout.)
I think that you have to get you body as tired as your mind. You have to get rid of the body tension at the same time.
If you can find the local biker bar where they play heavy metal, then go and catch the band. Even if you don't get drunk, you'll sleep well with the sound of drums and screaching guitars echoing in your head.
Damn cats - They wake me up, now that it's cold at night. Sometimes there are four cats sitting on me or snuggling up to me, with another one looking in my eyes wondering if it's kibble time yet.
Here's something that I forgot to mention.
My wife suffers from insomnia. I can wake her up by breathing heavy as I sleep. No exactly snoring, but not being quiet either. In order to keep her from waking up at every little sound, we bought a Homedics sound machine
I set it for "rain" and it makes a random sound that is just slightly louder than the normal night noises of cats and cars and ticking clocks.
The negatives are that it has a repeat cycle of about 10 seconds so you find yourself listening to the pattern sometimes. The other thing is that your mind can sometimes find spooky voices in the random noise. One night a voice kept repeating "get out" - shades of poltergeist.
The bottom line is that Erica can't sleep without it, now. I kind of like it. You don't hear it after the first minute or so. If I forget to turn it on, I miss it immediately.
The demon voices in the machine have not been a bad influence, yet.
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