Dealing with insomnia?

[Esav Benyamin]

I've been a night owl at least since high school. Not a problem, I just like being up at night. But in high school, I would stay up for hours reading for pleasure. I could go for a short walk outside, around our house. It worked well for me, relaxing.

I worked rotating shifts in the Air Force, changed every four days. I worked nights for the Postal Service, 19:00 to 03:30. When I switched to a day shift, I was still up most of the night. Like now ...

I like what PM66 wrote here. You NEED a strict schedule AND diet AND exercise if you live your life out of sync with most of your surroundings. When it's time for bed, go to bed, even if you don't sleep. Keep to the schedule: if you aren't in bed, you certainly won't sleep.

Do this first. Figure out a schedule, write it down, and stay with it. Go back to the doctors for medication, or the pharmacy for over the counter meds, only as a last resort.

I'd try a few things on your own first. Try and get yourself on a strict schedule so your body knows when it's supposed to be awake or asleep and eat your meals accordingly.

Fit some type of daily exercise into that schedule and try to make it enjoyable if possible.

If your mind is wound up at bedtime, you won't sleep well, if at all. Try and wind up your evening a few hours before bedtime.

If your thinking about "worries" at bedtime, you won't sleep. Set some time aside each evening after dinner to think about things that are going on. Allow yourself about 20-30 minutes and that's it. Write things down, catagorize things, seperate them.... get them out of your head on on paper. You may realize by looking at your notes that a great deal of it isn't really worth thinking about. In that 20-30 minutes, you either resolve things or set it aside for another day and not until it's scheduled time. "Worry once a day, Not all day".