Sleep thread

[alorrigan]

I've always felt that my body doesn't like to sleep and has done its best to keep me from getting good sleep. I used to lay in bed for an hour or more before finally falling asleep no matter how tired I was but now I have found ways to trick my body into sleeping. I do my best to get 8 or so hours of sleep every night but I'm usually pretty tired during the day no matter how much sleep I get. I have coffee occasionally but I refuse to ever have an energy drink as I'm sure those will give you a heart attack eventually. It took about 6 years of learning and experimenting before I finally found what makes my body sleep and I'm sure others are having similar problems.

 

Feel free to share any sleep tricks that work for you or links to sleep articles. I think it would be great to pool our collective sleep knowledge.

[theavrock]

I finally took my computer and desk out of my room after hearing this would lead to better sleep. It has worked wonders for me. It still takes a bit for me to fall asleep sometimes but when I do sleep I have better sleep for sure.

[Diskono]

Waking up at 5 am every morning helps me fall asleep.

[T B0NE 10]

I love sleeping, I usually never have problems going to bed but I have serious issues waking up.

 

It can take me around 30-45 minutes to get up in the morning.

[Hammer]

I had a lot of trouble falling asleep and a customer of mine (who's hubby is a doctor) said that I should try to start a dream of doing something out in nature when I want to sleep. Now, I imagine that I am fishing and I cast a lure. When the lure hits the water I watch it sink, and without sounding like a quack, I typically fall asleep right away after that. I don't know why, but it works for me.

[DHonks]

Become a teacher....you sleep REALLY well. The only drawback is that during your workday, you don't get to do half your job (paperwork, planning, grading, constant meetings).

[Schlitz001]

I think the two most important things for good sleep are routine and exercise during the day. It also helps to stay away from caffeine, especially right after you wake up in the morning

 

Doctors recommend 8 hours of sleep, but some people operate better on 10 and others on 6 hours. Experiment and find out what feels right for you.

[JimH5]

I always sleep best when I'm in an exercise routine. I also don't use any caffeine products after 3:00 p.m.

I try to get to bed at the same time every night--no weekend late nights

I have to sleep in a t-shirt. No naked. No heavier clothing.

No TV in the bedroom.

I use Breathe Right strips and spray for snoring.

I use one of those curved foam pillows (Tempurlike), and try to start on my back.

[yfinn6]

I used to have trouble sleeping as well. But now that I am getting up at 6 am every morning, and working out, it's gotten a lot better. I generally try to get 6-7 hours a night, any more and I will feel more tired during the day. Kind of funky how that works.

 

I still don't sleep all the way through the night, I don't know if I have ever done that.

[alorrigan]

Hammer - the start a dream thing is what I do and it works almost 100% of the time.

 

What usually keeps me up is my sinuses. I usually can only breath out of half of my nose which makes it tough to fall asleep so I keep switching sides to drain them. I've tried sleep on my back and that clears up the sinus problem but some reason I can't breath well when I sleep on my back.

[PlayerHader]

I usually just lie down and fall asleep whenever I get tired. If I want to fall asleep and don't feel really tired I'll start reading and after a while my eyes get tired and I couldn't stay awake if I wanted to.

[colbyjack]

Exercise and lots of water during the day for me are guarantees for a good night sleep.

[homer]

Sleep cycles are 90 min long. The key is getting up right at the end of one and the beginning of another one. So if you wake up at 6:30am on your own, it's better to just get up than go back to sleep for another 45 min.

[Beerambassador]

I miss sleep. I never realized how much I love sleep until I had a baby. To me four consecutive hours of sleep is almost better than sex.

[BrewCrewForever]

I usually get at least 6 hours per night. I try to shoot for 8, but I don't always get to bed early enough for that. Get up each morning for work around 6am. I enjoy sleep and usually can fall asleep fairly easily.

[mothershipconnection]

Now that I have a stable job that I like and feel very productive during the day, I fall asleep in 15 minutes. When I worked my last job, which sucked, it would regularly take an hour, even though I felt tired. Contentment and lack of daily stress seems to play a huge role.

[sgtcluels]

This has nothing to do with falling asleep, but I did get a mild concussion from a blow to the head playing soccer last week. The effects finally went completely away Sunday, but I had symptoms up till then. But oh my, did I ever have a lot of vivid dreams during the course of the effects. Just about every REM cycle I'd have a rather vivid dream, I'd wake up after, kind of make a note of it, fall back to sleep and right back into another vivid REM cycle. I'd have 3 or 4 (I slept A LOT) during each night. Was pretty nuts...

[Crewin06]

turn on a TV and lay down anytime after 9PM and I am usually out cold within 5 minutes. It doesn't take much for me to fall asleep.