Up at nite!

In conjunction with my other post above, today, I have a routine that helps but it is work at getting to sleep. While very soft classical music plays or the sound machine is set to waves crashing on shore I repeat a short soliloquy in my mind: “no thinking to resolve issues. Those thoughts that do arise are either deleted, deferred for daytime, or allowed to expand for pleasant feeling, now.” I then try to do that for each thought while further saying in mind: “allow sleep” until I’m relaxed. Finally, by the time I get to “…now sleeping…” I am drifting into some expanded story. It works more often than not but it is work. Candidly, this is a synopsis of a long story I read on a sleep forum many years ago. Maybe you can modify it to work for you.

Well, I tried just about everything that I hear about. I have to waves crashing on the shore
My problem is not necessarily falling asleep, it is staying asleep. I sleep for 2 hours and then I awake. And then I'm awake for about an hour or two and then I sleep again. I generally get about four and a half hours a night. I just would like to be able to sleep but that whole four and a half hours without waking up. Sometimes it's less than four and a half hours.

It went well. She prescribed Xanax with the hope that it might break the cycle, So far, I still cannot sleep.

I haven't been able to sleep well this entire week either. I was titrating off 2 mg of Valium, got down to 1 mg, couldn't sleep, so went back up to 2 mg. Keep in touch.

I experience the same . This is apparently is common as a age . Very annoying a

Have you tried Belsomra? It has a different mechanism of action than other sleep aids. I've tried nearly everything, over-the-counter, natural, herbal, prescription, whatever. Belsomra was the only thing that helped.

Thank you. I have only recently come across the name of Belsomra and plan to mention it to my doctor at my upcoming appointment. I, too, have tried ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING ELSE, so I'm glad to hear that Belsomra may help. I also ordered a trial of Peptiva. It is supposed to help with digestive and sleep issues. Thank you again for your suggestion.

Basically if we think too much it disturbs the sleep . So I keep my thoughts minimal and try to be in the present moment. Thinking about the future is the worse thing we can do

@nimalw This is so true but much easier said than done. On nights when my mind is whirling around about something I can't just stop it, it keeps returning.

It sure would be nice if I could just tell it to STOP THAT! but that doesn't work for me.
JK

I know how frustrating that is, and I sometimes have the same issue. A few things that have worked for me are reading in bed until I (hopefully) get sleepy again, playing public radio or podcasts softly until I get sleepy, or write down in a journal what's on my mind and what I'll do about them tomorrow, then try to go back to sleep. I do all of these in bed with a very low reading light. It's often recommended to get out of bed when you can't sleep, but I've found that that wakes me up more and I just feel more rested in the morning if I've been in bed most of the night. Any reading, radio or podcast content needs to be interesting enough to distract me from my thoughts but not over stimulating. I don't know how much sleep you're getting or how old you are, but if you're older and getting 5-6 hours, you're probably getting the minimum you need. Of course, the immportant thing is how you feel during the day.