View Full Version : Insomnia stories / cures
For the last 2 days I've only gotten a couple hours of sleep. Every time I finally get to sleep I wake up an hour or two later and can't get back to sleep. I took a sleeping pill, it made me physically weak / tired, but mentally I could still not sleep. I'm sure everyone's experienced this before. Share your worst stories / cures for not being able to sleep.
Which sleeping pill did you try?
I use zopiclone on and off, the first time I tried it, it made me feel terrible. But now it works a treat with no real side effects. Unfortunately it is addictive so you can only use it a few nights in a row.
That's the problem with sleeping pills - they are highly addictive and therefore doctors are reluctant to prescribe them for more than 3 weeks. Also, the longer you take them, the less effective they become, so you need a higher and higher dosage. I believe the best way to treat insomnia is to tackle the underlying cause and as your anxiety/depression improves, your sleep quality should also return to normal.
I've had some nights where I haven't slept at all and others where I only had a few hours. First, I was given 5mg diazepam to take before bed and this worked a treat for 2-3 weeks, then I found it no longer had any effect on me whatsoever. The same happened with Zopiclone. I was then prescribed temazepam, a benzodiazepine like diazepam, but stronger. I only took it for a few days because it gave me very vivid 'trippy' dreams. My psychiatrist put me on an anti-psychotic, Risperidone, which had a sedating effect (I'm not psychotic, thank god, but low doses of anti-psychotics can be used to boost the effects of anti-depressants). By then, I was taking 5 mg diazepam, 10.5 mg zopiclone and risperidone and I was still struggling to sleep! Unfortunately, I had to discontinue the risperidone, due to severe side effects.
Luckily, my pyschiatrist then put me on Seroquel (quetiapine), another anti-psychotic. I take 25 mg in the morning and 75 mg at night and I sleep like a baby. I don't experience any side-effects and I can take them long-term without becoming addicted. I can also take an extra 25 mg in the morning if I am feeling especially anxious and I find I then go to sleep till lunch time, even though I've just got up! I'm so happy to be off sleeping pills/benzos because I was so concerned I might become addicted. I can't wait till I'm well enough to stop the seroquel too and can enjoy a good night's sleep med-free. In the meantime, here's some tips I find useful:
1. Stick to a routine of going to bed/getting up at the same time even if you are not sleeping as well as normal. It can be very tempting to nap during the day if you have been awake at night, but this then means you probably won't feel sleepy when it gets to bedtime.
2. A nice hot bath and smellies together with a book helps me to unwind.
3. Jasmine essential oil/lavender on the pillow helps send you to sleep.
4. Getting some exercise/fresh air during the day. However, don't exercise just before you go to bed, as this raises adrenaline levels so you will feel very awake and alert.
5. Cut down on caffeine/other stimulants.
6. Hide your clock! There's nothing worse than lying awake watching the hours pass by. Clock-watching made me panic - I'd see it was 2 am and I'd been lying in bed for four hours and then I would get all anxious about going to sleep, which in turn meant I wouldn't sleep etc.
7. Tossing and turning in bed doesn't help. If you find you have been lying awake for several hours, it's a good idea to get out of bed and read in the sitting room/watch a bit of TV to tire yourself out before going back to bed.
8. If you find your thoughts are racing in your head and you can't get to sleep, try writing them down in a notebook by the side of your bed. They will then be there for you when you get up in the morning and it can stop the relentless head chatter.
I hope you get a good night's sleep soon!
The pills I used were over the counter. I've never been on any perscribed medication before (except for some antibiotics once). I didn't know sleeping pills were so addictive. I've only taken a couple in my entire life, and there probably not very strong, so it's probably fine. The ones I took didn't really make me tired, they just made me physically weak, to the point where even raising a glass of water to my mouth was hard. The effect wore off after 4 hours.
Bump, still having trouble. Starting to get headaches, not sure if they're related.
Have you tried melatonin? It seems to make me fall asleep very quickly, still wake up at 4am though.
I get insomnia quite easily as one of the first things to get affcted when I'm anxious is my sleeping pattern. Often, I can drop off to sleep but then wake several times in the night, or wake early and can't get back to sleep again.
Probably the worst insomnia I've had was when I had really severe HA when I was in my final year at uni. I must have gone weeks with very little sleep at all and I just couldn't function. My GP gave me a low dose of amitryptiline and they just knocked me out completely for the first 10 days I took them, which was probably the best therapy I could have had, as just about all of my symptoms were being made worse by sleeplessness.
The thing that works best for me is making sure that I'm properly tired when I go to bed, whether I've achieved this by mental or physical activity. I've never had "proper" sleeping tablets, but find that eating a bit of something sugary before I go to bed will help, as sugar seems to have a calming effect on a lot of people.
Sugar certainly doesn't have a calming effect on my kids!!
It's only noon where I live and I'm really tired obviously, but I'm gonna try and stay up til around 5 so maybe I can actually sleep longer. I think 'napping' (if you can even call it that) is the problem. I've just been getting 2-3 hour sleep sessions once or twice a day.
Have you tried going to bed 11pm and deliberately getting up very early like 5am. Don't sleep or nap during the day. Do this until you sleep solid for 5 hours at night, then get up a bit later eg. 5.30am, 6am, 6:30am.
It kind of works until you drive everyone in the house mad making a noise at 5am.
I actually have no school or work right now so I've just been trying to get sleep whenever. Middle of the night, middle of the day, been trying all the time. I've probably spent more time in bed not asleep, then actually asleep. I think I'm just gonna try and stay up until I can't take it anymore and sleep for hopefully a long time (could backfire and I'd be even more overtired) and get on a normal 24 hour schedule again.
Do any of you who have trouble sleeping get bloodshot eyes that hurt?
Bump, I'm starting to get really bad headaches. I think it's related to my eyes.
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