what makes you sleep?

[hungryjim]

WTF? i suffered a severe closed head injury 16 years ago and got a scar on my brain.--- when i was a kid, i couldn't sleep.--- in my teens, i shot meth and couldn't sleep.--- i broke my skull, and still can't sleep. ---ambien, warm milk, good green indica, tylenol pm, what else?-what makes you sleep? thanks

[Lookyhere]

I prefer to smoke some good weed. That always helps me. I'm out right now though I have had insomnia for as long as I can remember, at least 20 years. Tylenol Pm's worked for awhile, but stopped working. Generic Benedryl is the same thing as the PM part of the Tylenol PM without taking the Tylenol part, so saving your liver a bit. The generic Benedryl is also super cheap at Costco. I have taken a lot of sleep aids and most don't do shit. Trazodone works really well though. I also take Seroquel for a sleep aid. Like I said though, I really prefer the all natural herb.

[hungryjim]

just did my first 100mg a few nights ago...slept on the couch 6 an a half hours, an didn't twitch, fart or anything. Blessedly dead, black sleep. But it was a lucky day, an they won't be around...anybody got any personal fave's for knock-out-drops?

[Mario]

Getting lots of exercise.

[Diego]

Sex makes me sleep pretty nice every night

[Mr. Clean]

Originally Posted by Mario

Getting lots of exercise.

Originally Posted by Diego

Sex makes me sleep pretty nice every night

anybody else see the correlation here?
a little bit of physical activity never hurts.

[Beastmaster]

Though marijuana makes me sleep like a dreamless log, I have found a more natural solution.

Granted, I do not have any brain injuries, or diagnosed mental disorders. However, I have written the following advice for others and they have found it to be effective, to the point that I've been told that it should be published.

I'm not one to take credit when it is not due. I just read it elsewhere. It was in my pursuit of learning to dream lucidly, achieve out of body experiences, project astrally, or remote view. Not sure if those are all the same or each having its own form of perception, still evaluating that. On to the show.

What are you doing when you are laying there in your bed with the lights off tossing and turning about in a vain attempt to fall asleep? You are thinking. Furthermore you are thinking provocative thoughts. Its a matter of progression of stress. You can't sleep. You think of things. You are now stressed cuz you didn't fall asleep and it feels like you've been laying there for an hour or three by now. You continue to think thoughts, now fueled with the stress of not sleeping and knowing you've gotta be up in 4 hours now and there's that presentation or paper due, etc..

Just stop, stop right there. You are doing this to yourself. No one is making you think those thoughts. I'm no psychologist, but as I understand it, insomnia is a self induced state. Yes there are brain chemical imbalances that can cause clinical insomnia, but I think that this is still a self induced cycle of stress.

Basically, you need to learn to meditate. Relax your body, relax your brain. Relaxing your body is easy, though it can get tricky at times. Emotions are often linked to certain muscles, and if you think a thought that causes you to evoke a certain emotion, you will find that there are muscles that clench in response. Feel happy = smile = facial muscles contract. Feel angry and stressed = frown, clench up, etc = facial and body muscles contract. Ever need a shoulder massage? this is to relax some of those muscles that are unconsciously clenched in response to stress.

Realizing the above, then, it is a simple step to reverse the process. Relax the muscle and it is harder to hold onto that emotion. They say that if you are unhappy, then just smile, and happiness will follow. It works the same in reverse. If you are angry and stressed, stop clenching those muscles that you are using to emote. Stop the furrowing of the brow, clenching of neck and back muscles, etc. You will feel the emotion slip away like sand through your fingers. Granted your emotions are generally driven by a situation, and ignoring the situation to evaluate your emotional response is then going to be extremely difficult, but in the case where you are creating the situation by thinking about it when you are laying in bed 'trying to go to sleep', the situation is in your head and all you have to do to diffuse it is to relax your muscles and let go of that emotion.

I suppose I can point out that I'm no pristine gem myself. I have ptsd from my military endeavors, and though my enlistment ended over a decade ago the memories of my experiences there are still just rising to the surface. You want nightmares? I can describe them to you. You want stress? I know it like the back of my hand. Just wanted to put that out there incase anyone was doubting the veracity of my claims. And I'm feeling a bit random today but I think not enough to lose the majority of my readers, length of this post will have more to do with that, me thinks.


Alright. Without further ado, here's the steps I take to go to sleep.

First off some generalities about your sleep environment. Certainly it makes sense to isolate yourself from random bumps in the night and all that. But also if you are trying to combine your work area with your sleep area like a home office/bedroom type thing you will find that its hard to separate the two activities. Work and sleep just don't mix. Also, you should not have restrictive clothing, stuff like that. Ok that's all pretty common sense, lets get down to the nitty gritty.

If you're having trouble sleeping, I think its mainly due to to that little voice bouncing off hte walls in your head. This is the basics of the counting sheep tek of sleep production. My tek you will find is a bit more complex but has the same goal in mind.

Remember, what we are trying to do here is achieve a quiet and relaxed mind and body.

Laying on your back, hands to your sides, get comfortable, if your eyes seem to be popping open lay the edge of a pillow across your brow lightly resting against your eyelids.

Take three deeeep breaths, in through your nose, out through your mouth. Try to breath in through your nose and out through your mouth through this whole exercise.

As you exhale, consciously try to relax all muscles and joints in your entire body and FEEL yourself being pulled down, down into the ground. Submit to gravity. As you inhale feel light and airy and imagine your body filling with pure, bright light, and feel your body float up. exhale and feel dark uncomfortable stress leave your body as you sink into the bed.

Now, imagine/visualize a warm ball of energy, like a basketball, surrounding your feet. Make it move slowly up your body, and as it moves relax each joint or muscle in succession. Toes, feet, ankles, shins and calves, knees, thighs, buttocks and groin, belly and back, chest, arms, hands and fingers... then neck and face. Usually I find at first this is all pretty easy and nice and when i get to my face there's a bunch of muscles that need to relax. brow, cheeks eyes jaw, etc. Now go back over and review your body checking to see if there is any residual stress and send the warm, golden orb to that spot to relax it. Remember to breathe.

You will probably find that thoughts of what you have to do tomorrow or should have done to day or what someone said to you and you wish you'd have said this and that back, remembering situations or imagining them, will pop up spontaneously and next thing you know you're fully involved in some conversation with your ex-gf that you forgot all about trying to relax and sleep.

Generally, that's all that it takes for me. And I'm out.

There's more though. You can use mental imagery as tools to aid you in this:

Any thought that you have, imagine a bubble around it and float it away.

Or, imagine a box (shoebox, treasure chest, locker, whatever) imagine opening it and putting whatever thought you have in there.

got a song stuck in your head? imagine it in a bubble, and float it away or put it into your box.

Still awake? well, this does take practice, and I think that if you're honest with yourself you will find that you are letting your undisciplined mind think about whatever it wants, and that's what's keeping you up. Sure maybe some meds might help calm that hyperactive child down a bit, but learn these tools and you will find that those pharms will take a back seat to the power of your mind.

Dream reentry is what I focus on if I'm still awake and fully relaxed. I tend to keep a dream journal, inwhich i record my dreams in the morning. This has many purposes, but I'm only going to tell you about one at this point. If you read about a previous dream, and do your best to visualize that dream, running it through your head, you will find that reentering the dream becomes possible, and also opens the door to sleep a little faster. If you are having problems with nightmares, this is also a useful tool for taking some of the power away from such vividness, but that's a discussion for another time.

Those of you that would like to learn more about the above would probably do well to invest in a book or two about lucid dreaming or astral projection.

That's about it in a nutshell, please be patient with the process, it might not work the first time, but keep at it and in just a night or two i'm sure you'll be passing out before you get the gold orb past your thighs!

[Mermaidia]

the weather channel. Not too sure why, but when i can't sleep i turn it on and i am usually out like a light.

[Glasshopper]

Great advice beast

I find melatonin helps but only if you take it when your own body levels are near peak already otherwise it is not nearly as effective.
Personally the 1 mg are too weak to be effective for me and the 3 mg make it hard to rise the next morning. I like the 2.5 mg sublinguals. They seem to be just right for me.

To quell the random thoughts floating in your head so you can get to sleep
I have found it very useful to write them down. That way you have them saved to deal with later and don't have to constantly mull them over.



when all else fails you could try reading tax law manuals, that never fails to work

[Mr. Clean]

Originally Posted by Mermaidia

the weather channel. Not too sure why, but when i can't sleep i turn it on and i am usually out like a light.

ah, the utterly boring combination of smooth jazz and demographically neutral newscasting. it never fails!

[Beastmaster]

I hear valerian root helps too, as well as catnip tea. Jury's still out here, though it certainly hasn't kept me awake...

I think in general I have more of a problem with staying awake...

[hungryjim]

i appreciate all the suggestions!...now, it's nap time!zzzzzzz