Hello!
Actually I write this topic in order to somehow gain some knowledge or tips about fighting insomnia. I pretty much researched lots of sources about it, tried lots of things and.... no success. I never wanted to look for help in forums, but I feel like it is getting worse and makes me really tired with this kind of life. I feel like this topic would help me a lot, because of the direct approach into my specific case - which may be kinda generic, but still I am looking for specific solutions from you guys - some of you have huge knowledge in this field.
I used to struggle with insomnia some time in the past, but it wasn't that bad like now. My sleep was decent quality and I could function pretty normal. I would normally fell asleep after alcohol consumption - almost instantly (right now it makes insomnia much worse), pretty much I could fall asleep after getting my tasks done if I wanted to etc,etc just like every healthy person.
My problem started gradually couple months ago and it's getting worse and worse. I go to bed, close my eyes and nothing. I can stay like this for 8 hours straight with full conciousness, brain on 100% power mode and racing thoughts. Meditation doesn't help at all, relaxing music too, all these herbs like lemon balm - nothing, I can cut all stimulants for half a day before bed and pretty much it's the same, I can go to gym workout for an hour, then stay in sauna for like 15 minutes, then go into bathtub with bathsalt to get relaxed and still get horribly anxious when trying to sleep even though my body is extremely exhausted.
Of course these insomnia attacks are not everyday, I sometimes manage to get 7/8 hours of sleep when I totally exhaust my system - after waking up I feel really bad for the first couple hours (really low quality sleep I guess), then after sleeping "well" I can't sleep at all the upcoming night.
I am aware that insomnia may be caused by stress, my overthinking, problems in relationships, studies, work etc. I do have quite lots of "PTSD" moments in some cases and stressful situations in life which I can't avoid. Now every bad situation in life = no sleep for specific night at all.
Funny enough people do see me as mentally strong (I used to believed that too) - but honestly, due to this huge lacks of sleep I feel like I am burning out really bad and heading into bad direction. I started to slowly have lots of manic moments, moodswings, develop some kind of depression. My mind is huge overthinker, I can't just stop thinking and chill recently.
Things I tried for sleep:
- Phenibut - actually it helped me a lot at first, but did more harm than good to be honest. Withdrawal was awful and made me really depressed for more than week.
- Weed - It helps me sleep, I never abused it or anything. I just noticed that it makes me actually sleepy and I sleep well when I do have ocassion to smoke. Anyways I don't want use it as my main source of help for obvious reasons.
- Lemon Balm and other herbs - they do literally nothing in my case
- Meditation - I love it, but still doesn't help.
- Doing all kinds of stuff to get me totally relaxed (sex, sauna, jacuzzi etc,etc) - they don't help.
- Cutting stimulants such as nicotine and caffeine - no big difference to be honest.
Please share some knowledge with me. I think that every piece of information would be crucial. I would love to somehow fix this and live without the feeling that everything is going downhill. Thanks for reading!
Edited by Nedormi, 04 January 2018 - 03:48 PM.