There is no cure for insomnia. Find a way to cope with it and lessen the side effects by dealing with it better. I have found that I stay away from sugar in the evening, I don’t eat late. I get up at a regular time daily, regardless of what I have to do or not to do. Binural tones help calm me down and relax as does background sounds like dripping water or bamboo windchimes. Try Valerian root around 9pm with some tea. Hope this helps.

Thanks mate.

If you get to know it, please tell me.

Try Valerian

The only thing I’ve found that works for me after trying everything including Ambien and Lunesta, was an OTC sleep aid called doxylamine succinate. It’s the antihistamine in Nyquil gelcaps.. not the liquid. I tried everything from those drugs to drinking alcohol an hour before bed.

Have you tried having a warm bath before bedtime? Play some relaxing music when you get in to bed, or read until you feel really relaxed. Or you could buy a lavendar pillow. That is supposed to make you feel relaxed. Good luck

Watching a documentary on TV usually helps me sleep. So does listening to music with headphones.

I am assuming this is more of a clinical insomnia, in which case, most things like lavender pillows and music won’t help… like mine.

Some say pushing your sleep day back until you get to a normal time works. So, on the long weekend coming up you could try staying up until 3:00 in the morning, then 7:00am, then 3:00 in the afternoon, until you get to 9:00pm (or whatever normal sleeping time you want.) The theory is trying to fall asleep early doesn’t work, but exhausting yourself to get back onto a normal schedule is more likely to succeed.

They have done studies that show some people truly have a different circadium rythm, and going to sleep before midnight is just not natural for them.

I do have a question, are you tired suring the day, do you need a nap, or do you simply require less sleep? If you are easily living off of 5 hours sleep, you might want to get your thyroid checked if you have other symptoms like dry skin, dry eyes, hair falling out, etc. Probably not that though, since it seems your whole family has the problem.

I’ve had insomnia since I was young (I think it started around age 10), probably related to my anxiety and OCD, in that I often just cannot turn my brain off. Many of the suggestions already mentioned are what’s recommended if you are having problems falling asleep. No caffeine in the afternoon, exercise, valerian, catnip, etc.

Generally what works for me is smoking marijuana before bed. If that fails (and I have had periods where I couldn’t fall asleep until dawn), Benadryl. Sometimes that doesn’t work, either, so then I would try something like guided meditation or perhaps listening to an audiobook. I can read for hours and be wide awake, but something about listening to audiobooks makes me fall asleep in about half an hour.

I had a terrible experience with insomnia when I was in my early 20’s. One summer, I didn’t sleep at all. Nothing I tried worked, and I had to just wait it out.
I still struggle at times with it, and sometimes have to push myself past the point of exhaustion before trying to sleep, but it is nowhere close to as bad as it was then.
When it gets bad now, I just read some of @dalepetrie’s posts.

Hypnotics like Lunesta and Ambien are to be avoided, but you may be interested in reading some of the research on a relatively new drug called Rozerem, which works as a Melatonin agonist. It does not put you to sleep; you must take it for two weeks or so before it begins to work, and it slowly helps regulate your sleep cycle. No dependence issues, you can stop taking it any time, and it seems to help a lot of people with chronic insomnia.

I struggle with insomnia at times. It is the worst if I have to do something the next day that I am anxious about. If I don’t, I usually just lie awake through it, but if I need to get some sleep, I will take either .5 or .10 milligrams of Ambien. I find it counter-productive if I use it several nights in a row, but for the occasional sleeplessness, it works for me.

If it is really hard-core, stay up all night and don’t go to sleep until the next night. You should be tired enough to reset your clock. See how long you can hold to new sched.

A lot of this depends on whether you are a true night owl and also delay getting up as long as possible.

@dpworkin – Nice! Thanks for mentioning that, I’ll have to check it out.

The most effective thing I’ve tried which I’m sticking to is 3mg of sublingual Melatonin. I think the peppermint works better than the orange flavored. I take it at 9pm.