Drugs for me. Thorizine and Temazapam. One to put me to sleep and the other to keep me dreamless or at least so I do not remember the dreams.

Thank you Thor2008. They have me on Xanax and another drug, but they really messed me up. I take the Xanax only when absolutely necessary, but they're highly addictive. I will ask doctor about those today when I go in. Thanks again.

Try meditation or progressive relaxation CD right before bed.
Buy a sound machine with soothing sounds. To listen to as you
Try to sleep. The CDs help me.

Will definitely try that but my mind races and wanders so easily -- no focus. But will try. Thank you.

I also have a routine each night. Same time to bed, then an email review before going to bed, hot shower, take my drugs (eight now), and then into bed. I also use a white noise generator on my phone called Rain Rain. I do a rainy night at the beach for my noise and run that all night long. There are hundreds of combinations of sounds in rain rain. But bottom line the same routine every night.

Make a list of things to do to calm the night routine. Mark them off.

Focus on something calming to distract the thoughts and practice even breathing.

Best wishes.

Hello IW. Welcome to DS.

I don't sleep with anxiety. When I try, even with the power drugs, the nightmares are horrific when I attempt to sleep with anxiety. Sleeping with nightmares is far from restful.

I work out my anxieties before I attempt to sleep. That is easier said than done. It took allot of practice before I was able to accomplish that minor miracle, but it was worth the effort. I use quite a few of the tools listed here in the effort.

Gentle support while you find what works for you. Welcome aboard.

Thanks for sharing IWAgain,

sorry to hear about the difficulty sleeping. I can definitely relate to your experience. The nightmares, in my own personal case, are directly related to what sort of media I have consumed just prior to bed. So with that said, I try to keep the reading material/videos light in nature so I don't have nightmares.


Here is my personal list of the biggest factors that have impacted my sleep for the better, thus greatly improving my quality of life.


1. Maintain the same routine every night, to the best of your ability.

2. Perform some sort of cardiovascular exercise, if at all possible, earlier in the day. It will tire you out. I personally run a few times per week.

3. Get all the "stress-of-the-day/work-related" talk out of the way over dinner and then reach a time a couple hours before bed where those topics are off limits.


4. Limit your caffeine intake. Depending on how sensitive you are, you may wish to stop all caffeinated beverages up to 6 hours prior to bed. For example, I can get away with drinking a diet coke or a caffeinated green tea at dinner, but coffee would be off limits late in the day.

5. Limit your alcohol consumption within a few hours of bed. I find that if I drink more than two alcoholic beverages within 2-3 hours of bed time, I will be up in the middle of the night.

6. One of my biggest "game-changers:" Find something to read that soothes and relaxes your mind as you are in bed waiting to get sleepy. Pick topics you are interested in and in which your thoughts can happily envelop themselves. My personal favorites are gardening, cooking, and fitness.

7. Hydroxyzine Pamoate 25 mg once daily in the evenings. Helps zonk me out a bit before bed. Ask your Doc about it, as it may or may not be appropriate for you.

Hope some of these might be of some help to you.

Have you tried breathing exercises?
I was too anxious and panicky at first to do these properly but when I devoted the time and sat down and focused, they worked.

One exercise is to put your hands on your stomach, then make sure you are breathing into your stomach (not shallow breathing in your chest). Doing this for a few minutes always slowed me down.

The other exercise is to cover your right nostril, breathe in through the left nostril, then out through your mouth, and repeat this for a few minutes.

Right now I am having the same problem. I am taking a handful of drugs but still have sleep issues. I normally don’t go to bed until I am tired or I just stare at the ceiling. I do not take naps during the day. I can’t take the normal Prazosin or others because my blood pressure is low. I also suffer from nightmares. No matter what time I go to sleep I try to get up at the same time in hopes to stay on schedule,

The mind has to be trained the same as a dog or small child. Persevere with meditation or relaxing videos. Nothing is instant but it is worth trying..good luck.

I don't like being on drugs either! I, like you, don't sleep and I actually dread going to bed. BUT I've tried a couple over the counter things that work for me. One is ZzzQuil. It's just liquid Benadryl. The other is Natrol Melatonin. I chose that brand because it doesn't have toxic doses of vitamin B6 in it. It's just melatonin.

My bladder usually gets me up sometime through the night so I'll take another swig of ZzzQuil or part of a melatonin tablet if I feel I'm too wide awake to get back to sleep.

Admittedly, there are nights where my anxiety is at such a high level neither works. The other night it was and it was probably about 2 a.m. when I finally fell asleep.