Massive issues with sleep and desperate for a solution.

Apologies for giving you a boring canned answer when you are sleep-deprived and looking for help. But I swear these things really helped me.

Number one: think about getting a sleep study done by an actual sleep doc (pulmonary doc or neurologist). This was life changing for me. Don't go to a chiropractor or whoever the fuck and get a CPAP machine.

Also, and this is important: Have you looked into tips for "sleep hygiene"? None of them are a quick fix like Xanax, but they can be powerful when used together.

These include things like:

• going to bed and getting up at the same times every day. this means getting up at your normal time, even if it's a weekend, even if you didn't sleep well that night, just make yourself do it
• when sleeping....making sure the room is dark, cool, and quiet (ear plugs are a big help here). by cool, I mean 68-69F (about 20C).
• cutting way back on caffeine and/or eliminating it...and absolutely no caffeine after lunch (the older we get, the longer it takes to metabolize caffeine)
• not looking at any glowing screens (TV, phone, computer, tablet, etc) before bed time... for at least 15-30 minutes
• avoid eating / drinking a couple of hours before bed time
• using your bedroom only for sleeping and for sex

And when you have trouble sleeping, it's a very good idea to get out of bed, go to a different room (one that is not too bright) and do something boring like read a text book for 15-20 minutes then go back to bed and try again.

When we stay in bed and aren't sleeping, we're training our brain that it's OK to do that. You want to beat it into your subconscious brain that the bed / bedroom is for sleeping.

doc doesn't want to perscribe you xanax because xanax will stop working and this fucks up many other things in the process

Yeah Xanax is literally the worst thing possible for this, especially as a frequent thing. It'll significantly worsen your sleep quality in the long run. (Hi I'm a psych nurse and I meet a lot of people stuck in insomnia hell because they've been slapping a Xanax bandaid on it for a few years while it just continued to devolve and now they're basically psychotic because they never actually fixed the root issue.

I'm also hearing a lot from you about medications and next to nothing about any lifestyle changes. No medication will ever actually fix this kind of problem. Medications just give you a leg up on fixing yourself.

First of all what stimulants do you use, especially caffeine and nicotine? (I would also hope you already know to avoid meth and cocaine and not take stimulant ADHD meds at bedtime.) Are you avoiding them in the last 6 hours before bed? A lot of people (especially with ADHD) will say stimulants calm them down but what they're actually feeling is a change from their baseline restless anxious awake to a focused, productive awake. The second one feels more settled, and can actually help you fall asleep briefly if the specific problem is difficulty holding still long enough to sleep, but it's going to completely fuck up your circadian rhythm in the long run.

Speaking of circadian rhythms, are you trying to keep your body in a steady daily routine? This includes a consistent bedtime, but your mealtimes and daily physical activity are part of your circadian rhythms too. There's a lot of different schools of thought on how to time meals and exercise to best support sleep, but the general consensus is just don't do either right before bed. I would also recommend adding a structured "wind-down" period to your nightly routine that takes 15-30 minutes where you do one of like three basic things:

• something mind-numbingly boring

• something you've always found soothing/comforting

• Journaling about the day to give your brain a head start on the memory processing it's about to do.

It's also very helpful to create full sensory environments that you use to trigger pavlovian responses. You know how pavlov's dog drools when the bell rings because it's used to food showing up when the bell rings? The biggest difference between you and a dog is that you get to decide what you want to be trained to do. The downside to this is that it can take a while to train these responses into your body, so be patient and don't just give up after like a week. So you'll want to create at least two full and distinct sensory environments. The specifics don't matter as much as creating a consistent routine for yourself, but here's some examples of things I've tried or seen people try:

Alert

• Sight: Curtains open / sunlight / full spectrum white light is the input that aligns most closely with most people's existing natural rhythm.
• Sound: Music, white noise of people talking in the background.
• Smell: Essential oils are actually really good for training pavlovian responses in yourself because of how powerful scent memory is. A lot of people like to incorporate citrus-y smells for alertness, but personally I actually really enjoy just keeping my used coffee grounds from the morning in a cup on my desk. That also brings us to the next one...
• Taste: Coffee has a pretty distinct taste that most people associate with alertness, and you can get a similar taste from chicory root and/or decaf coffee, but one real cup right after waking up shouldn't mess you up too bad. Chewing gum is also an option, however.
• Touch: The big one for me doing classes from home during COVID was still getting up and putting on "outside clothes" even if I was just sitting at the computer at home.

Rest

• Sight: usually red-yellow spectrum light, and much lower brightness around bedtime. You can turn on a red-shift filter for most electronic devices these days, and LED bulbs also often come in a yellow-orange incandescent style color (and a lot of hobby/makeup lights have multiple color settings for this reason as well, white for when you're working, orange/yellow for resting/relaxing.
• Sound: some people listen to soothing music, I conditioned myself to fall asleep to the sound of a raging thunderstorm because I sleep during the day and work at night, and the thunderstorm sounds easily block out daytime noises.
• Smell: Lots of options here too for essential oils or other scented products. You could also use a specific lotion or wash your sheets in a specific scented detergent. A lot of people say they find lavender scents to be particularly soothing, but again, the exact sensory trigger isn't important as much as you picking one to use consistently.
• Taste: Herbal tea is my biggest recommendation here, but you could also go with a small snack/sweet as part of your nightly routine.
• Touch: We already covered wearing different clothes, but some additional options include a weighted blanket or one of those compression sleep pods (I just got one to try out recently and like it so far!)

Anyway like I said, these can take a while to train your body to do, so pick things that will be easy for you to do, set up your space to make it as easy as possible to keep doing them, and keep at it. The most important thing is consistency and routine.

Do not hop on the xan, your doctor knows what they are talking about.

Here is my best suggestion and it is serious. NO CAFFEINE after lunch. Period. No naps. Go to bed early every night at the same time. Wake up early to start your day. Drink lots of water every day.

Proper meditation training, and I'm not talking about some quick-fix youtube video.

I'm talking about weeks or months of training, like you'd do at a gym for your body. Just sit down, and focus on not thinking. You're going to fail a lot as your mind tries to wander, but keep practicing until you can do it for longer and longer. Do this before bed each night, and don't stimulate yourself in any way (no electronics, no book, no talking, no eating) between the meditation and the sleeping.

Also, trying to have a routine for your bedtime is excellent. Make it into a ritual so your brain gets used to it. Meditate, Go get a glass of water, Put it on your bedside table in the same spot, then go pee, remove and put your clothes in the hamper, climb into bed, get into your preferred sleeping position, and then I usually continue the meditation and I'm out before I know it.

Do this process slowly, there's no rush. Calm everything. It takes time to complete, but it's still faster than laying awake for hours like I used to.

Sounds like hokey bullshit, but it works amazingly. It's like counting sheep on steroids (to continue the gym metaphor)

Are you seeing a family doctor, or a sleep specialist? You want the latter, and a sleep study.

The classes of drugs that might help are imperfect at best, I'd be partial to a benzo before e.g., Ambien or related, given the inherent risks of sleepwalking and worse with those drugs.

Listening to a slightly boring audiobook has been the most consistently effective method I've found. Also, I had to give up caffeine.

So I have some experience with this and have a few things I want to tell you:

Consider a dedicated sleep study. If you have sleep apnea, medication will not fix your problem and some medications may actually make it worse.

Xanax (an anxiety medication) and Ambien (a sleep medication) are very similar drugs with respect to their mechanism of action. Xanax binds to a specific group of receptors to cause anxiolytic effects and happens to also make you sleepy. Ambien binds to a subset of those same receptors to make you sleepy, but don't have the strong anxiety reducing effect. If Xanax works for you, Ambien should theoretically have a similar effect. In practice, it doesn't tend to work as well because anxiety can keep you awake. If that has been your experience with Ambien, think about taking some steps to address anxiety even if you don't think it's that bad. Yoga, counseling, meditation, whatever. There are also guided breathing audio sessions designed to put you to sleep in apps like Fitbit and calm that may be helpful.

You can also supplement a prescription sleep aid with something non prescription, which is what I do. I take Ambien, and to keep my dose low I supplement with melatonin, tryptophan, and valerian root when I need an extra kick into sleepiness. I've heard CBD is also quite effective for this. Magnesium reportedly also helps with restful sleep, but get a sleep formulation because magnesium in the wrong form causes diarrhea.

Don't underestimate sleep hygiene. For a long time I had the attitude of "I have real sleep problems, basic stuff like cutting back caffeine is not going to help." The thing is, when taken together, that kind of stuff actually can help tremendously. I scheduled a month where I went hardcore on sleep hygiene. Strict caffeine limits, no late caffeine or exercise, don't do anything on your bed but sleep and sex, wake up at the same early time every day even when you don't have to, limit screens before, bed... I mean ALL of it. I found that it actually really helped. In combination with medication it might be a life saver. Might be worth doing your own experiment with it.

Good luck!

What, specifically, have they tried? Did you try trazodone? I don't think Xanax is the solution you think it may be even though it worked for you.

Is the issue falling asleep or staying asleep? Do you have an idea of what prevents you from falling asleep? What do you think about when you're in bed falling asleep? What is your natural sleep cycle timeline? In other words, when do you naturally get sleepy and if given no restrictions, when would you wake up? How is your sleep hygiene (really, not just what you tell people)?

Do not, I repeat, do not go in there asking for Xanax or you will be labeled a drug seeker permanently. A doctor is not going to give you Xanax for this, full stop. They're going to ask all of the above questions and try other avenues first. If they suspect an anxiety disorder they will move up that avenue and you may need a benzo but you have to be under care for a while and basically prove you're trustworthy.

I have massive sleep problems too but you don't have enough information in your post to give any other advice other than the standard sleep hygiene stuff you've already been told.

If the Xanax is helping that much, you might have to start considering that maybe your sleep issues are anxiety, or other mental health problem, related. Try to enlist the help of professionally trained psychologist. Sometimes lay therapists could help, but the pros can diagnose and team with psychiatrists to prescribe medication. However, depending on the severity of the issue, you might not even need meds. Cognitive behavioral therapy is usually extremely effective at dealing with anxiety, PTSD and related issues that can cause sleep deprivation. Mental health is complex and reaching for drugs out of desperation can go really really bad really fast, making thing worse in the long term despite a brief short term relief.

There are no effective long term sleep medications except possibly THC. They’re all habit forming and you will get a tolerance, which will make sleeping impossible when you stop taking them. Benzodiazepines are garbage drugs and you will get addicted taking them for sleep. I had a nasty habit for years and kicking it was one of the worst things I’ve had to do. Please do not get involved with benzos.

I don’t have an answer and it may not apply to you but Benzos like Xanax are dangerous man.

Like it was nearly the end of me, yet I still get nostalgic for them. Be careful is alls I’m saying.

Don't know if you tried this. The only thing that stops me from sleeping is my own brain

Military sleep method

Yeah it's hard to help because you didn't go into the nature of your sleep issues, but I had wicked bad insomnia for about 2 decades and sleep great now. CBD/weed helped immensely as well as getting a white noise machine.

Edit: also look up binaural beats and try delta waves. You'll need a good set of over the ear headphones and you need to just lie in bed in the dark playing it. You can also try yoga nidra, which if you haven't heard of it is not actually yoga. It's a form of meditation that you do lying in bed that can help with falling asleep.

Sleep is a multifaceted problem. It can be dietary, it can be psychological.

If there is a mountain with a trailhead near you... And I mean like at least 3 miles out, so 6 miles round trip. And I mean at least 1500ft of vertical gain...

Have a day with no caffeine. Eat small snacks during the morning/day. Hike that mountain. No breaks allowed. Go as slow as you need to go in order to not stop. Go as fast as you can. Bring plenty of water.

After, eat a huge dinner. Lots of carbs. Like a spaghetti pizza or something insane on the carb front.

Take a CBN supplement about 2-3 hrs later.

Stop using your phone at this time. Read a book for an hour. Go to bed.

If you struggle after all of this, see a specialist. Because that's fucked.

Like, even if you're massively anxious, and your diet sucks... You'll be out like a light. Unless there's other issues.

weed

Do you drink a lot of caffeine and sugary drinks?

Do a sleep study when it's possible, OP. If it's sleep apnea, a proper CPAP therapy can definitely help.

Go camping together. Nothing fancy, just a weekend at a park with a small tent and backpacks.

Let your team know you’ll be unreachable. Once there, phones off. No working. Just walk and talk, rest and eat, explore your surroundings, focus on what and who is in front of you.

You may not sleep well on night 1, but you will on night 2, especially if you covered some ground that day. The morning after night 3, however, will be the most well-rested you’ve felt in a some time. The effect carries to subsequent nights, then eventually wears off, but can give you the chance to restructure your days for better sleep in the long term. Use as needed.

In addition to good sleep hygiene and trying to get a sleep study as others have suggested, a white noise machine that you turn on only at bedtime is great as a “go to sleep” signal for your brain. It also should make you less likely to wake up from noise during the night.

I take gabapentin at night to help me sleep, and it works pretty well. It’s non addictive so I’m not worried about dependency. But it works well for me because of what’s stopping me from sleeping (nerve pain). Without pinpointing why you can’t sleep well it’s going to be hard to treat it.

Here's what worked for me when I was an insomniac.

Tune out. Turn off the news. Block it from your life. Disengage from all politics.

Meditate at least once per day. Start out with one minute of meditation and increase the time as you get better at it.

Try to get some physical exercise every couple of days if you can. Bodybuilding works great, but it's a difficult habit to form if you're a depressed insomniac.

Turn off all electronic screens at least 2 hours before bed time.

Use incandescent or color temp adjusting LED lights for warm lighting in the evening. Turn light intensity down a couple hours before bed.

No caffeine after 3 pm. None! That includes chocolate.

Eat a balanced meal a couple hours before bed.

Drink chamomile and valerian root tea an hour before bedtime, take 5 mg of melatonin, and then go to bed.

Go to bed an hour before you need to be asleep and start reading. Read something boring. The Bible often works for me, but you can pick whatever makes you sleepy.

Get a white noise machine if there is background noise where you sleep.

Don't lay in bed at any other point during the day. Don't have a TV in the bedroom. The bed and bedroom needs to be a place of sleep and rest. Keep it sacred.

It takes some discipline and it certainly requires changing your habits, but that worked for me. In 2020 I was getting less than 2 hours of sleep per night, and I lost 15 pounds. I felt like I was literally dying all day, and I probably actually was. I implemented all of those changes and my sleep returned. I slept like crazy for a long time, getting caught up. Now my sleep schedule is pretty healthy, and I feel safe saying that I've mostly cured my chronic insomnia. Good luck to you!

I have really terrible insomnia too. Then I tried my friends Pregabalin, and oh boy. Never had such a restful sleep.

It is a bit habit forming, but if you keep it to just before bedtime it's a wonderful sleep aid, and much less risky than Xanax.

It's not without its risks of course, and some people are better with it than others, but might be worth asking your doctor about. They prescribe it for almost anything where I'm from.

I'm not a doctor, and certainly not your doctor. But agree with the comment about anxiety - if the Xanax helps, you are treating anxiety that's keeping you awake, right?

Have you tried running? Or some other tiring physical activity? I'm wound pretty tight and without physical exercise, preferably to the point of exhaustion, it's very difficult for my brain to let go. But with physical exhaustion from physical activity comes mental relaxation.

You know the Xanax helps, are there other times you've had good sleep? Do you know what the conditions were that let you fall and stay asleep?

Also one of my kids got relief by taking Adderall, as counterintuitive as that sounds, helping the ADD helped her sleep even though she was taking literal speed. So please go to a doctor who can evaluate you for anything that might be going on in your mind, you might have room for more improvement than you think. And really - exercise.

Sometimes when I'm sleepless for few nights, what I do is workout, try my finish my work for the next day and get myself really tired. Also try to calm your mind before going to sleep, too many thoughts can keep your brain active. Also try changes mattress, blankets and pillows ( the shape matters as well as the material ).

I have had frequent problems with sleep too. Due to trauma I have no memories up that come up when I'm about to sleep.

Suggestion from me is fine a good therapist, not for medication but to understand why exactly ots happening, if it's physical or mental. It's ok and completely understandable to deal a therapist and talk to your doctor more to not try to necessarily solve it. But to figure why it happing in the first place.

Get a therapist that doesn't try to fix you or try to make you fit into mold. Therapist are supposed to help you discover things about yourself and understand your self better.

This is from my decade's long experience with mental and physical health problems.

Op, I have been suffering from sleep issues for years, what I found it works:

1. Sleep/Awake (roughtly) at the same time every day
2. No alcohol
3. No Caffeine after 15:00
4. Weed (if you don't want/can getting high, CBD is legal almost everywhere, but tbh CBD does nothing for me
5. Melotonin (otc, helps sleep, not adictive)
6. Sports

Have you tried CBN?

Take up a sport. Kick the crap out of yourself with some intense cardio or something.

And sorry you can't smoke pot due to health reasons. That's what I do. I dislike exercise.

I get anxiety and have sleep problems too. My good friend gave me some of the cbd thc gummies. I take like 5mg and sleep great. Eventually you build up a tolerance, so for me, every 4 months I take a week off and sleep like shit to reset the tolerance and I'm good to go again. I don't know if it's a legal option for you, but it's a game changer.

Maybe like try massive amounts of CBD and THC. Max 1:1 ratio but better 10-20:1.

But I assume you did because this is like very popular and mainstream first thing to do

So maybe then L-Theanine? And broccoli sprouts, hard to explain the sprouts but they make me so sleepy.

Though nothing makes me as sleepy as when my phone battery runs out. Literally knocks me out

Please invest in William J. Walsh's book "Nutrient Power", & consider the experiments in it.

I've replicated both his undermethylated-DNA disorder treatment and his pyrrol disorder treatment, each 4 times, various ways.

He mis-identifies/fails-to-explain each of those correctly, so just in case you're ( or anybody who reads this is ) in one of those 2, here are the corrected versions.

Many are undermethylated-DNA without it being disorder level.

Undermethylated-DNA disorder { stridency, symbol-fixation, drivenness, "high voltage", sharply formed face ( sharply protruding nose, e.g. ), STRESS, etc.. }

All autistics are undermethylated-DNA ( I'm autistic ), a subset of "schizophrenia" is, a subset of depression is, etc..

Enteric-coated ( he doesn't mention this part ) SAM-e, taken about 40mins before breakfast, with clear water ( no carbs, no sweeteners, artificial or otherwise ), & one can begin breakfast once the nausea hits.

It took me 3 months for it to change me, and then I discovered that living with ZERO stress meant.

I'd never imagined that, before.

However, it took away my academic-drive, and that .. isn't on.

I've also done it with Methionine supplementing, which took 4 months, and I wasn't taking enough to reach the zero-stress mode.

Now I know that I can "take the edge off", if I need to, with Methionine ( more gradual ) or enteric-coated SAM-e, enough to make life more bearable.

Pyrrol-disorder { the PTSD-RAGEs, amygdala-highjack is always pressing one, and continuously trying to prevent it is brutal. I've since read that autistics have a 2x sized amygdala, which means that our amygdala-to-cortex ratio is off by a factor of 2, which certainly is likely part of what's going on. Pyrrol-disorder is far-too-low-zinc, far-too-much-copper. There is a different disorder which goes the other way, too-much-zinc, too-little-copper, which, iirc, is associated with "explosive disorder" or some personality-disorder named something like that }

the treatment for this is much-quicker, but brutal.

Take arachidonic-acid precursor ( evening primrose oil, I was taking between 0.5 & 1g / day )

take P5P form of one of the vitamin-B's

take alternating zinc gluconate & zinc picolinate. Do NOT take zinc citrate ( hits too fast, chemistry-suddenly-changes, one becomes dangerous to oneself & ones around one, and one probably ought be locked in a padded room, if one indulges in that idiocy. 0.5h to 4h is the dangerous time, after taking uncoated zinc citrate )

When Walsh says that the dosage of zinc required to correct the wrong-distortion of chemistry that our bodies are maintaining, he isn't kidding.

The Tolerable Upper Limit for zinc is 50mg.

I needed 200mg/day to get the razor-edge balance which removed pyrrol-disorder's force from my life..

It was the 1st time in my life I'd ever been simply happy.

Nothing like that.

But having an alarm get me every 6h to take another zinc..

destroying my sleep..

you can see part of why I discontinued that one, too.

Fundamentally, I'm Vajrayana, old-testament style: ALL one's basis must be developed-mental-force.

ALL healing ought be of mind.

Eternity doesn't "take prisoners", and if I want my Soul/CellOfGod/ChildOfGod/Continuum ripped out from the tarpit of its unconsciousness, then I've got to EARN it.

So, I'm on my own, forcing gradual change into this nervous-system, through right-living & meditations, etc.

Maybe I'll succeed before I die.

I want the momentum in-place for the next someone who has to inhabit this series-of-lives, however.

Eternity keeps killing all who are trapped within it: if one wants out from Eternity, then dissolving-into-OceanOfAllAwakeSouls/Allgod is the only alternative I know-of.

Anyways, I hope you've got informational-leverage for you to be able to understand why the book "Nutrient Power" is important, & I hope you've got enough contextual-understanding to know how to make maximally-effective use of those 2 treatments IF either 1 of them should happen to be indicated, on the evidence that YOUR life is, and to do so competently.

The context of understanding where I'm coming-from is just so you understand the sort of mind who is trying to give you leverage for your life.

I've experienced years of psychiatric treatments, & ditched them all.

Lithium carbonate ( manic-depression ), Norpramin ( depression ), multiple major-tranquilizers for their "schizophrenia" category ( I trust Walsh's replicable-experiments more than I trust the bullshit that psychiatry put on me..

It's been known since the 1920's that child-onset schizophrenics lose 1/10th of our brains when it hits us.

NONE of psychiatry admits that a child's losing 1/10th of their brain-volume FACTUALLY IS brain-injury.

No, psychiatry insists that it is "incurable illness of their minds", and the kids need stomping with major-tranquilizers, in order to make them stable in their condition.

Gaslighting.

Thompson is the name of a researcher who mapped which part of such children's brains lost 20% of tissue-volume, which lost 15%, which regions lost 10%, which lost 5%.

To gaslight children whose brains have been literally-decimated, is part of why such children have a 10% suicide-rate.

Evil.

Honestly admit that epigenetically-enforced brain-injury IS brain-injury, & help the kids deal-with their damn hellish brain-decimation!!

That is far too much to ask, of psychiatry, obviously..

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2877521/

Figure 1 shows the tissue-destruction regions.

PubMed had at-least 1 paper which mentioned that brain-volume-loss had been known since the 1920's.

( I didn't bother looking for any more, seeing 1 )

Maybe you understand why having my life destroyed by medical-gaslighting might possibly have made me offended/angry at it..

Authority-based medicine which identifies as "evidence based" medicine, isn't Evidence Based Medicine.

Those composite brain-scans, shown by Thompson, THAT is evidence based medicine.

Anyways.

I wish you well, & I hope you find your right-answer.

Oh, & do try absolutely blacking-out your sleeping-room,

not viewing any blue-white light in the 2h prev to bed,

using earplugs if necessary ( soft ones, and those foam ones can often be washed with one's laundry, if one isn't using any fabric-softener perfumed-wax gunk )

I've no idea if melatonin supplementation helps: never tried it.

Salut, Namaste, & Kaizen, eh?

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