Insomnia.

Forgot to mention one of the most effective things I have tried --
the weighted blanket!

When I go to the dentist (where I have a lot of problems), I always wear the lead x-ray vest the whole time, and it really helps. Turns out a weighted blanket is like that only huge. I just put mine back on the bed and it's really helping me fall back asleep when i wake up at 3am with my mind racing.

There are some cons: it can be hot and they aren't exactly cheap. But that's it! Otherwise, I love mine and it really helps.

Ugh

yeah this shit is making my life impossible basically

I’ve managed to avoid it for a long time but tonight’s the night tonight. I’m kind of emotionally high for various reasons, and in my head I am having a future conversation I am looking forward to, this internal dialogue which I can’t turn off, an old habit I long ago broke myself since it’s the kind of expectation that brings disappointment, or so I’ve heard, oh wait, actually experienced firsthand many times.

Past the point where I will vet even one four hour REM cycle. Hello walls!

Zero hours of sleep last night, fun fun fun. I can take the brain derangement but the constant feeling like I'm about to have a heart attack is, well, killing me.

Nytol works well for me, you can get it over the counter without prescription. Weirdly the other thing that works for me is the Calm app in which you have various soothing-voiced people (even Matthew McConaughey pops up) to read you a bedtime story.

Is that the free or premium version of that app?

Premium

There's a great podcast called The Maritime History Podcast that used to knock me right out. It took me months to make it past Hammurabi. But then my brain got used to that, and started a new trick: letting me go to sleep for about an hour from midnight to 1am, then waking me back up again for the rest of the night. The night before last I didn't sleep at all and eventually got up at 5:30.

It definitely helps me to get some exercise during the day and not eat late at night, and to avoid alcohol. But those things only help. They don't guarantee sleep.

“Nytol will help you get your zzzzzzzzs” = jingles u will never get out of your sleep deprived head

Come on over to this thread, LL: Thread for random old TV voiceover/announcer phrases that pop into your head

it's baaaaaaaaaack. but now I have an anxiety-cause to some of it. pretty much for the majority of the year, some nights I try to go to sleep, and feel like every time I start to go under, I jolt awake, and my heart races and it repeats over and over for an hour or so until finally I fall asleep (or don't). it only started when I acquired an assload of stress and usually on nights when I have a lot in my head at bedtime.

also it's long past time I do a sleep study. i am 99% sure I have apnea, p much everybody in my family does.