# Anyone Suffer From Sleepless Nights - Insomnia



## ElectricFrog (Aug 10, 2021)

Here is something that you might find useful if you find yourself not able to sleep.


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## doctoremmet (Aug 11, 2021)

I do regularly. Has been the case all my life. Thanks for the tip!

I have also had success falling asleep with Craig Richards’ latest album:




Thanks again @CGR - really great music and for once it is a compliment if one says one can perfectly fall asleep when listening to it.


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## CGR (Aug 11, 2021)

doctoremmet said:


> I do regularly. Has been the case all my life. Thanks for the tip!
> 
> I have also had success falling asleep with Craig Richards’ latest album:
> 
> ...



Much appreciated Doc. That's put a smile on my dial


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## doctoremmet (Aug 11, 2021)




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## Ivan M. (Aug 11, 2021)

I don't suffer, but I've read something in psychology, and some people confirmed it works. Try to stay awake, promise to yourself you will be awake at say 2am, lie in the bed and try to stay awake. It's called paradoxical intention by Viktor Frankl, and paradoxically it works, and not just for sleep. Viktor was working in a hospital and he would say to a patient: Be awake in an hour when I come back. 
Hope it helps. 
(Or read a book on astrophysics or something boring xD )


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## MartinH. (Aug 11, 2021)

It's not a big problem for me anymore, but I have some experience with sleeplessness. The tricks that worked best for me were counting your breaths backwards from 30 to 1 with slow breaths and only counting 1 number down between breaths. I only reached 1 once.

The other thing that worked well was propping up an ipad so that I could read "The C Programming Language" (by Kernighan and Ritchie) on a screen dimmed to be almost black (using goodreader, which goes way darker than setting the display brightness to 0%), and seamlessly just close my eyes and fall asleep.


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## Geomir (Aug 11, 2021)

I started watching the video but nothing happ...
ZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz...

[5 hours later]

When I can't sleep, the best thing that works for me is the beautiful sound of nature. No need for any link, there are thousands of YT videos for the occasion. Just search for something like:
- Rainstorm with thunder sounds
- Sea waves
- Jungle birds sounds
- Running brook sounds,
- Etc.

Usually such videos are between 8 and 10 hours, so you don't have to be worried that they will finish anytime soon. At least for me, nothing works better than nature.


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## Suganthan (Aug 11, 2021)

Meditate.


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## Living Fossil (Aug 11, 2021)

I suffered from insomnia starting in my childhood, even before i hit the age of ten years (!). I've tried out every single thing that people recommended, without success. Finally i turned to medication. Which helps. (although rushes of adrenalin – when something drastically upsets me – may cancel the effect and keep me awake till around 6 am. But that only happens maybe 5 times a year).

What i'm really allergic to is people who think they can give advice. If someone suffers from strong insomnia, you can be sure that things like meditation, some tricks to fool the brain into sleeping as well as some rituals before going to sleep won't help.


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## doctoremmet (Aug 11, 2021)

Living Fossil said:


> although rushes of adrenalin – when something drastically upsets me – may cancel the effect and keep me awake till around 6 am. But that only happens maybe 5 times a year


This is me.


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## doctoremmet (Aug 11, 2021)

Living Fossil said:


> What i'm really allergic to is people who think they can give advice.


This is me - again ❤️ / of course no offense to the contributors so far who have all shared their personal experience! Much respect for that. My allergy has to do with people who basically just think that whatever works for them is guaranteed to work for everyone else


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## darkogav (Aug 11, 2021)

best cure for me .. ebook reader and shakespeare .. just pickup and read and you will be back to sleep within 10 mins.


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## SergeD (Aug 11, 2021)

Documentaries like the last UFO one on Netflix or a boring subject to read that you don't care, having not a clue of what it's about, or comments like mine on this forum


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## J-M (Aug 11, 2021)

Occasionally my brain is just too damn inspired and sleep eludes me no matter what I do...


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## Jish (Aug 11, 2021)

doctoremmet said:


> This is me - again ❤️ / of course no offense to the contributors so far who have all shared their personal experience! Much respect for that. My allergy has to do with people who basically just think that whatever works for them is guaranteed to work for everyone else


Yeah- if it comes off like it's actually in good faith (like all responses here- so far) but shallow, of course it's best to give it a pass, twitch the ol' head a bit in annoyance and simply move on.

The _worst_ advice, however? Actually frequently comes from those you would least expect (or hope) and that sadly are primary physician's- I'm thinking of the ones at the moment that are all too eager to sign off on prescriptions on highly addictive 'medications for sleep' whilst never explaining to the patient the actual risks involved before starting, and worse still how to process off them properly. Some _real_ dark shit out there if one starts going down that rabbit hole without learning as much as possible.

So the best advice for me is to begin by sifting through the most dangerous advice first, and to go from there. Sometimes the actual sleep culprit for an individual only ends up revealing itself after decades out of a random fluke or chance.


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## ElectricFrog (Aug 11, 2021)

ElectricFrog said:


> Here is something that you might find useful if you find yourself not able to sleep.



Two supplements that are useful for me are GABA (gamma-Aminobutyric acid) and _L_-_tyrosine._
I have tried any things and most things didn't work at all but these made a difference.

There are many reasons people experience insomnia so the cure is going to vary for everyone.
Its great to see so many useful comments, thanks to everyone for the insightful info.


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## Mike Fox (Aug 11, 2021)

My problem is that I’m such a light sleeper I can’t be listening to anything when i go to sleep. It just keeps me up. I’ve tried every trick in the book too (meditation, reading, listening to nature sounds or relaxing music, taking melatonin, etc. etc.).

This means it takes me forever to actually fall asleep, and when i finally do? I tend to wake up throughout the night over dumb sounds (house creaking, A/C kicking on, birds chirping, etc. etc.).

The only thing that seems to actually work is xanax before bed, but I don’t want to be dependent on it, so i normally don’t even take it. Meh…

Here, I’ll just visually demonstrate my situation.


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## NYC Composer (Aug 13, 2021)

Consider self-love (and yes I mean that in a physical sense.)

Not, of course, that *I* have ever, er........


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## Polkasound (Aug 13, 2021)

A short bout with insomnia will hit me once every few years, and last one to three nights. About ten years ago, I had to back out of an out-of-town gig because I hadn't slept for 50 hours, and was worried I would have trouble driving. Ironically, just this week my brain skipped a night of sleep — I was awake from 8AM Monday to 1AM Wednesday.

In these rare situations, no home remedy I've tried helps. When my brain decides sleeping is not an option, it's not an option.

But in cases where I'm just restless and need something to help me get to sleep, I use this one method [and this is not a joke] — I put my MP3 player on and play my own music. I pick any album, and the next thing I know, I'm waking up to sunlight and an MP3 player with dead battery. My theory is that since I've spent countless hours hearing those songs over and over during the recording and mixing process, my brain tries to tune them by shutting down.


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## ElectricFrog (Aug 14, 2021)

This video uses Delta Brain Waves with a combination of rain and distant Ambient music.
The Binaural Beats lower in stages from Alpha to Theta and then to a deep Delta stage.


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## ElectricFrog (Aug 27, 2021)

This one is Rain and Thunder, no music:


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## Karl Feuerstake (Aug 28, 2021)

Shutting off all screens about an hour before bed and doing some reading - works wonders for me


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## Babaghanoush (Aug 28, 2021)

I have fewer sleepless nights since I unplugged from most "News" and social media.
Try it! You'll may be surprised at how much it affects you.


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## Pincel (Aug 28, 2021)

I've had trouble sleeping for most of my life... It's VERY rare that I sleep without interruption, I usually wake up at least 2 or 3 times during the night, sometimes more, and pretty much never get the so recommended 8 hours of sleep. It sucks, but you learn to live with it. I never really considered medication or any kind of treatment though, maybe I should look into that one of these days... 

I've fallen asleep with music many times, it helps, but it's not really practical when you don't sleep alone, and I hate sleeping with headphones on. Oh well, it is what it is I guess.


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## shponglefan (Aug 28, 2021)

Karl Feuerstake said:


> Shutting off all screens about an hour before bed and doing some reading - works wonders for me


For me, it's the opposite. I find watching a show tends to put me to sleep. Whereas reading tends to keep me up.


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## Wedge (Aug 28, 2021)

Yep. I usually fall alseep to a tv series playlist I made for background noise (it has Star Trek, Leverage, Doctor Who, A-Team, Burn Notice, crap like that.) My wife has no problem falling asleep to it but usually prefers fan noise while reading. But I often get distracted and don't go to bed 'til 4 or 5 in the morning sometimes 8-9. For some reason I just feel better and think clearer late into the night/morning and since I don't need to be up early I don't fight it.


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## Tralen (Nov 5, 2021)

I have chronic insomnia and used to stay awake for days without sleep, specially when I was young.

The solution I use, besides medication, is to have a very rigorous training regime. I'm a weightlifter and I train 6 days per week, so I'm normally very tired when it's time to sleep.

In essence, my sad solution is simply to be so depleted of energy that there isn't much I can do besides sleeping when I get to bed.


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## Markrs (Nov 5, 2021)

Does anyone else only sleep a few hours a night? 

I sleep very well which a grateful for but often only sleep 5-6 hours a night. So I am often up at 4am. I don't tend to feel tired or sleep during the day. This is normally great in the summer as you get to enjoy the rising sun, but during winter I find it more difficult, as the day is very long and little daylight.


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## SergeD (Nov 5, 2021)

Some years ago, I realized, while falling asleep, that the brain is the boss and do not accept to shut down, the brain simply doesn't want to stop . The trick I use is to stop the brain activity every time it starts mumbling. It requires some discipline, it's not fun, but it works well for me most of the time.


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## rgames (Nov 5, 2021)

I've had trouble sleeping most of my adult life. I wouldn't call it insomnia, per se, but sleep depravation. I get at least some sleep pretty much every night but often only 2-3 hours. I can get by with minimal sleep unless I need brainpower or if I have to sit through meetings - then I'm worthless without 7 hours or so of sleep. My brain functions *much* better when I'm well-rested. I can do physical labor or process-oriented tasks with little sleep but my creativity and problem-solving skills go to crap.

The biggest help for me is keeping a schedule and not taking naps. However, I travel a lot and I almost never sleep the first couple nights in a hotel regardless of any naps or consistent schedule. So when I travel I usually pick up some nightime cold medicine and that usually puts me to sleep. And then I throw most of it away because you can't carry it on a plane. And that stuff ain't cheap... what a PITA.

I'd gladly give up half of my net worth if someone could guarantee me 7-8 hours of good, uninterrupted sleep every night. (Good thing my wife and kids don't read this forum.)

rgames


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