I never seem to sleep well.

Food?

For as long as I remember, it takes me some time to fall asleep, and once I finally do, I wake up several times. Because of this, if I don't sleep a total of 10 hours (-ish), I'm always tired. I work out every other day, and I'm not otherwise inactive, so it's not a lack of physical activity. What's the deal?

blue powder

Stress perhaps, close the blinds so no form of light can come in and disrupt you. Also any alarm clocks that present the time in that fluro light and such can disrupt your sleeping.

Menthol

Some tips:

If you are waking up constantly, perhaps you should see a sleep specialist. You may have sleep apnea; which is when you stop breathing momentarily for some reason or another while you're sleeping and constantly wake up to breathe.

Sleep is most effective in 90-minute chunks. I'm not saying you should only sleep for an hour and a half at a time... but what it does mean that a 3 hour nap (two 90 minute intervals) will be more refreshing than a 4 hour one.. the interrupted cycle will screw you up.

Don't drink to help yourself get to sleep. You'll drift off quickly, but you'll become restless after a few hours.

If you have one of the bright-ass LED clocks, place it facing AWAY from your bed, and turn it to it's dimmest setting (if it has one.) When you can see the clock from your bed and you say "OMG, it's 3:45, i REALLY need to get to sleep" the stressing only makes it HARDER to drift off.

Also, sometimes a good, old-fashioned wank makes it easier to fall asleep afterwards.

Hope this helps.

Meiz

Are you eating big meals before bed?

What kind of bed do you sleep on?

wmelon

Also you may want to consider your sleeping environment. I've found that i have a much harder time sleeping if i don't keep my bedroom below 70 degrees. If possible, only use your bedroom for sleeping and sex. It'll help your brain get accustomed to sleeping when you're in there.

Another thing you might want to look at is your mattress. I went from a soft regular mattress to a waterbed in hopes that it would help me sleep better. It didn't. I found that i couldn't get comfortable on them. I've now got a fairly hard regular mattress and I generally fall asleep within 10-15 minutes of lying down to sleep.

I picked up a tip from a coworker who is a notorious insomniac. He told me that if i hadn't fallen asleep within 20 minutes of lying down, that I should get up and go do something else until i could just barely keep my eyes open. I've found this to work a few times.

Iruka

If your sensitive to sound, a little white noise can help. I cant sleep without my gigantic floor fan running. I wake up to the sound of my own shifting without white noise, It also helps tremendously with my roomate and our opposing schedules, I cant hear her at leave at all, consistently. If you try this, just buy a fan or if you have a sterero or computer in your room loop a
fan MP3 (Yeah, I use the MP3, its on my lap top for when I travel) I find those ambient radio with water running and birds and crap to be annoying (and more expensive)

Just a thought on top of the other sleeping advice.

supabeast

Are you getting much intense exercise? Exercise will make you sleep better. I rarely sleep well unless I'm doing intense cardiovascular workouts and weightlifting five days a week on top of walking a couple of miles a day.

Brucelee41042

Are you taking any kind of supplements?
Do you drink any high caffeine beverages?

UncleChet

Things that helped me when I couldn't sleep.

Stopping all caffine after 3pm. I recently learned that I had bi-polar disorder and am caffine sensitive. Any drinks including coke/pepsi much after 5 will have me up all night.

If you need pure dark try a sleeping mask. It looks all kinds of girly but can really help if the room's not dark enough.

Try going to bed at a specific time every night. Do your best to be within 15 minutes of that time.


Like menthol said, perhaps you just need a good wank to relax you :P

Rook

I used to have horrendous problems falling asleep and would get really stressy about it. I started listening to audio tapes whilst in bed as something to do, so instead of worrying about not falling asleep I can just enjoy a book.

Yoshua

I've found tryptophan in pill form does wonders for getting to sleep at night. This is the chemical found in warm milk and turkey that makes you sleepy. As it's an amino acid and not an actual drug, this won't have many, if any, side effects. Nor should it screw up any drug tests you may have to take.

I too can have trouble sleeping, but I found this helped out a lot.

Tryptophan can be found pretty much anywhere natural health products are sold, it doesn't require a prescription.

localh77

I find it a lot harder to fall asleep if I've been doing anything that makes me think within the past hour or two, like playing computer games. What I'll do is read for half an hour or so before I go to sleep, and it clears my mind and makes me fall asleep easier.

It also helps to get into a regular routine. I usually go to bed between 12 and 1, and I get up at 8. If I ever wake up early (like 6:30 or 7), I'll just get up and go to work early, and then I'll be tired and I'll sleep better the next night.

Kewop Decam

I've been having this problem too and my girlfriend told me I have sleep apnea to some degree. She says I'll be breathing really hard and then just stop... gasp and then keep sleeping. I think I sleep without waking up when I don't have random shit like books on my bed with me.

Are you sleeping with things on your bed or with another person? I find it hard to sleep with my girlfriend sometimes.

Lindsay Lohan

What is your nightly routine like? I find that a nice relaxing activity, especially something like golf on the DS or flipping through a magazine help relax me prior to bed.

Make sure to avoid stressful things at night too. There are very few things I ask of my wife, but the one thing she knows is that I do not discuss stressful things like money after 10pm, because once I start getting frustrated or have numbers in my head, I will not fall asleep until 3am. I am the type that stews over things, and if she discusses the bills, checkbooks, family issues, etc, after 10pm, I'll be a horrible grouch the next day due to lack of sleep.

YodaTuna

Jerk off. Works for me :^:

Shinto

Try running a fan or getting some other kind of white noise. For some reason this works really well for me.

Also, if sex is not an option, the above.

Corvus

Have a look at this, its good advice on sleep:

University of Maryland Medical Clinic Sleep Hygiene: Helpful Hints to Help You Sleep

It pretty much covers everything I'd suggest. Personally I've found earplugs and not staying in bed if I can't get to sleep work really well for me. I also do some basic stretching before sleep and sort of let my mind decompress and get relaxed before I get in bed.

Sarcastro

I've had trouble sleeping for as long as I remember, I found that a good solid sleep routine worked wonders. My own routine starts about two hours before I actually go to bed. For me anyways, there seems to be several parts to the whole sleeping thing. I need the right balance of mental and physical exhaustion, no stimulants much past noon, and a very dark room (a blindfold works great in a pinch).

I had stayed away from exercising before bed, as many sleep advice pamphlets say to not do it, but I have personally found light exercise to be a key component. My routine takes about twenty minutes and includes defined movement forms, which allow me to concentrate on moving instead of thinking. As soon as I started putting in movement into my nightly routine, my success rate went way up. I dunno, heavy thinking seems to be a kind of stimulant for me, if I start pondering too hard before bed I can kiss sleepy time goodbye. .02

Zonkytonkman

wmelon wrote:

I picked up a tip from a coworker who is a notorious insomniac. He told me that if i hadn't fallen asleep within 20 minutes of lying down, that I should get up and go do something else until i could just barely keep my eyes open. I've found this to work a few times.

My doctor just recently told me the same thing.

However it sounds like the OP has more trouble staying asleep than falling asleep, am I right in this, OP?

yotes

Now, this is not medical advice, but something that's helped me to go to sleep is to listen to the audiobook of "Last Chance To See" by Douglas Adams. Just not the last part, because that makes me cry. Audiobooks just do it for me.