Anyone here cured chornic insomnia?

[InfinityCurve]

My body is in a really unbalanced cycle of going to sleep around 1 or 2 or 3AM. I also eat very late (10-midnight) and often too much.

This was one thing before I had a child because I could catch up by sleeping 'till late morning/early afternoon a few days a week. But now I'm up at 7:30AM like it or not. I thought this rude awakening would help fix my insomnia but it hasn't.

Any advice? My health (mental & physical) is really taking a toll because of this sleep issue.

Thanks much!

[ssandra]

Originally Posted by InfinityCurve

I also eat very late (10-midnight) and often too much.

Stop doing this.

Eat a heavy breakfast but a every light diner. A "real" diner at least 4 or 5 hours before you go to sleep (minimum, more time is better) and a snack latest 2 hours before going to sleep.

So if you eat at 6 have a snack at 9, go to sleep at 11.

[InfinityCurve]

It's hard to stop because my body is so used to it. If I don't eat at night I generally have insomnia even worse. I know you're right (regarding night eating) but it's very difficult to not do it.

Also, I have zero appetite in the morning & if I force myself to eat them I generally don't feel good most of the day.

[firenexx]

If you stop eating late at night, you will gradually start to have an appetite in the morning. Eating late at night makes it harder to fall asleep, and also delays your entry into REM sleep, which is the kind you need to heal your mind and body. Your stomach should not be busy digesting when you are trying to sleep, it should be on "clean" cycle. Not getting a chance to go on "clean" cycle will screw you up in many ways, including making it hard to eat in the morning.
So stop eating late at night.
This is very hard to do. Think of it like this: If you are going to eat breakfast at 8 o'clock, do not eat anything after 8 o'clock P.M. If you eat anything, it should be a VERY, VERY light snack. There is a reason breakfast is called breakfast. You are breaking what should be a fast.

[Leesah]

Just a couple tips
- cut out all caffeine after 3pm (includes tea).
- buy Paul Mckenna's 'I can make you sleep' book, it comes with a sleep hypnosis cd which is AMAZING. Sometimes when my sleep is really bad I'll have to listen to it up to 3 times (it lasts 20 mins, so that's an hour), but it's much better than the alternative of being awake til 5am. Usually I fall asleep during the 2nd listen, though. It's never failed to eventually send me off to sleep. Waking up frequently has been a massive problem for me though and the cd doesn't help with this, but falling asleep it definitely helps with (for me at least). It's the only thing other than sleeping pills that really works for me. I would recommend pills but as a last resort, and you should ideally change your late night eating habits before trying them... although personally I lived in Spain for a while, it's totally normal there to eat at 10pm and later (I sometimes had dinner at 12am!) and it doesn't cause sleep problems, so I don't know if that's really SO much related, but perhaps for you it is. I don't think it worked well for me either if I'm honest as that was the worst sleep year of my life.. lol.

[mikej]

Originally Posted by InfinityCurve

It's hard to stop because my body is so used to it. If I don't eat at night I generally have insomnia even worse. I know you're right (regarding night eating) but it's very difficult to not do it.

Also, I have zero appetite in the morning & if I force myself to eat them I generally don't feel good most of the day.

I have a problem with night eating too in that I frequently wake up during the night (about 2 a.m.) and I can't get back to sleep unless I eat something.

I suspect there's something emotional/psychological causing it (maybe stress at a subconscious/unconscious level) but I haven't been able to identify the exact cause yet.

[Illuminatus]

Originally Posted by InfinityCurve

It's hard to stop because my body is so used to it. If I don't eat at night I generally have insomnia even worse. I know you're right (regarding night eating) but it's very difficult to not do it.

Also, I have zero appetite in the morning & if I force myself to eat them I generally don't feel good most of the day.

So in other words you want to know how to change without doing a damn thing.

[Fredrik]

I think you should start out by gradually getting the right meal frequency and size during the day. Have exercise during the day, too. Once you've done that you should start establishing a pre-sleep routine. One that has worked wonders for me is reading a book for an hour, but there are countless others. This will really guide your body into sleeping. It probably will take a while, but at some point, if this works, you should be able to construct a routine for falling asleep that's functional. I overcome my occasional insomnia by establishing such a routine. It makes me fall asleep very easily too.

[russianrocket]

Originally Posted by firenexx

If you stop eating late at night, you will gradually start to have an appetite in the morning. Eating late at night makes it harder to fall asleep, and also delays your entry into REM sleep, which is the kind you need to heal your mind and body. Your stomach should not be busy digesting when you are trying to sleep, it should be on "clean" cycle. Not getting a chance to go on "clean" cycle will screw you up in many ways, including making it hard to eat in the morning.
So stop eating late at night.
This is very hard to do. Think of it like this: If you are going to eat breakfast at 8 o'clock, do not eat anything after 8 o'clock P.M. If you eat anything, it should be a VERY, VERY light snack. There is a reason breakfast is called breakfast. You are breaking what should be a fast.

Why SHOULD it be a fast? Not just because it's called a breakfast, right? Who came up with that term anyways, and did the term come first? The bodies muscle tissue repairs itself at night. It needs protein to rebuild itself, so who actually says that we need to fast at night? Fasting doesn't start just when the stomach is empty.

Now people who eat the wrong food before bed. Yeah, I can see why that would be an issue for their bodies. The the act of digesting, is not in and of itself,, bad.

[firenexx]

Why SHOULD it be a fast? Not just because it's called a breakfast, right? Who came up with that term anyways, and did the term come first? The bodies muscle tissue repairs itself at night. It needs protein to rebuild itself, so who actually says that we need to fast at night? Fasting doesn't start just when the stomach is empty.

Now people who eat the wrong food before bed. Yeah, I can see why that would be an issue for their bodies. The the act of digesting, is not in and of itself,, bad.

I agree that the act of digesting, in and of itself, is not bad. I encourage regular eating of food. Digestion is good.

The digestive system has two main functions. It needs to digest food, and it needs to clean itself. It can certainly do both at once, but it does each more efficiently when separate. At night, it does a lot of cleaning. In daytime, it should do a lot of digesting. This is for an optimal digestive system. If you want a suboptimal digestive system, eat a feast before you go to bed.

[beast]

I've suffered from insomia for about 13 years and have never found anything to "cure" it. It comes and goes, and there are treatments I can do, but nothing fool-proof. I've tried pills, exercise at all hours, dietary changes, lavender, chamomile, baths, meditation, never consuming caffeine, not using my computer, reading...pretty much everything you can think of, I've tried it. I suppose everything but hypnotism, which I'd like to try.

Last year I had a four-day period in which I didn't sleep a wink. I just did not fall asleep once, not even for a second, in that period. I felt like I was losing my mind by the end of it. It was the scariest experience ever.

Anyways, stress exacerbates it for me, and I find that sleeping close to another person also helps a lot, but not always. Journaling before bed also helps, but I've never found a cure-all.

[InfinityCurve]

Originally Posted by Illuminatus

So in other words you want to know how to change without doing a damn thing.

No. Did you really open this thread just to say that?

Originally Posted by Fredrik

I think you should start out by gradually getting the right meal frequency and size during the day. Have exercise during the day, too. Once you've done that you should start establishing a pre-sleep routine. One that has worked wonders for me is reading a book for an hour, but there are countless others. This will really guide your body into sleeping. It probably will take a while, but at some point, if this works, you should be able to construct a routine for falling asleep that's functional. I overcome my occasional insomnia by establishing such a routine. It makes me fall asleep very easily too.

Yeah, good points. Exercise & having a relaxing routine at night, minimize stress, no overstimulating music or thinking about things that might irritate me (including Internet forums, see Illumintaus post).

I think the key is to convince myself I had a productive day & that I "deserve" rest. Exercise will create the physical feeling of that & I just have to convince myself mentally as well.

[Harald]

Had insomnia all my life until I started with the Sedona Method. I've been insomnia free since (for the better part of a decade now). Try it - it works.

[ssandra]

Originally Posted by InfinityCurve

It's hard to stop because my body is so used to it. If I don't eat at night I generally have insomnia even worse. I know you're right (regarding night eating) but it's very difficult to not do it.

Start small. Keep on eating but eat half of what you normally eat. Or eat more healthy things.

Start by not eating 1 hour before going to sleep for example.

Make sure that is a habit before you shift it back even more.

[ginkgo]

New Jersey is in America so you are a normal American. The fact is that most Americans have problems sleeping. My opinion is that a big part of that is stress. I sleep very well so I am an abnormal American. So you are asking if there is a cure for being a normal American that is filled with stress and has trouble sleeping?

Yes, become an abnormal American. Do things like yoga to help you to be more relaxed. Here is a webpage with Natural Cures and it tells about how to help insomnia and the common mechanism that causes insomnia.

[InfinityCurve]

I probably shouldn't read stuff like this at 12AM....

[russianrocket]

Originally Posted by InfinityCurve

I probably shouldn't read stuff like this at 12AM....

Well, it being 10 years old should send up a red flag, but either way. If you take stuff like that to heart, then you shouldn't read stuff like that ever, let alone at midnight. Hell, even in the article he says that the world was 1 degree warmer 6000 years ago, then it is now. That shold tell you something about "global warming" nonsense.

[InfinityCurve]

Originally Posted by russianrocket

Well, it being 10 years old should send up a red flag, but either way. If you take stuff like that to heart, then you shouldn't read stuff like that ever, let alone at midnight. Hell, even in the article he says that the world was 1 degree warmer 6000 years ago, then it is now. That shold tell you something about "global warming" nonsense.

I'm not going to get into debates with GW denialists, even at 11AM.

[russianrocket]

Originally Posted by InfinityCurve

I'm not going to get into debates with GW denialists, even at 11AM.

lol denialists is not even a word, but what ever. You keep scaring yourself with our pending doom, as if you have some control in the matter, and feeling even worse when you realize you can't actually do anything that matters. As I said, the article you posted says that temps were HIGHER 6000 years ago, yet you still take what it says as truth. You know, even the most adherent GW alarmists are smart enough to no longer call it global WARMING.

[firenexx]

I'm pretty sure they still call it global warming.
I mean, sure, there are myriad other terms.

Also, I'm pretty sure the correct word would be "denier," e.g. Holocaust denier.

Keep watching Fox news, the reporters aren't allowed to discuss climate change without adding a comment at the end disputing the science.

[russianrocket]

Originally Posted by firenexx

I'm pretty sure they still call it global warming.
I mean, sure, there are myriad other terms.

Also, I'm pretty sure the correct word would be "denier," e.g. Holocaust denier.

Keep watching Fox news, the reporters aren't allowed to discuss climate change without adding a comment at the end disputing the science.

Why does every response from a person always have to end with some comment about fox. I don't watch fox, nor would I want to. You guys need to pick a new trick.

And no, they call it Global CLIMATE CHANGE.

[firenexx]

They also call it global warming.

...

Keep in mind we are talking about a plural pronoun here. "They" have never been known to reveal themselves as a distinct entity.

[russianrocket]

Originally Posted by firenexx

They also call it global warming.

...

Keep in mind we are talking about a plural pronoun here. "They" have never been known to reveal themselves as a distinct entity.

They, as in people who believe in global warming. Not talking about any distinct entity. They do also call it global warming, but the vast majority have shyed away from it and are now going to climate change. Proof is in the google, that shows TEN TIMES more results for climate change then global warming.They are probably getting tired of situations like in Mexico when they held the climate change conference when it was unusually cold, and everyone saying " so, where is this WARMING you were talking about?"

Probably the same feelings that the people got when global cooling turned out to be wrong. Wait, aren't these the same people?

[firenexx]

... change conference when it was unusually cold, and everyone saying " so, where is this WARMING you were talking about?" ...

That's the part that cracks me up. People that say stuff like "LOL WELLL YOUR SAYING THE WORLD IS WARMING BUT HOW COME ITS STILL COLD IN THE WINTER LOLOL. I JUST MADE A QUALITY RESPONSE IN A SCIENTIFIC DEBATE THAT WILL CHANGE LOTS OF PEOPLES MINDS."

Probably the same feelings that the people got when global cooling turned out to be wrong. Wait, aren't these the same people?

Ooh, ooh, I bet it's the same exact people who said that Y2k would be the end of the world! But y2k was wrong!

...
...
...

(Except that it wasn't, and the only reason we didn't have massive systems failures was that thousands of IT geeks got paid overtime to work around the clock fixing millions of computers in essential systems to accurately change date to 2000.)

[russianrocket]

Originally Posted by firenexx

That's the part that cracks me up. People that say stuff like "LOL WELLL YOUR SAYING THE WORLD IS WARMING BUT HOW COME ITS STILL COLD IN THE WINTER LOLOL. I JUST MADE A QUALITY RESPONSE IN A SCIENTIFIC DEBATE THAT WILL CHANGE LOTS OF PEOPLES MINDS."



Ooh, ooh, I bet it's the same exact people who said that Y2k would be the end of the world! But y2k was wrong!

...
...
...

(Except that it wasn't, and the only reason we didn't have massive systems failures was that thousands of IT geeks got paid overtime to work around the clock fixing millions of computers in essential systems to accurately change date to 2000.)

Well considering the said that it WOULD be the end, and not it COULD be the end, I'd say they were WRONG. Now, if one of these GW people has an actual cure for their supposed claims of doom and gloom, then there is no point of comparing it to Y2k. Something that we understood, knew about, and had a way of fixing.


Now, do you have any advice on curing chronic insomnia? Cause our posts will probably be deleted soon lol

[beast]

Originally Posted by russianrocket

They, as in people who believe in global warming. Not talking about any distinct entity. They do also call it global warming, but the vast majority have shyed away from it and are now going to climate change. Proof is in the google, that shows TEN TIMES more results for climate change then global warming.They are probably getting tired of situations like in Mexico when they held the climate change conference when it was unusually cold, and everyone saying " so, where is this WARMING you were talking about?"

Probably the same feelings that the people got when global cooling turned out to be wrong. Wait, aren't these the same people?

Are you just trying to be as incendiary as possible? I, like most rational, logical, scientifically-minded people, believe in global warming. I also believe in climate change, but the two terms aren't exactly interchangeable.

Anyways, when I google "climate change" and "global warming", I find that there are 33.6 million hits for the first term, and 21.8 million hits for the second term. That means that there are 1.5 times more hits for the first term, which is a far cry from the numbers you're spitting out. You may also want to consider that climate change doesn't just refer to the global warming crisis which we're currently experiencing, but to any climate change throughout earth's history. You'll find hits for climate change which refer to changes from many thousands of years ago.

Anyways, to put it simply, "climate change" refers to long-term changes in weather patterns (this includes "global warming", which refers to the increase in average temperatures from the 20th century onward).

Remember how all squares are rectangles, but not all rectangles are squares? All global warming is climate change, but not all climate change is global warming. How about that?

[russianrocket]

Originally Posted by beast

Are you just trying to be as incendiary as possible? I, like most rational, logical, scientifically-minded people, believe in global warming. I also believe in climate change, but the two terms aren't exactly interchangeable.

Anyways, when I google "climate change" and "global warming", I find that there are 33.6 million hits for the first term, and 21.8 million hits for the second term. That means that there are 1.5 times more hits for the first term, which is a far cry from the numbers you're spitting out. You may also want to consider that climate change doesn't just refer to the global warming crisis which we're currently experiencing, but to any climate change throughout earth's history. You'll find hits for climate change which refer to changes from many thousands of years ago.

Anyways, to put it simply, "climate change" refers to long-term changes in weather patterns (this includes "global warming", which refers to the increase in average temperatures from the 20th century onward).

Remember how all squares are rectangles, but not all rectangles are squares? All global warming is climate change, but not all climate change is global warming. How about that?

don't know what google YOU'RE using, but for me it says 178,000,000
climate change - Google Search

People have begun to stop using global warming because they clearly couldn't show that the globe was warming. But they could show that the climates were changing. Add to that, the fact that people are slowly but surely getting tired of hearing about global warming, and that everyone remembers the global cooling of the 70's, they have started using climate change instead as a catch all. Still gets their point across that something is changing.

Tho to say that most people who don't believe in GW ( maybe I should say man made GW, tho who would care if it's not man made, as that would mean man can't change it and everyone is obviously blaming humans for it as well as trying to change the way we live. So lets go with man made) are not logical rational or scientifically minded? Condescending much? And you accuse ME of being incendiary. What you view as incendiary, I view as expressing my opinion. As many people have pointed out, and have actually messaged me to tell me, that I'm willing to say things others aren't without being worried of offending someone ( not calling someone stupid or some type of insult, but saying something that someone might take offensive mainly because it goes against a tightly held belief) and going against the grain of this forum. I haven't been banned, so what can I say.

And my opinion was completely on topic, as reading doom and gloom before going to sleep is a recipe for insomnia. The OP

[beast]

Originally Posted by russianrocket

don't know what google YOU'RE using, but for me it says 178,000,000
climate change - Google Search

Nope, I still got the same numbers, dunno what to tell you.

Tho to say that most people who don't believe in GW ( maybe I should say man made GW, tho who would care if it's not man made, as that would mean man can't change it and everyone is obviously blaming humans for it as well as trying to change the way we live. So lets go with man made) are not logical rational or scientifically minded? Condescending much? And you accuse ME of being incendiary. What you view as incendiary, I view as expressing my opinion.

I didn't say that. I said that most rational, logical, and scientifically-minded people believe in global warming, and I am standing by that. I made no statement about what people who are not rational, logical, and scientifically-minded believe. Do you see the difference?

You certainly do have a colorful way of expressing your opinion, by the way. I scanned all the posts in this thread, and I can tell which are yours just by the fact that you tend to write quite a few of your words in all caps.

As many people have pointed out, and have actually messaged me to tell me, that I'm willing to say things others aren't without being worried of offending someone ( not calling someone stupid or some type of insult, but saying something that someone might take offensive mainly because it goes against a tightly held belief) and going against the grain of this forum. I haven't been banned, so what can I say.

If you genuinely see nothing wrong with your tone, I really have no idea what I can tell you. I have no problem with what you say, on the whole - though you happen to be very, very wrong on this issue, according to nearly every reputable scientist out there - but the way you say it sure is irksome.

And my opinion was completely on topic, as reading doom and gloom before going to sleep is a recipe for insomnia. The OP

You're right.

OP, this is much better bedtime reading for insomniacs: Fatal familial insomnia - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[garentee]

Heres a take on environmentalists and global climate change etc....
YouTube - Carlin Jamming in NYC

[beast]

George Carlin was a genius. And, he's right, too - it isn't a matter of saving the planet, it's a matter of saving ourselves - or, more accurately, our progeny, and other life-forms, too. I also hate the "save the planet" rhetoric, and I think it represents the very height of arrogance. But hey, maybe someone could start a global warming thread?