# Sleeping



## vicdicdoc (May 14, 2005)

I guess there must be others like me who have great difficulty getting to sleep at night . . . from the moment i turn off the light & settle down my brain ( :? ) seems to slip into overdrive & no matter how hard i try to empty it everything including dancing elephants seem to stop me getting to sleep- i can settle down at 11pm but regularly its gone 2am before Zzzzz. . . someone suggested taking 1 garlic pill just before bed . . tried for a week- ziltch,no good, i could ofcourse get the bottle of whisky out but i don't want to go that route so HELP - there must be some (legal) over the counter pills or something to help- so whats your remedies ??


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## teemyob (Nov 22, 2005)

*times*

I have the same problems, sometimes.

Mrs TM could fall asleep on a washing line.


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## MrsW (Feb 8, 2009)

02.15 now and as I can't gt to sleep I've got up and gone to the lounge. I'll trawl through all the forums and email sites I frequent and then read a book for a bit and then turn off the light (which is only on dimly now) and hopefully fall asleep on the sofa wrapped in a couple of throws. Some nights I sleep fine but this is the third time this week I've been in the lounge to sleep. At least this way Penquin gets some sleep!


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## petetin (Feb 25, 2008)

I have problems sleeping in the past . I have found to try and think of of something good that you have done while you are in bed trying to go to to sleep try to play out a good trip that you have had and think of all the good things of that trip will truly help try and focus on the good things


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## aldra (Jul 2, 2009)

I tend to just read when I cant sleep using the kindle light so not to disturb Albert, although often his snoring is the reason I cant sleep

There are a lot of herbal remedies that are supposed to aid natural sleep but I don't know if they work

as I don't have work I tend not to worry about the clock and sleep when sleep comes

Aldra


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## raynipper (Aug 4, 2008)

It's the build up to Christmas. Starts earlier and earlier. All will be well Jan.2nd.

Ray.


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## jhelm (Feb 9, 2008)

Try Melatonin, it is the hormone that we produce naturally that regulates sleep. As we get older we produce less and less, teenagers it seems produce a natural overdose of the stuff. Lots of people use it to help with jet lag.

I took it for many years and finally stopped because one of the side affects can be a bit of depression. Which does not affect everyone. But it seems all those years of taking it somehow trained me to fall asleep easily after a bit of boring reading. Which is the next best thing. Decide you want to learn something technical and new and read it when you get in bed.


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## joedenise (Jul 20, 2007)

There was something on the TV a few days ago and it was suggested that if you are an insomniac you need to spend less time in bed, ie go to bed later and get up earlier. You probably don't need the recommended 8 hours a night.

Denise

PS The woman who couldn't sleep ended up going to bed at midnight and getting up at 6am and said she felt wonderful after getting a full nights sleep.


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## Grizzly (May 9, 2005)

I've got an MP3 player with several very familiar audiobooks on it. Turn off light, put small, soft earphone in ear that is upright and, within minutes, I'm fast asleep. It's almost like hypnosis and works every time. They've got to be books that you know well- new books keep you awake listening to them- but I think of it as the adult equivalent of a thumb in the mouth !

My favourite is the Sherlock Holmes books and stories and they work so well that there is no way I'd dare listen to them while driving for example.

G

Edit: I don't wedge the earphone in my ear but balance it on top. I assume that I move it from ear to ear as I sleep as, in the morning, it's often resting on a different ear when I wake up.


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## Spacerunner (Mar 18, 2006)

Learn the art of self-relaxing.

Lay on your back, hands on stomach, fingers lightly curled and hands just touching.
Start at your right foot and continue round your body in this order.

R. foot, r. ankle r. calf, knee, thigh, stomach, chest, r. shoulder, r. upper arm, forearm, hand, fingers, left fingers, hand forearm, upper arm, shoulder, throat, jaw, mouth, face, top of the head, back of the neck, all the way down the back, l. thigh, knee, lower leg, ankle and finally foot.

It takes a bit of practise but leaves you floating, seemingly, about three inches above the bed.

When you have perfected it, it takes about 2 minutes to run round the body. You will either fall asleep before you complete the cycle or be able to turn on your side and fall asleep rapidly


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## rayrecrok (Nov 21, 2008)

Hi.

Stick the telly on the BBC news with the timer on for an hour, it's so boring and repetitious I always fall asleep and can never remember the telly turning itself off.. Like Aldra in reverse it's Sandra that keeps me awake with the snoring :roll: ..

And the whisky does work, but you do have to have a lot of it.. Fortunately! :wink: :lol: :lol: :lol: 

ray.


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## pippin (Nov 15, 2007)

It's not so much the problem of getting to sleep for me.

More of trying to wake up again in the morning.

I could sleep for Wales :roll:

I love the French expression for a lie-in:

_Une grasse matinée_

Literally _A greasy morning_


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## organplayer (Jan 1, 2012)

*organplayer*

Mentally, I listen /play in minds eye, John Stanley"s Trumpet Voluntary. Sad I know, but it works. Do hope we can all survive the awful period,in what is refered to as "The run up to Christmas" I shall say no more on the Christmas subject to avoid any chance of a domestic situation. Keep warm.


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## Jodi1 (Mar 25, 2010)

Bbc radio 4 just about loud enough to hear. It's interesting what I have woken up to in the middle of the night. Usually wake up to one of the shipping forecasts for some reason, but then I do obsess about the weather. Sometimes nothing works, not helped by strange hip pains, don't need new ones as an X-ray shows good hips, but sometimes a hot water bottle helps. Sometimes take anti hystemine tablet which can make you drowsy. Never really feel like I've had a really good sleep nowadays.


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## 747 (Oct 2, 2009)

Night Nurse makes you drowsy and puts you into a deep sleep.

Also keeps colds and flu at bay. :lol:


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## jhelm (Feb 9, 2008)

I have also read that if you have trouble sleeping stay up until you can't stay awake, then get up when you wake up. Another technique that works for me is going through a procedure that is complicated step by step. I sometimes use the a mental check list for getting a plane ready to fly and even flying. Does two things one a kind of mental practice and the other is that it takes my mind off of everything else. Funny thing is that when I wake up in the morning I can usually remember where I left off and start from there the next night if I need to. My problem is not going to sleep but waking around 3 or 4 and not being able to go back to sleep. When I was single I would sometimes turn on the light and read as long as it took. Now I usually just lay in bed next to my lovely wife and relax thinking how lucky I am to be there next to her and all snug in bed.


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## pippin (Nov 15, 2007)

You old softy!


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## Pollydoodle (Aug 18, 2005)

I also have major problems getting to sleep. I can get very drowsy watching tv, but as soon as my head hits the pillow 'the lights are on' and my brain goes into overdrive. I lie for a while trying to kid my brain I am tired, try relaxation techniques etc, but eventually I give up, go downstairs, take a couple of Piriton - cheap version, only costs about £1.49, make an apricot - has to be apricot :roll: jam sarnie and read until I feel my eyelids drooping,then go back to bed and I sleep. very occasionally it fails, but 99.9% the time it works for me


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## ukgreynomads (Jan 19, 2008)

Try the old fashioned remedy, counting sheep. Works for me, trouble is I fall asleep, lose count and have to start all over again. :lol:


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## Pollydoodle (Aug 18, 2005)

I wish it were that simple


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## pippin (Nov 15, 2007)

It is simple: 

one, two, three, four, five, six, eight, eleven, fifteen, twentyseventeen, onethreehunthousand...................

That's what happens if you take a couple of sleeping tablets first :lol:


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## Jodi1 (Mar 25, 2010)

This is something I haven't done for a while, I had forgotten about it, must try it again see if it has the same effect. I guess it has the same effect as packing the suitcase or something.

I live in a village with lots of footpaths and I imagine that I dress up in black clothing, imagine each item of clothing and putting it on. Then I let myself out of the house and the idea is that I will make my way round the village via fields and footpaths, but must not be seen, so have to try and not walk past people's houses where someone looking out would see me. Reading this back it sounds absolutely bizarre and I assure you I don't do this for real 8O . Often I fall asleep before getting back home again (in my mind). Oh dear this does sound weird, I'm not a stalker, honest


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## pippin (Nov 15, 2007)

Jodi - you can stalk me anytime


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## Jodi1 (Mar 25, 2010)

I'll be dressed in black and covered in mud probably - not a pretty sight:lol:


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## BwB (Dec 5, 2009)

I'll add these thoughts to the pot... 

I have heard that dried hops in a small cushion at the top of your bed where you can smell it will trigger sleep mode in the brain.

The other thing, I was speaking to someone I met in Australia who professed to being a sleep expert and they have found that sleeping is all a matter of getting into a routine and going to sleep when you feel sleepy. Sounds obvious, but apparently when you're relaxing in the evening and start nodding off (happens several times to me of an evening) you have 6 minutes before that feeling passes and your brain is back in AWAKE mode until the next nodding off feeling. They found that if they could get people into bed within that 6 minutes and do that for a month then your brain is reprogrammed to a sleep routine. It requires going to bed and getting up at roughly the same time every day.

So you have to have the dog walked and washing up done so that you can dash straight to bed as soon as you feel sleepy.

No idea if any of these work as I go to bed, read the same page of the book I read the night before to find out where I'd got to, fall asleep and wake up in the morning, pick the book off the floor and put it ready to read again that night. 

Hope you find a solution to your sleeping problems, must be a real problem. Good luck.


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## listerdiesel (Aug 3, 2012)

Why do so many couples have completely reversed sleep patterns?

Rita drops off with a cuddle or just by herself, I can't sleep like that, but once I do drop off I tend to stay asleep.

I tend to have a couple of favourite 'scenarios' of things we would like to do in the future, and go through the details in my head. Not planning as such, just thinking about places and people.

If it's been busy at the factory, we are both tired, but I'll be going over things in my head while Rita is off in her dreams!

I also have a 'tinnitus' type of noise which goes up and down with stress and blood pressure, that can be a real nuisance at night.

Peter


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## Razzo (May 1, 2005)

Yep I have trouble too. Often I can get to sleep for an hour and I am then awake for the next couple. I use an ipod and listen to an album, which works sometimes. Then I apply the granny nap principal. Why do I and I think others feel sleepy after having lunch. I think it is due to food digestion, so I eat. It used to be icecream but I had to think of the waist so I changed to yoghurt. I do interchange this with a banana; sometimes both. 
If my neck is giving me discomfort (old whiplash injury) then I take chewable disprin ( you do not have to dissolve it in water, just in the mouth)
At home I get up and walk around the house and change beds. We are practically full timing so not really practical in the motorhome. I do get up and do situps and stretches. Is it any wonder that we went for single beds this time!
After going through all or some of these over I few hours I fall asleep. 
Sometime back I did viualise my favourtie ski run and went through every turn from the top to the bottom. 
The professional advice that I heard secondhand was like that above, go to bed and midnight and get up at 6.00am until it is a habit.


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## vicdicdoc (May 14, 2005)

Thanks for all the suggestions . . . some good some not so good (can't take "night nurse"- it doesn't agree with me) - i bought some "calms" pills in the healthfood shop today & will test them out tonight, failing that its the whisky !


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## GEMMY (Jun 19, 2006)

With a bottle of 'red' I never have a problem until 4am for a pee then no problem again.  

tony


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