How Do You Sleep At Night?

[JONTON]

-Try not to eat within the 2 or 3 hours before bed.

-Drink linden tea (natural tranquilizer).

-Exercise before bed (I do stretches and 70 pushups).

 

[ashitaria]

Try to concentrate on a sound until you zone-out. You will snap back to reality a couple of times, but it is often followed by a deep-sleep. You can also change into more comfortable positions too.

 

[DrSLudge]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delayed_sleep_phase_syndrome
-if you can't sleep at NIGHT, just sleep another time.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyphasic_sleep
- if you can't sleep all at once, do it in blocks

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-24-hour_sleep-wake_syndrome
- if you feel like staying up for 18 hours after a 12 hour sleep, do it.

- if you feel like sleeping for only 2 hours at a time, stay up for 6 hours at a time

 

[IssphitiKOzS]

Such an aggressive thread title.


For me to fall asleep I need to listen to a comedic tv episode of something I don't care about or have already seen. Right now It's the Cleveland show. The show is total trash, but provides just enough brain fart for me to nod off. I listen to it on my closed laptop, and the laptop goes to sleep as well shortly after the episode finishes.

 

[IssphitiKOzS]

. There are times I'm angry and frustrated because when I try to communicate with people, as clearly as I can, they don't seem to understand anything.

This really hit home for me. What I find happens is that not only do they not understand you, but they insist that you don't understand them, at which point they proceed to explain it again, not in a different way but, essentially a word for word repetition. Then they claim you're the dumb one even when you're completing their sentences for them. I've had a friend claim I didn't know what handedness was, and then brought up a wikipedia page on it for me to read. A wikipedia page on handedness... usually I'd say something humourous here, but it's just too easy, and quite frankly it bothers me too much to joke about.

Without digressing too far, What I'm trying to say is, after being traumatized by this type of situation, which I'm sure you have been, who could really expect you to just forget about it and go to sleep. I'd say your best bet is to hang a heavy blunt object above your head and every night before you go to sleep release it knocking yourself into sweet unconsciousness.

Write it down. I even have a special notebook.

I'm sure this works, but if someone ever found it you'd probably be labeled a giant whinging twat, ignoring the obvious justifications for being so.

 

[shadowdrums4]

I don't sleep well at all. This is partially due to a childhood I won't go into but basically my sleep schedule when left alone (in the summer mostly) is 2-4 hour periods throughout the day. One at like 4 am another around 2 in the afternoon and then a random one that doesn't have a normal time.

As for what I do when I have to sleep during the school year, I've been told stay away from electronic devices for at least 2 hours before you go to bed. I tried it but then I was like "Man then what am I supposed to do?" One night I spent two hours cleaning before bed and I slept pretty well.

Temp affects me quite a bit too. For me though it has to be warm enough for me to go to sleep. I always have a blanket too but when it's cold in my room and I toss and turn and lose the blanket, I wake up almost instantly. Any kind of noise usually wakes me up too. It sucked when my uncle was living here because he would open the door (which I'd hear) he was a big guy so when he stepped on my floor I'd hear it and then he'd just get on my computer and the powering up/typing would wake me up. I'd try to go back to sleep thinking "It's just him" but just as I fell asleep again, he'd type something or click something and I'd wake up again. He did this when I had school too. It was terrible.

Things that have helped me sleep.
-Light music though sometimes this causes me to want to drum
-no electronics for 2 hours
-lay in bed for a while in the dark with my eyes closed while I think
-Caffeine limit (probably a major cause of my insomnia)

Again though, sleep and I don't go together well so I'm not the best to listen to.

 

[Ermine]

I just don't sleep. I've gotten used to about 6 hours of sleep, if not less every night after a few years. I also tend to think a lot before going to bed. I understand many of you aren't particularly religious, but praying just before bed works wonders. It's a great way to get the mind clear enough to sleep. Journal writing is also a really good way to do that.

 

[MidnightGino]

I usually sleep around 7 hours... Yay. The only problem is getting sleepy. I just can't do it, I have to do other things and wait until my body finally starts feeling sleepy. Right now, it's summer... So my sleeping schedule is pretty messed up. I go to sleep at 4 AM and wake up at 11 AM-12 PM.

I could go to sleep after 4 AM, but my mother wakes up at 4:30 AM to go to work, and being the ESFJ she is (apart from being a doctor), I think she would freak out if she saw me awake that late (or is it that early? Hm...).

Overall, I think I sleep quite well. Just some insomnia issues and that's all. Well, I'm a teenager, so I guess I'm supposed to need more sleep and to sleep more, right? The thing that works the best for me against insomnia is listening to music. Well, as Ermine says, praying is also a great alternative, but I'm not really religious, so I listen to music. What music? Mostly soundtracks, from anime, some games, etc. They work wonders, try listening to some OSTs when you can't sleep (of course, to calm songs, not that kind of songs you would listen when you're fighting a final boss).

 

[nexion]

I honestly thought this thread was about some impending moral crisis and how we can sleep at night knowing this. In which case I probably would have been amused.

I always have to listen to music before I go to bed. Whenever I don't bad things happen. I fall asleep and sporadically wake up. It's terrible.

Write it down. I even have a special notebook.

That sounds like a great idea, I'll have to try it sometime.

I generally don't write what I think because I'm afraid someone will find it and read it.

I need a fan running in order to sleep. If I don't have that white-noise to drown out all the rest of it, everything I hear will keep me on edge.

Same. Although, my reason is because I can't stand the silence. It makes me extremely paranoid. Even if it's freezing I have the fan on.

Truthfully, silence is the most disturbing noise. It always scares me. Just absolute, utter silence.

I figure though, that it does have some therapeutic purposes.

 

[bananaphallus]

That's odd. I can't fall asleep with a fan on - no matter how hard I try (in this case exerting maximum effort to achieve the desired result involves lying prone and whispering unsavory words at a nearby whirlydoowopper - the type that turn back n' forth are even more irritating...their nature seems slightly passive-aggressive, imo). It's also impossible for me to fall asleep if I'm lying on my back. My sleep cycle gets effed up really easily; the pattern for the past 6 months or so has been: 3 (or 7, 11, several dozen, etc.) weeks of sleep from 10-11:59 PM to 6-8:30 AM, followed by three weeks (approximately) of sleeping from 5 AM to 1-2 PM. There's usually a week in between each 3-week period where the sleep-cycle will begin moving incrementally in the 'appropriate' direction - respecting the pattern/complete absence of one.

 

[aracaris]

I very often do have a hell of a time falling asleep until pretty late without the aid of medication, and sometimes even with. Usually the reason is simply that late at night is the time I actually have energy, feel productive, and may very well have a million ideas jumping around in my brain. Unfortunately the hours during which I can be the most productive don't coincide with the hours my job expects me to be productive, so I have to sleep when I feel like actually doing stuff, and be awake when I feel like sleeping.

Now I haven't read the whole thread so I may very well be repeating something someone else has all ready said....

So (OP) your reason for having a hard time falling asleep is quite different than mine, and I suspect that finding some way to let go of your stress could help you a lot, maybe find a good way to vent.

 

[Haven]

From Mad Men:

Beatnik: "You're in advertising! How do you sleep at night?"
Don Draper: "On a bed of money."


To sleep, I usually listen to the song Olson by Boards of Canada on repeat, and I hum along until my thoughts have gone away. I focus on taking fewer breaths each time I hum the song (its only a minute or two long).

 

[Lostwitheal]

Usually the reason is simply that late at night is the time I actually have energy, feel productive, and may very well have a million ideas jumping around in my brain. Unfortunately the hours during which I can be the most productive don't coincide with the hours my job expects me to be productive, so I have to sleep when I feel like actually doing stuff, and be awake when I feel like sleeping.

All too familiar!