i need help...

[SlowTopic539]

so i literally can't sleep at all. i sleep so little. i tried melatonin and it didn't work. i need to sleep more because school starts in a week so i need to get on a schedule. what are some of y'all's tips for better sleeping?

 

[odibrom]

Get active, drop the screens...

 

[Rubbishplayer]

so i literally can't sleep at all. i sleep so little. i tried melatonin and it didn't work. i need to sleep more because school starts in a week so i need to get on a schedule. what are some of y'all's tips for better sleeping?

Having travelled extensively and had to manage recurring insommnia, here's my tips:

1. Firstly understand what's driving this. Dealing with jetlag is different from dealing with other drivers (e.g. anxiety, obsessive thinking).
2. Melatonin is only good for resetting your clock when jetlagged, or otherwise out of your normal cycle (i.e. you've just done an all-weeker dusk-til-dawn holiday on the Ibiza club scene). If this is your issue, you should take a good dose (10mg or more) 30 mins before you want to go to sleep, making sure you stay awake and get as mich natural light as possible.
3. Anxiety, if transient (i.e. related to a specific event, like an upcoming job interview) can be addressed psychologically. Talking through your anxiety with a friend/partner and coming up with an action plan can help a great deal.
4. A more generalised anxiety disorder (e.g. social anxiety) really needs therapy (CBT can really help).
5. Obsessive thinking - which afflicts me from time to time - needs more concerted effort. Meditation/mindfulness is really helpful, but for those times when obsessive thoughts won't leave me (e.g. I just saw a My Chemical Romance video and I can't get out of my head how sucky and contrived it is), I'll resort to distraction. Something that requires me to be passive, such as watching a movie I've seen before, but still enjoy, almost always has me asleep vey quickly, as the thoughts subside and my body's natural fatigue kicks in. This is the reason I've seen the first 15 minutes of some movies and documentary series over 2000 times.

Apart from that, good habits and rituals (no caffeine, video games or arguments a couple of hours before sleep tume, no daytime naps, relaxing routines) and some valerian root-based supplements help.

But don't use alcohol - it'll disturb ypur sleep more than help. And avoid mild opiates (e.g. codeine).

Using these tips I've been able to avoid insommnia - despite being predisposed - for years at a time.

 

[TedEH]

This is a question for a doctor, not a guitar forum. You're going to get every diagnosis and bit of advice under the sun, good or bad, with little way to discern which is which, or how they might or might not apply to you.

Maybe you've got a substance problem. Maybe you have a health problem. Maybe you have an anxiety problem. Maybe you're a student and high levels of stress are pretty normal for students. Maybe you're not consistent enough with whatever you're trying.

Realistically, it's been my experience that any significant change to sleep patterns or other lifestyle-sized changes take a month and more to properly take effect and do what you want it to do. You can't just pop some miracle cure and be done with it. Sleep is tricky because we talk about it in terms of "sleep debt", but you can't "catch up" or "make it back later". Once it's gone, it's gone. You need to be able to follow whatever your needs are consistently, or you're boned. If you literally never sleep a consistent 7-9 hours or whatever you need, and never do things within a repeatable pattern, then you're asking for the impossible.

Step 1. Talk to an actual doctor. Step 2. Whatever you do, do it consistently. Step 3. Always go to bed, even if you're not tired. If you don't make it the routine and stick to the routine, then it won't stick. Just like exercise or whatever else, when you start doing it, it sucks, until it starts to become natural.