sleep disorders

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I am curious about other's experiences with sleep disruptions. I have had trouble falling asleep since I was a little kid, often lying awake until 2 or 3 am. For many years I had night shifts because I couldn't sleep. Sometimes I would be super tired and sleep for 20 minutes. I still have occasional trouble but here's something that often helps. I guess you would call it a ritual.

1. turn on a movie I've seen dozens of times. Slingblade, Coal Miner's Daughter, 1984, and Cider House Rules work best. I turn the sound down low so it's a murmer.

2. turn on a fan for the white noise.

3. two tylenol pms and sometimes a melatonin if that doesn't do the trick.

I need the white noise because every little sound bugs. Even a watch ticking across the room. If the tv is on to a movie I haven't seen before, or something informative like Animal Planet, it's too stimulating.

I would appreciate any tips from others for the nights where my ritual doesn't work.

I got nothing. I often stay up until midnight, then lay awake in bed until 2 or 3 am. I haven't found much that helps.

I can't really sleep at night but I take tons of micro-naps. I'm more like a cat than a human in that respect. It probably killed my brain development as a child, but whatever.

I've never been able to just lie down, relax, close my eyes and fall asleep, unless I have been very active during the day. And even then it's only slightly more likely that I'll be able to.
My falling asleep these days usually ends up happening somewhere between 5am and 9am, and usually after much waiting. But my amount of sleep is fairly normal, so often I end up waking up between 1pm and 5pm. And no matter how much I try to adjust to a normal rhythm, I always end up slipping back into this pattern within a day or two. It's like my body considers 7am to be more or less the approximate default bedtime. And I have no idea why. I've heard of Delayed Sleep-Phase Syndrome, and I guess that might be it, but I'm not sure there's a generally accepted cause of it.

I don't sleep well. Until I started taking melatonin every night it could easily take me up to 3 house after laying down just to fall a sleep, and then I would still wake up every 20 min or so for the next several hours. I use to always need noise or a tv flicker to sleep through the night, and now I'm having "seizure like" problems but wake up less frequently. Sometimes I wake up dazed and have trouble speaking or I wake up confused not knowing what day it is or with the strong feeling that I need to do something or that I forgot something (this is the worst, because it completely startles the hell out of me, and leaves me in almost a panic).

I don't really know what is going wrong with my brain at night, but I now have several doctors appointments to hopefully find out.

When my husband and I first met, he had his computer in his bedroom. He could sleep with the lights and humming from the modem. I couldn't. When we moved into our own place together, I told him computers didn't belong in the bedroom.

Now he complains about the tiny light from the baby monitor. *sigh*

I suffer insomnia from time to time. There are periods where it is more common.
I think when i have to deal with emotions battering at my defenses that I most suffer from it.
It's also when my brain is very active trying to figure something out. Usually resolving conflicting thoughts.

Right now, actually it's emotional conflict and turmoil that has been keeping me from being able to sleep at night.
I've been trying to break down the block I have on emotions, that keep me from physically feeling them the same way that most people do. I don't know why I don't learn... last several times I've tried doing this, it's always ended up the same way. I created a block on emotions for a reason... so that I could function and cope.... why would I bring it down?

Anyways, suggestions that can help...
1) get back up out of bed, don't just lie there, go blog on WP, go for a walk, exercise, have a shower, just DO something.. Then go back to bed. You'll be more tired tomorrow night, and maybe it'll be easier to sleep then.

2) Weed in small doses can relax the anxiety and let you drift off. Valium can also work if you have issues with illegal substances.

I've heard that meditation can also help. You can also buy white-noise generators (or download them for your computer) They give you a much better rendition of white noise, and it might work better than the fan

I have severe insomnia. I just take medicine for it. If I don't take medicine for it, I stay awake for 3 or 4 days.

every night, i fall asleep with either the TV on or music playing through a stereo.
puts me right out.

sometimes i fall asleep with the light on, or the volume at a ridiculously high level.
the computer stays on at all times, i never bother to shut it off lol.

another thing i've noticed, the higher the amount of noise i can fall asleep to, the sounder, deeper, and longer my sleep is.

i do this with the TV, but i have to remember to set the Sleep function for a few hours, because the salesmen on infomercials tend to shout things very loudly.

there's nothing more annoying than being spooked awake at 3am by some dude yelling his head off about how great his new vacuum cleaner is.

For months on end, I've been wondering why I kept on waking up, in the night. I've put 1 and 1 together, and realized that I've been drinking too much before bed, and I've been waking up, to use the washroom, 2 hours before my alarm went off. I've had my last Crystal Light, 2 and a half hours ago. I'm going to see, if this helps. I really hope that it does. Speaking of alarms, I'd better set my alarm, for tomorrow.