Restless
Or, more to the point, unable to sleep.
Lack of sleep robs your health, your energy and your daily routines. It steals your alertness and creativity. It impairs judgement, and endangers you. So getting enough sleep is a good thing.
The world is full of advice (most of it contradictory!) on how to get to sleep, but there are so many remedies, it’s hard to choose: Read a book, but not in bed. Always keep something to read handy at bedside. Don’t lie down until you feel sleepy. Exercise right before bed. Only nap for 40 minutes or less, during the day, to stay alert. Don’t nap before bedtime, no matter how tired you are. Have some hot milk. Don’t eat after 8 pm…
What relaxes you and puts you in dreamland? Your favorite formula for when you really, really need to sleep?
LivingSpace 
I don’t usually have problems getting to sleep but I don’t manage to stay asleep very well. This means around 4am my eyes pop open :shock: and I end up either reading or turning on the laptop for a couple of hours.
I think it’s difficult to make hard and fast rules about ‘sleep remedies’. For example, I tend to get a bit hyper if I exercise too soon before bedtime and an old friend of mine could never fall asleep unless he’d just eaten a huge meal (spaghetti and meatballs at midnight) … but I guess in general the things you mention could work for most people.
One thing I wish I could do is take a bath – I think that would be a nice pre-bed routine to get into, especially in winter. Unfortunately my bath is just about long enough for Sunny to stretch out in and it’s not very relaxing to sit with your knees in your armpits.
So I very rarely get an uninterrupted night’s sleep. On those rare occasions that I do sleep straight through I wake up feeling so amazing. It must be wonderful to experience that all the time.
Iused to have horrible insomnia. I notice it has helped that the bedroom now is used ONLY for sleep and for dressing/changing. Before I moved here four years ago, I lived in a studio of sorts (separate kitchen area and bathroom, plus a small walk-in closet thingy), and slept horribly there. I think it helps me to make the conscious move to sleep mode.
That said, nowadays I can sleep on the train, standing up, without being disturbed. So maybe it’s just how much I’m worrying that determines how well I will sleep?
I used to always play soft music to help me fall asleep. Then the radio stations stopped having that format. Now I use white noise. In the summer it’s easy because I can turn on a fan.
tip toes in and whispers…
are you sleeping?
Well, I got enough sleep last night! From Thursday night to last, not so much.
It was an hour commute from where I was staying to the Anaheim convention center for WorldCon, and we stayed from 10:00 in the morning to about 11:30 at night on Friday and Saturday. Got in at 11:30 on Sunday, and tear down was at 3:00. I got some sleep at the table during dinner afterwards though, along with 3 of the 6 of us there! LOL
I like to use rhythmic breathing exercises to give my conscious mind something to focus on while at the same time slowing my breathing and heartrate until I discover I have slept somehow and am now awakening.
I took a self-hypnosis class a long time ago, and I can do progressive relaxation — which seems to work about half the time. Next best is turning the radio on low and pretending it’s white noise.
Drugs.
(just kidding) although, if you need them, take them.
— L
Well, it’s stupid o’clock in the morning, again, and here I am — not sleeping and trying to remember how the type…drat. :mad:
I’m sleeping much better since I quite smoking and started yoga, though I still have those nights.
Meanwhile, when it’s stupid o’clock over there it’s quite reasonable o’clock here, so perhaps you should get Yahoo IM and pop in for a chat when you really can’t sleep. My Yahoo thingy is azaharh2g2.
I tried to download the thing yesterday — my IE wouldn’t swallow it. I’m currently working on getting a slightly more powerful/faster computer, with more HD. It’s partitioned and runs ME and XP. Guess which I’ll use… :?
The setup of the Yahoo IM looks very sensible, and *anything* beats AOL IM.
AS a matter of fact, it’s SOC right now…3:22 am.