Casual Conversation

I can fall asleep anytime and in any position. I am older now and have neuropathy so I wake up every couple of hours to go ouch and/or pee and then go back to sleep.

NOT EASY

I have the bad kind of sleep problem: It takes me a long time to fall asleep. But also, most nights I do not stay asleep.

It really sucks. I have tried all the things that supposedly help: consistent bed/wake time, no naps, get out of bed if I can't sleep, no activity in bed except sleep/sex, etc and it doesn't really make a big difference.

All drugs and supplements to help with sleep have serious side effects or are ineffective.

The most effective option with the least side effects I've found for me so far is low dose melatonin (like 0.5 - 1 mg). But like most things that help me fall asleep, it doesn't help keep me asleep and when I use it, I pay for it the next day, almost to the point where it makes me wonder if it was worth it.

The prescription drugs I've tried were pretty wild. Ambien and its relatives are marginally effective, but give me an almost euphoric feeling and stop me from dreaming at all, and then they make me feel like a zombie the next day. One time I tried a different class of sleep drug (unfortunately I don't recall the name right now) and it caused me to have waking hallucinations (like hornets in my bed and conversations with my pets) on top of making me feel like a zombie the next day.

I wanna be one of those people who say shit like "I can sleep when I'm dead" but I have to wonder if those types of people actually know what sleep deprivation feels like and what it does to my psyche.

I suspect I have non-24 hour sleep schedule. I can very comfortably sleep 6 times a week, doing a rotation each week. If I execute it correctly to align with school/work with weekend free, then it will look like this:

• Friday: wake up at 8 AM and stay awake as long as possible. Works best if you stay up till around 6 AM on Saturday.

• Saturday: wake up as late as you can, hopefully later than 6 PM. Then go to sleep as late as you can on Sunday, hopefully later than 12 midday.

• Sunday: by now you should wake up at late evening or around midnight. The plan is to be up all night, and go to school/work when it starts. Then sleep right after you come home.

• Tuesday: wake up at around 2 AM, go to sleep at 6 PM

• Wednesday: 4 AM - 8 PM

• Thursday: 6 AM - 10 PM

• Friday: and we're back to 8 AM

I did this very often the 2 years I worked before. It felt very natural, except Monday evening, that was definitely the hardest part of this routine. The jump from Sunday late evening to Monday after work is a long stretch.

I fall asleep easy enough. Maybe half an hour to an hour max to fall asleep. Restful sleep is another matter unfortunately

I close my eyes and then the next thing I know is my alarm is going off

I'm down to an average of 10-15 minutes to fall asleep these days, sleeping for between 7 and 9 hours, with an occasional mid-night wake up to go to the bathroom.

I used to struggle with this a lot, and have had to implement strict sleep hygiene practices to consistently get good sleep.

It was common for me take an hour or more to fall asleep, and often waking up in the middle of the night and not managing to fall asleep again.

Baseline outside bedroom - lots of activities every day: cycling/running/weight lifting, very rarely in the evening (causes high body temperature and messes with sleep)

Bedroom adjustments:

• Multiple layers of blackout curtains for a pitch black room
• Linen bedsheets for improved cooling
• Fan during hotter part of year on low-ish for more body temperature reduction
• Earplugs for blocking out any unwanted noise
• Eye mask for blocking out any stray light making it into the room
• No phone usage in bed, only Kindle on low-ish light

I still occasionally wake up and have to go to the bathroom, but I usually fall right back to sleep these days. If not, I get back to reading on my Kindle for a while. If I don't manage to fall asleep within a reasonable timeframe, I leave the bedroom and read for a while on the sofa, and avoid frustration. The frustration makes it even harder to fall asleep, it's better to just accept that one night of sleep will be a bit worse and that it will even out in the end.

I take a couple tylenol PMs and 10mg of melatonin every night. With them, I fall asleep pretty easily. Without them, I just don't sleep. I'm sure it's fine.

I struggled getting to sleep about a decade ago. Eventually I just started making a routine out of it. Same actions, in the same order, every time I go to bed, no phone at all. Nowadays if I spend too much time in the bedroom I start getting sleepy no matter what I’m doing, but I think ensuring no phone in the bedroom is what really helped the most.

Used to have terrible trouble falling asleep, and sometimes do still, but having a toddler has resulted in me being tired almost all the time.

My daughter needs to be cuddled to sleep, so on my nights for it I usually can keep the warm sleepy fuzzies with me into my bed.

On mom's nights I have a routine:

If I'm hungry or thirsty I deal with it first. Usually something with a little protein in it and water.

I have a "sleep" playlist of relaxing music where most tracks I've heard a ton of times and can entirely tune out. I use a feature in my music player app (PowerAmp) to play all the tracks from it using a quiet/soft EQ with the volume cut by about half, so no louder or "sharp" sections cut through me nodding off. I'll set that up to play with a sleep timer to turn off in 30-45 minutes.

I also have a FOSS "relaxing noises" app where I've setup a specific mix of them that I find very soothing, and I set the volume on that to slightly drown out the music, so I have to focus a little to make out the music well. Set that on a sleep timer to stop 15 minutes after the music.

If wifey's sharing the bed (sometimes my daughter co-sleeps with her), those sounds go through one half of some wired headphones into whichever of my ears isn't against the pillow (side sleeper). Otherwise just low volume out of the phone speaker.

Tuck in, silky eye mask goes on, and trying to listen to the music through the noise takes just enough focus to shut up my brain and stray thoughts. Then I start tuning out the music somewhat automatically and doze off.

If I can't tune out, then I can zone out to the relaxing ambient noises and music.

Usually out before the sleep timers stop the audio.

I'm a bit particular:

Between 22.30 and 23.00 I get very sleepy, if I go to bed at that time, I fall asleep in less than 5 minutes, literal. And will stay asleep until 5.45 in the morning, my wake up time.

If after 23.00 I'm still awake, unless I'm extremely tired that day, I won't sleep until late in the night (well past midnight). In these cases, I won't wake up by myself at 5.45 but will need an alarm because I can oversleep.

My sleep routine is extremely strict even on weekends or holidays. And best part is I haven't actively trained it. My biological clock seems to be swiss.

Depends. Sometimes it takes 30 minutes or so. Other times it can take 1 hour or more.

Going to sleep is super easy for me. It’s staying asleep that is the difficult part.

Depends on the neighbors' screams and stomping, stray dogs barking and Russian bombardments. If all is quiet (happens a few times per month) -- I sleep well.

Step 1: lay down Step 2: zzzzz

It certainly helps that my job is physically heavy which after a day is tiring enough to just sleep instantly. Getting up has an instruction of it's own though

Pretty easy. Too easy? Pretty much, if I lay down, I fall asleep. Which is great most of the time, but sometimes, not so much.

Not easy at all. I have a rigid sleeping routine that I don't waver from, spend time distressing, drink camomile tea etc etc. I do everything right, it's just how it goes

I've had terrible insomnia for pretty much my entire life. I've done it all ... the only thing that "works" is radical acceptance. I sleep, when/where/how I can sleep - time of day, place, other plans, doesn't matter. Or I'll just be tired, I'm used to that, I've stopped seeing it as a problem.

I used to sleep sitting in a chair in the kitchen for a while, because that's just what worked. Head down on the table, like I just dropped dead. Gave my daughter a good scare a couple of times, when she was getting up in the middle of the night to get some water, lol. But usually I get the most sleep throughout the day via little naps. It is what it is, there's worse problems one could have. :)

On the scale 0(hard) to 10(easy), i would say around 6 or 7. Sometime i just lie down a bit and 10min in i'm asleep, sometime it takes 30min to an hour before i sleep. I mostly blame my screentime habit.

My head hits the pillow and I'm asleep. My wife on the other hand lays awake for hours if she isn't medicated.

Going to sleep is the easiest part. Hard part is getting up.

incredibly difficult.

Pretty easy. I do it five to ten times a night. Staying asleep, however...

usually takes an hour or two of boring myself laying there until I finally sleep, even if I'm tired when I lay down. In my 50's now, and been that way my entire life. Not sure if ADHD has anything to do with it...

I almost envy those that can just pass out after a few minutes. Seems much more efficient.

If I manage to get to sleep, I wake up at 3am. If I'm lucky I fall asleep again, if I'm not it'll be 7 am, or everything hurts so much I'm awake for the rest of the night.

Welcome to the delightful combination of menopause, Lyme and Long Covid.

I just woke up after blissful 3h of sleep because for some reason my brain is managed by a a bunch of monkeys on speed. If waking up was as easy.