Re: Not being able to STAY asleep
 

1. Alcohol is a depressant initially but a stimulant after about 8 hours.
2. Caffeine
3. Exercise
4. Light - do you have decent curtains?
5. Noise - ear plugs?

gl

Re: Not being able to STAY asleep
 

Drinking is a big cause, once you sober up you wake up.

I have this problem alot of the time and normally I will wake up 4-6 hours after going to bed and 2-3 hours before I should get up. I lay in bed for a couple hours and fall asleep just to wake back up for whatever I got to do and then its real hard to get up. I found that if I just go ahead and get up at that time a few times in row it will take care of itself.

Re: Not being able to STAY asleep
 

stress?

If it gets to a point where it's constantly bothering, I'd go get it checked out. You can probably go to your local pharmacy and they'll explain a few things to you. I think it may have something to do with your eating habits, daily living, stress, etc.

Probably stuff you can control on your own rather than needing medication.

I notice that I sleep a lot better when I go work out or exercise or do something physically exhausting that enables me to basically crash out once I lay down in bed.

Re: Not being able to STAY asleep
 

I don't sleep very much anyway... 4-6 hours average (rarely 8, usually a little more than 4) But I do have similar problems, the not getting to sleep and the not staying asleep (after 4-5 days of ~2 hours of sleep I start to feel really drained.)

The solution I use from time to time is 5 table nano NLHE.

This seems to take the edge of my mind racing, is not stressfull since there's very little money involved and is not very engaging since it's nano + I get to make a few dollars.

Also, if you have insomnia of some sort + minimal sleep requirements you pick up a habit that most people never acquire, namely, getting up whenever you are awake. I suggest doing this, you'll make use of the time that you would otherwise spend staring up at the ceiling and it will help you get to sleep that night and the next.

Welcome to the zombie club. BTW when I was a carpenter I would always sleep a blissfull uninterupted ~5 hours....sometimes 8 if I worked 12 hours.

Re: Not being able to STAY asleep
 

Don't read in bed.
Don't do anything in bed besides sleep and sex, actually.
Watch the caffeine intake.
Don't eat close to bedtime either.
Have you made your bedroom as noise-free as possible?
Are there pets in your house? These are a common cause. Pesonally, I can't bring myself to lock my cats out of the room, so I live with the [censored] sleep.

If you wake up and can't get back to sleep quickly, get up. Do some exercise. Seriously. If you aren't going to do some exercise, go play one set of SNGs. Do something that requires some thought for half an hour to an hour, then see if you can get back to sleep. This will only be good if you can manage NOT to stew about things afterwards. I can't, so the exercise is the better option for me.
Don't nap during the day.
Try to get into a routine for when you get up and when you go to bed. Falling asleep itself isn't your problem. If it were, then I'd advise you to try to get to sleep, then if you can't after about 20 minutes, then get up and do something (like exercise) for 30 minutes, and try again.
A routine may be tough for you maintain as a student. You've got late night cramming and carousing to do.

You are unlikely to actually need a sleeping pill. If you do get one, it's likely to be Ambien. My personally prescribing preference is currently for off-label low-dose trazodone.

Re: Not being able to STAY asleep
 

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Don't do anything in bed besides sleep and sex, actually.


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This one is huge I think. Don't even do anything in your bedroom at all besides screwing or sleeping. If you almost never even go into your bedroom, it will condition you so just walking into it will set off psychological triggers that the place is all about sleep and you'll start shutting down just being there.

Re: Not being able to STAY asleep
 

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Do you get much caffeine? I find that sometimes I build up to such a high level that even a little will tip me over the edge, and it will take days and days for me to be able to sleep right again.

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You might be on to something w/this one. I have a pretty high tolerence though. I can drink a cup of coffee and go right to bed usually. However, I have had way way more than usual this last week. Studying at Panera = lots of free refills.

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A cup of coffee stays in your system for something like 6 hours. Sleeping while under the effects of caffeine is essentially worthless; whatever happens to your body to recharge itself while you sleep is effectively cancelled out by the caffiene. Lots of coffee before bed = not good practice. It's also how most people get hardcore addicted. You drink a cup before bed, get a worthless sleep, wake up, drink coffee all day to stay awake, repeat.

Re: Not being able to STAY asleep
 

http://www.akins.com/Featured/images.../melatonin.jpg

Melatonin can be found in any grocery store. It is probably the best sleep aid, since your body's brain naturally produces it. This will just give you an extra kick.

Re: Not being able to STAY asleep
 

I have a friend who has your problem, but much, much worse. He did a sleep study once to figure out what was going wrong, where they hooked up electrodes to his head to monitor his sleep stages through the night. He woke up, on average, every 8 minutes.

There are a couple things that can cause this. First, if you're overweight or often drunk when you go to sleep, you might have apnea. Apnea happens when your throat closes while you're asleep, and you can't breathe. After several seconds, your body panics, and you wake up very briefly, adjust your position, and go back to sleep. Then it happens again in a few minutes to an hour. Apnea is typically accompanied by loud snoring. If you develop apnea at 21, you need to lose weight or stop drinking so much.

Another possibility is just that you have poor sleep hygiene, and it's catching up with you as you get older. This means you go to bed and get up and different times on different days, so your body doesn't have a consistent schedule.

Sleeping pills are a temporary solution. They will eventually stop working, and you'll be in even worse shape than you started. Google "sleep hygiene" for a lot of information about how you can train your body to sleep properly.

Re: Not being able to STAY asleep
 

Lay off the caffeine.