lying in bed quietly trying to fall asleep is terrible. My brain doesn't stop, it's like a pitching machine that's gone rouge and I'm the batter stuck in the cage.
Whenever I'm finally about to fall asleep, I notice myself falling asleep and become fully awake, because my brain goes "Yes! I'm falling asleep! Hurrah!"
Every time :angery:
Going to sleep = bad
Waking up = bad
Being asleep = good
Falling asleep is bad and stressful, true. If you're self aware about falling asleep, maybe you should look into lucid dreaming. Being able to summon dogs into existence by just focusing really hard is something that really motivates me to go to bed.
I don't dream usually :agony-deep:
Is it possible to go from barely dreaming and never remembering it to lucid dreaming?
it usually depends on how long you sleep for as far as i am aware
i usually can only get lucid dreams to happen if i dont wake up to an alarm and slept uninterrupted
Start setting an alarm for 3 hours before you want to actually wake up (as well as when you want to wake up). If at this time, you remember a dream you were having, write it down immediately. If not, go back to sleep and try to write down everything you can remember from your dreams the second time. If the first alarm wakes you up too much to go back to sleep, start meditating on the intention to remember your dream and write it down in the morning as soon as you wake up (and stop setting the first alarm so you stop disrupting your sleep too much). I found that after about a year of writing all of my dreams, I was remembering multiple dreams most mornings and lucid dreaming once or twice every few months. Also, don't ingest any THC or caffeine within 3 (or more if you can) hours before sleep.
It's pretty hard but once you learn your own dream tells it's kind of a matter of getting your brain to agree with you to hand over the dream so you can play with it. Easiest in the mornings if you can go back to sleep after initial wake-up because it's halfway a day dream where you can practice.
I've never felt like I'm in control of my dreams, but I occasionally have dreams where I'm aware I'm dreaming and I know I can force myself awake at any time.
I love sleeping but hate falling asleep so much because of the reasons you describe
i take an anxiety med that knocks me out every night within 5 minutes, 10/10 would take super drowsy anxiety med again
Comrade. My socialized healthcare made me go to a sleep psychiatrist (Yes they exist). Had light therapy and they help set me up with an actually working melatonin dose. It helps a lot. Especially the light stuff. Also have to keep myself to strict sleeping schedule.
real insomniac hours whos up
I get that a lot too, sometimes i just can't fall asleep until i'm so dead tired that i do it without even noticing i'm falling asleep. it just really sucks when that moment doesn't come until like 9am
social anxiety, hsp here: i take cocktail to go to sleep: 200-400 mg l-theanine powder. 1-3 mg melatonin (depending on what i have at the moment). sometimes 1 g of kratom. 100 mg chelated magnesium (basically to make my muscles go limp, also reduces tolerance to various chems). 30 mg diphenhydramine if i really need to. rainstorm on the TV and ASMR with headphones to calm me down. sleep mask. cold room. blackout curtains. weirdly when i go camping/backpacking i need none of this.
Yeah being physically tired does help, but it's been tough to work in activity towards the end of my day for many reasons including your basic lack of motivation and procrastination
I used to think I had insomnia since childhood until I was about 21. I tried so many things over the years to varying degrees of success but the problem persisted - I couldn't quiet my mind unless I was exhausted. That led to many nights gaming or binging Netflix till late, and also smoking weed or taking valerian root to help me sleep (both actually pretty effective but not good for health and I always woke up groggy). Anyway what I'm saying is been there, done that, actually doing it rn.
What changed is when I was trying out meditation. Hear me out here bc I'm not just gonna say "learn to meditate". I got headspace for free with Spotify and gave it a go. While following along to the beginner parts I noticed myself being very sleepy. One of the first things it takes you through is breathing. Proper breathing alone helps a lot - you should be breathing with your diaphragm, idk the science behind it but pretty sure that's how you breathe when you sleep and it sends certain signals to your brain (signals like 'yo it sleep time'). Mouth or nose is fine, but best not to do both. Long in, long out and deep. You know it's diaphragmatic when the sound of your breathing comes from around the back of your throat rather than your nose/mouth.
While that will help, it doesn't solve the problem of quieting the mind. I'm all but diagnosed with ADHD, so turning the think off is impossible unless I'm focusing, which you generally don't want to be doing when falling asleep. Well turns out there's probably a reason for the 'counting sheep to fall asleep' cliché. Headspace told me to count my breaths - in 1, out 2, in 3, out 4 etc - up to 10, then start again. This gives you something to focus on while not being stimulating enough to encourage thought tangents. If you notice yourself thinking about something else, bring it back to the numbers. If you count over 10 like I do, bring it back to 1-10. Start again if you need to. Just keep repeating this, and keep the deep, diaphragmatic breathing in mind and you should (ymmv of course) nod off to sleep fairly easy. It gets easier with practice too. I sleep like a log most nights these days.
Otherwise, perhaps you could try a 4/4 split? It works for a lot of people since we're more geared to that than one lot of 8 hours.
Same. What I've started doing is listening to a podcast to fall asleep to. Keeping my mind focused on what their saying helps me not fall into that trap.
Rainsounds have made it at least 3x easier for me since I started using them, and a similar benefit from a weighted blanket, but some nights both of those backfire on me anyway >,<
