Yeah.. me neither.
At least some of the time I am wide awake just staring at the roof. Chances are, if you are reading this, then you have likely tried all of the conventional methods of getting your body to relax. They can include drinking warm milk, having a long hot bubble bath, reading, sitting in front of a fire - anything that is relaxing in general. Some of you may have graduated to some visualization techniques, some self-talk, journaling, or even gone so far as to take herbal remedies and popping pills to try and make your body drowsy.
Here are tips that sometimes work for me. My sleep schedule is completely messed up... but there are also specific categories of why I may or may not be sleeping.
For the restless mind:
If I am particularly stressed out, having something of importance on my mind, or I am making lists of things I need to do for the next day/week - if it is occupying my mind so much so that I can't sleep, then I have to literally get up and write everything down. Everything from how I'm feeling, to the psychoanalysis of things that maybe happened during the day, and lists. Lots of lists. One of the biggest things that I do on a daily basis that helps with this is blogging (obviously), and I also write down, in a booklet, everything that happened during a doctor's appointment. Little details are easy to forget, so write them down. It's a smart idea anyways, but it helps with insomnia a little bit - or CAN help.
For the restless body:
If it's nausea - try warm milk but add peppermint, ginger, or cinnamon to it. They are supposed to be effective anti-nauseates. If that isn't helping, holding onto something cold while under the blankets tends to help. (The other side of the pillow, making sure your leg is up against a cold wall, or even a full blown cloth soaked in cold water).
If it's pain - this is where visualization and patience comes in. Obviously if you have pain medications that you should be taking - this is a good time to take them. The other part is visualization. I didn't buy into it much - so if you are not wanting to read about it - skip this part.
Basically my pain I always visualize as an implosion in my body. A lot of the time it's hurts so bad that I get this terrifying and yet satisfying image of my body blowing up from the inside out because of the pain. I decided to use this image to my advantage. When I am exhausted but can't sleep because I have too much pain, and I cannot take anymore pain medications for fear of overdose, I lie down really still, I focus on my breathing, and I imagine a little light - wherever the pain is ... I imagine that light as an implosion, and all the little pieces scattering away. And as it scatters, the pain itself subsides with it, disappearing at a certain distance from the initial light. Sometimes it has to blow up two or three times before I notice any difference, but I imagine it getting smaller and smaller each time. It is a simple thing... but sometimes it helps.
If it's simply just restlessness/discomfort - This is where I like to focus on my breathing. I get as comfortable as I possibly can. I kick my dog off of the bed, I redo my bedding so that it's perfect, I align my body to the most absolute comfortable position that I can (including proper dispersion of hot and cold), and I literally focus on my breath. I focus on slowing it down, breathing more deeply and through my abdomen as opposed to my chest... Then I do top-down singular muscle relaxation. I manually relax every muscle from my head to my feet slowly and methodically. I actually used this method just last night, and the last thing I remember is focusing on my breathing. So that's a GOOD thing :) yay!
For the restless heart:
This also calls for some writing/journaling or something of the sort. The important thing to note here is that you really have to allow yourself to just relax when you're writing. Usually, when writing lists, ideas, schedules, etc... there is a methodical, chronological, orderly way of doing it. You have to think about every single word that you are writing, making sure that it makes complete grammatical sense. When you have a restless heart - yes even the guys - guess what? Your writing shouldn't be rational, because emotions aren't rational. When you are dealing with any kind of emotion that is keeping you up at night, you are dealing with a totally new brand of insomnia. Emotions make you think even faster than you were before, you psychoanalyze, you micromanage every little thing that you think of and you try and piece it together and pull it apart and it just gets goddamned confusing. BUT - if you journal out all of these thoughts - if you just let go of order and you write down every single thought and emotion that comes into your head. Just write it. No processing, no thinking about HOW to write it - just WRITE IT DOWN - I guarantee you will feel calmer afterwards. You may never understand what you wrote, hell you may not have any idea at all WHAT you wrote - but you got it from out of your head onto paper. That means that you don't have to hold it in your head anymore. You can let it go and let yourself fall asleep.
I hope that some of these tips and tricks will help out some of you tonight. I think I'm going to try all of the methods in about twenty minutes here. :(
Happy sleeping!
At least some of the time I am wide awake just staring at the roof. Chances are, if you are reading this, then you have likely tried all of the conventional methods of getting your body to relax. They can include drinking warm milk, having a long hot bubble bath, reading, sitting in front of a fire - anything that is relaxing in general. Some of you may have graduated to some visualization techniques, some self-talk, journaling, or even gone so far as to take herbal remedies and popping pills to try and make your body drowsy.
Here are tips that sometimes work for me. My sleep schedule is completely messed up... but there are also specific categories of why I may or may not be sleeping.
For the restless mind:
If I am particularly stressed out, having something of importance on my mind, or I am making lists of things I need to do for the next day/week - if it is occupying my mind so much so that I can't sleep, then I have to literally get up and write everything down. Everything from how I'm feeling, to the psychoanalysis of things that maybe happened during the day, and lists. Lots of lists. One of the biggest things that I do on a daily basis that helps with this is blogging (obviously), and I also write down, in a booklet, everything that happened during a doctor's appointment. Little details are easy to forget, so write them down. It's a smart idea anyways, but it helps with insomnia a little bit - or CAN help.
For the restless body:
If it's nausea - try warm milk but add peppermint, ginger, or cinnamon to it. They are supposed to be effective anti-nauseates. If that isn't helping, holding onto something cold while under the blankets tends to help. (The other side of the pillow, making sure your leg is up against a cold wall, or even a full blown cloth soaked in cold water).
If it's pain - this is where visualization and patience comes in. Obviously if you have pain medications that you should be taking - this is a good time to take them. The other part is visualization. I didn't buy into it much - so if you are not wanting to read about it - skip this part.
Basically my pain I always visualize as an implosion in my body. A lot of the time it's hurts so bad that I get this terrifying and yet satisfying image of my body blowing up from the inside out because of the pain. I decided to use this image to my advantage. When I am exhausted but can't sleep because I have too much pain, and I cannot take anymore pain medications for fear of overdose, I lie down really still, I focus on my breathing, and I imagine a little light - wherever the pain is ... I imagine that light as an implosion, and all the little pieces scattering away. And as it scatters, the pain itself subsides with it, disappearing at a certain distance from the initial light. Sometimes it has to blow up two or three times before I notice any difference, but I imagine it getting smaller and smaller each time. It is a simple thing... but sometimes it helps.
If it's simply just restlessness/discomfort - This is where I like to focus on my breathing. I get as comfortable as I possibly can. I kick my dog off of the bed, I redo my bedding so that it's perfect, I align my body to the most absolute comfortable position that I can (including proper dispersion of hot and cold), and I literally focus on my breath. I focus on slowing it down, breathing more deeply and through my abdomen as opposed to my chest... Then I do top-down singular muscle relaxation. I manually relax every muscle from my head to my feet slowly and methodically. I actually used this method just last night, and the last thing I remember is focusing on my breathing. So that's a GOOD thing :) yay!
For the restless heart:
This also calls for some writing/journaling or something of the sort. The important thing to note here is that you really have to allow yourself to just relax when you're writing. Usually, when writing lists, ideas, schedules, etc... there is a methodical, chronological, orderly way of doing it. You have to think about every single word that you are writing, making sure that it makes complete grammatical sense. When you have a restless heart - yes even the guys - guess what? Your writing shouldn't be rational, because emotions aren't rational. When you are dealing with any kind of emotion that is keeping you up at night, you are dealing with a totally new brand of insomnia. Emotions make you think even faster than you were before, you psychoanalyze, you micromanage every little thing that you think of and you try and piece it together and pull it apart and it just gets goddamned confusing. BUT - if you journal out all of these thoughts - if you just let go of order and you write down every single thought and emotion that comes into your head. Just write it. No processing, no thinking about HOW to write it - just WRITE IT DOWN - I guarantee you will feel calmer afterwards. You may never understand what you wrote, hell you may not have any idea at all WHAT you wrote - but you got it from out of your head onto paper. That means that you don't have to hold it in your head anymore. You can let it go and let yourself fall asleep.
I hope that some of these tips and tricks will help out some of you tonight. I think I'm going to try all of the methods in about twenty minutes here. :(
Happy sleeping!