Ways of getting a better nights sleep

[xfilme 2]

Ok, so we know anxiety and sleep problems go hand in hand. Have any of you developed any techniques or do any of you have any suggestions as to how to make sleeping easier?

I know for me that bedtime is like Silent Hill when the air raid sounds and the world turns evil and is full of nasty monsters. If I listen to music, I have to have it so its almost inaudible, so that I have to concentrate to hear it. The concentration alone makes me sleepy. For those of you who feel vulnerable in the dark and have a TV/DVD player in your bedroom, you can use a similar technique for this. Pick a movie you have seen a hundred times over, and put it on. Turn out the lights. Change the brightness and contrast settings so that the picture is really dark. Enough to make out the images... just... but bright enough to light up the room so you can see everything around you, but not as harshly as using a light. Then dip the volume down until you can just hear what they are saying. Lie in bed and just listen to the dialogue. You wont want to watch it because youve seen it loads of times, but you feel inclined to give in to the distraction. The subtle mumble of voices coupled with the low lighting and your need to concentrate to hear it, will likely send you off to sleep. You can test how well it works, by seeing in the morning the last point in the movie you remembered having on.

It may not work for everyone, but it certainly works for me... so who knows, if Im not mad, it might work for someone else too. Its definitely better than sleeping with the lights off in silence.

What do you do?

[marjune1988 0]

I drink milk, sometimes it may not help but most of the time it works for me!

Then, sometimes I also take benadryl or topiramate which really work for me:)

[arctic 0]

What worked well with me is that when i closed my eyes, I would allow images to form from the darkness. It's like making a story out of the images that appear. Then I just look at how it goes on. Its like watching a movie scene. In my case, most of the time, its about nature. I would just slowly drift away and the next thing to realize is that morning has come and I was able to sleep soundly. I dont know what that is but since discovering the method, I just follow it whenever I have bouts of sleepless nights. Taking medicines such as benadryl also help but it becomes habitual, making it more difficult for me to sleep without it.

[Quirky Jessi 2]

^ I do that sometimes, too, arctic. By forcing myself to create pictures, it helps me keep my mind off other things, too, and eventually I'll drift off. I don't always do nature or full scenes, but sometimes I'll just swirl colors all over the place and switch directions or patterns or whatever. In that sense, it's almost like creating screensavers in my mind.

[JOYCICLE 654]

I've had insomnia off and on for years, especially if tomorrow seems busy or rushed and I'm already dreading it . One thing is to day dream/ fantasize about something really awsome. My standby is imaging if I won the lotto. I go into mental details about exactly how I'd furnish my house. it's like a memory game because then I have to try to remember what type of wood that was on the table and what the floorplan of the house looked like,, saltwater or freshwater aquariums, etc etc. It's fun but I always wake up broke. But it still seems to soothe me to sleep imagining a lot of nice things.

[dynasty 14]

I start taking shots of hard liquor like a champ... 7 odda put me out.

[Twinks* 16]

Wine, Wine and Tylenol pm :unsure:

[Quirky Jessi 2]

Wine, Wine and Tylenol pm :unsure:

Hopefully not at the same time! Alcohol and acetaminophen are a bad combo to mix and can cause some nasty side effects for your liver. O.o

[Mrs. Rogers 2]

I always close my eyes and picture myself climbing a rope straight up through a hole in the ceiling. As weird as it sounds, the farther I climb the more sleepy I get and I pass right out.

[shaun 6]

I do not have a problem with sleeping, I usually feel relaxed prior to going to bed. I watch TV in bed and when I start to feel tired, I turn the TV off and go to sleep. Sometimes I read instead of watching TV. Exercising in the late afternoon helps as well. The key to sleeping is learning to relax.

[kingusama92 0]

It's probably best not trying to just go straight to sleep. This is what ends up causing you to start having thoughts that make it almost impossible to even get a moment of rest.

Like suggested above, try to do something prior to sleeping. Something that will get your brain active before you go to sleep.

This can be something like reading a book or watching a TV show.

[thaquietstorm 1]

I use a sound machine at night and avoid watching TV or doing something too lively when I'm ready for sleep. Reading a bit of a book will sometimes help my mind relax. I usually am able to fall asleep fine but I don't get a full night's sleep.

[Esperahol 0]

I usually require a sort of aid otherwise it's me getting exactly three hours of sleep if that much. However, something I've done in the past is log on to Netflix on my laptop and click on something psychological with subtitles. The sound of dialogue I don't have to interpret and the slow pacing work really well to relax me even when it doesn't put me to sleep.

[Cattycrunch 0]

I have to concentrate on something very mundane, otherwise my mind just goes into a kind of spin, going over and analyzing a million things, which sometimes get my heart rate up, and make it impossible to relax. I'll either count backwards from 1000 in some other language, or list off alphabetically species of fish.

[caryliving 0]

I only can sleep good with some imovane or sanval. I am getting it online at **************.com

It helps me always, and on the next day I am the nice person that I should be. If I drink more then 3 glasses of wine on the evening, I have nightmares, and I wake up in such a bad mood. All day I am having fights and issues with everybody around me. Terrible!

[superhumanradio 0]

For me in oder to Sleep well at night first I eat the right foods and exercise daily and then I lesten to mellow music then read magazine tell I feel sleepy.

[Steve4AM 14]

the familiar dvd method, good idea.

look out for drinking to fall asleep, it's an introduction to alcoholism

unfortunately i don't drink anymore, so can't use that, and am trying to get off perscription meds.

i have lots of trouble sleeping, lots.

if you have someone to sleep with, that might work!  then again it might not.  they might wake you up

[Brave 1]

Drinking milk helps with sleeping.

[Steve4AM 14]

Joycycle, that's a cool idea!  Ill try that one

lately i have just been falling asleep whenever possible.  it's not so great for my schedule of course

maybe i will try to get hypnotized.  ive tried basically everything else

[sleepingpills21 0]

I put on my fav. songs, if that doesnot work i watch youtube continously, even if that doesnt work i start gaming for lng hours that eventually tires me out till morning n i go to sleep. The pron\blem comes on the days when i have work tommorow. As a last resort in those scenarios i go for sleeping pills