Thread: What do you do when you have insomnia?

I will first stretch a bit to see if that will help. I then just breathe normally, and meditate in bed. If these do not work, I will usually take two Melatonin, and break one in half to speed up the process lol. If none of it works, then I just don't do anything. No sense stressing too much, as that also will not help you sleep!

What do I do?

I get up.

If you definitely can't get back to sleep (on occasion), sometimes it doesn't hurt to simply get up and go do something else. I'll watch a movie, or read a book, or take advantage of the quiet of early morning and sit on the porch and just think.

I guess what I'm saying is that you can live without a little sleep, and can live without a lucid dream (this time), so if you are definitely not going to sleep, there is no sense in stressing yourself out by needing to get to sleep. Just set sleep aside and put your mind somewhere else... funny thing is, doing this very often makes me sleepy, simply because I've put that need to sleep out of my head.

Of course an obviously, if your insomnia is chronic or you are unable to sleep at all for more than a couple of nights, then this advice should not be taken.

Originally Posted by ThreeCat

I will first stretch a bit to see if that will help. I then just breathe normally, and meditate in bed. If these do not work, I will usually take two Melatonin, and break one in half to speed up the process lol. If none of it works, then I just don't do anything. No sense stressing too much, as that also will not help you sleep!

Funny thing is I normally meditate before going to sleep, but that night I felt tired and didn't feel like meditating . Maybe that's what I needed.

I do pretty much what Saegous said. Might as well not torture myself with boredom if I'm not sleeping. If I'm not feeling any signs of sleeping for 30–60 minutes and I'm not enjoying lying in bed (sometimes I don't mind just lying in bed daydreaming for a while, though), I just get up and try again later.

I've had issues with insomnia before, though it never was a serious problem. However, for some reason these last few weeks I've been struggling to get back to sleep after a WBTB, so I've kept them as short as possible or I haven't done them at all.

Yesterday this article popped up to my news feed on Facebook. I just read through it, but it gives some useful advice.

How to make an end to your insomnia - Lisette Zeeuw M.Sc. - Psychologist in Barcelona

Hope this helps!

^^ That's a very nice summary article there, martakartus, thanks for that!

For us LDers though there is a distinction: insomnia at bedtime vs. insomnia after WBTB. We LDers have a whole different situation with middle-of-the-night insomnia. I generally have no issue falling asleep at bedtime. But WBTB back to sleep is another matter entirely.

I have taken some of the advice from similar articles and now don't touch my bed without the intention of falling asleep right away. But I will hold on longer than 15 minutes to see if I can get back to sleep. I have indeed noticed that doing something else, a quiet activity, outside of the bed/bedroom will make me quite sleepy soon, and I'll have more luck with back-to-sleep after that.

So Sageous's advice of "just get up" is spot-on.

I generally now view each case of slow back-to-sleep as another opportunity to hone my relaxation skills and paying attention to the breath. Doesn't always work (meaning lead quickly to sleep), but it definitely does work sometimes.

One thing is for sure: anxiety about sleep is a guaranteed sleep-killer and causes a vicious cycle of insomnia->anxiety->insomnia and round and round it goes.