I always have trouble sleeping till I tried passionflower tea. Ive never slept so good. Cant believe an herbal tea finally worked!!

I struggle with insomnia, too. There have been nights I didn't sleep at all - I would have loved two hours of sleep! :)

My doctor told me to not allow myself to lay in bed any longer than 15 or 20 minutes if I'm still not asleep. He says that if you lay in bed and toss and turn and not sleep, this trains your mind that this is what you're supposed to do when you go to bed. He said after 15 or 20 minutes, If you're still not asleep, get up and do something. Then go back to bed in an hour or so and try again. Not asleep in 15 minutes? Get up, read or workout for an hour, then try again. Repeat until you're able to go to sleep.

Also, he said to not eat or drink anything but water or caffeine-free tea or warm milk after 6pm. This gives your body several hours (3 hours, if you go to bed at 9pm) to digest any food you've eaten, for any sugars to wear off, fluids to pass through you, etc. This is actually something that has helped me a lot. When I forget to do this, I don't sleep well.

I struggle a lot with racing thoughts when I'm trying to go to sleep. I just can't stop thinking. Sometimes I try to talk to my body and tell it to go to sleep, piece by piece. "Good night top of my head, good night hair, good night left ear, good night right ear, ... etc." I go over my whole body and it focuses my thoughts on putting my whole body to sleep rather than whatever my thoughts were spinning around before. Sometimes that does help.

Also, I distract myself with my phone. I'll think of a question I have and think I should google it before I forget it. So then I google on my phone and before I know it... I've been reading stuff online for an hour. :( Bad. Sleep is way more important than google.

So I keep a notepad by my bed now and when I think of questions or things I need to do or look up, I write it down on my notepad but I do not allow myself to pick up my phone. I use my phone for an alarm so I keep it by my bed, but I do not pick it up. I use my notepad.

Good luck! And if you find anything that works let us know! :)

I second jeneiram. I went to a sleep specialist a few years back to try to decrease my reliance on sleeping aids and he taught me CBT techniques, including those mentioned by general. The best strategy for me was setting a specific wake up time and never wavering. I know it's a bummer because we insomniacs think we need to "catch up" on the weekends but actually having a set wake-up time retrains our dysfunctional circadian rhythm and is way more helpful even than having a set go-to-bed time. Two hours before bed with no technology. Read a relaxing book. And yeah, get out of bed if you've been there 20 minutes without sleeping so your body knows bed is for sleeping only. Oh yeah and don't use your bed, or even your bedroom if possible, during the day. These are all things he taught me. Over time I was sleeping aid free. :-) (Of course, none of these things work now that I have a baby.... lol. I wonder if there are sleep specialists for moms.) :-)

Absolutely agree with Kaylee about setting up a regular wake up time and stick to it. It really works for me. I wonder if you sleep in late at weekends Larz77? If I do that my sleep program all goes wrong, I get up to my alarm every day no matter how tired or how little I slept, its the only way for me to get a decent sleep pattern going.

hugs

Oooooh I had never heard about setting up a regular time to wake up! Thanks for that you guys. I will try that. I'm sure it will help others, too. And now that I think about it, I sleep much better during the school year, when my family has a more consistent type of routine and we wake up early mon-fri. I don't sleep as well during the summer, when our schedule is... well... we don't really have a schedule. lol We're lazy summertime bums! I thought it was because of the heat or staying up late or something, but maybe there's more to it...

((hugs))
jen