any other night owls? how do you make yourself go to sleep?

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I work 3rd shift and NEVER before in my lifetime has sleep been such an issue for me. It is 7am and I have yet to go to bed, I am up past my bed time almost 2 hrs now and often MUST resort to perscription sleeping pills to sleep, as before I could go days literally without, every dangerous since I drive almost 400 miles a week commuting to work and I drive heavy matchinery at work, risking hurting or killing someone, or colliding with another forklift.

I know this summer (if I can figure out a way to aford it now with the economy in the dumps) is that I MUST invest in air conditioning so I can sleep with it cool, summer time is the worst with the weather nice I dont want to sleep and by the time I get home its starting to heat up and cant sleep then, the fan does little or nothing.

latly I sleep decently, until today anyways. I wish ya luck and if you feel its bad enough, especally if you drive alot, I know it sucks but you may have to get sleep pills, it was the only way for me.

I've been a night watchman for 30 years. It's great going to work when the NT's are going to sleep. I mostly get paid to sit around and read all night. I get to fix all of the computers and other gadgets at work without any distractions. I get home at 8 am, stay awake as long as I care to, then sleep 5 or 6 hours until it's time to go to work again. I hate socializing, but I get along just fine with the limited number of people I do come in contact with.

Exercise, stretch, meditate and melatonin.

Simple calisthenics like push-ups and sit-ups can actually be very useful in getting to sleep. It is important to find the right time to exercise though. If I exercise too late at night and my is running, the exertion can actually exacerbate the sleep disruption. The best time to exercise would be in the morning or late in the afternoon.

Stretching is helpful in getting the mind to disengage and relax. There is no need to pay for yoga lessons although it will not hurt. Most people would have learned how to stretch in their physical education classes and that is good enough. But joining a regular class can be motivational as well as providing social interaction opportunities for those who want it.

Simple breathing exercises where you focus your mind on your breath is also effective in helping the brain to switch into sleep mode. Most people probably do it unconsciously as night falls but for us the brain centre that regulates such unconscious rhythms may be the parts most affected by autism.

Melatonin works wonders for me. I take 1-2 mg and there are no side effects like nightmares or drowsiness. It works so well in fact that since I started melatonin a few months ago I have found that the hard edges from my periodic meltdowns have been blunted.

Sleeping well is one of the keys to managing autism. It is so important to me that I actually exercise not so much to keep fit but to get to sleep at night. But the slim trim figure is not a bad side benefit.

Thank God for my husband...I always get mad at him because between 10PM-12AM he just says, let's go to bed...and he expects everyone to do so...he's not mean about it, but it bothers me that he even says it...

Well, until this weekend that he was gone from Thursday though Tuesday...I went to bed every night around 6-7AM...then wake up at 10-11...needless to say, it was horrible...As soon as he got back, I'm back to feeling ok since I've been going to sleep at the same time as him...again, if he doesn't complain, I will stay up all night...this has happened to me since I was a child.

I read about melatonin for kids with autism, I also read it in the Mitochondrial disease pages...so I thought I'd try it on my kiddo, who is JUST LIKE ME...and needless to say, he's had two nights of decent sleep, seems much more alert...etc...Soon I'll try it myself...

My mother, whom I believe is also on the spectrum has taken melatonin for years to battle the same issue...My grandmother, whom I also think is on the spectrum has taken every kind of sleeping pill that crazy doctors have prescribed to her...but it's hard to change her ways...she's 85 now...

I sleep too much, but sometimes if I have to get up early I will take a xanax. I cannot take it during the day as it makes me really tired. I tried a melatonin and that also made me sleepy. A glass of wine and some relaxing classical music might help.

When it's late at night and I just can't sleep, I usually masturbate.

No, really. Quit looking at me like that! It helps a lot. And what's funny is my NT wife tells me she does the same thing. Of course I told her if she's gonna do that to help herself go to sleep, to just wake me up instead, but I digress.

Point is, it does wonders for calming your mind down enough to sleep and beats the hell out of taking pills.

I also find a single shot of vodka or other strong booze of your choice about 15 minutes before you go to bed can help, even for a big guy like me.

(where's the hiding behind the couch emoticon when you need it?) anyway, i've tried that, didn't help.

maybe i'll try melatonin again. i have in the past and never noticed a difference.

I just lie on my bed and wait, I usually fall alseep withing the first hour.

i watch tv until i start feeling tired then i just blackout at some point

This semester Tues and Thurs I have class and 8 AM, and Monday and Wednesday not till 2 PM. This aggravated my sleep cycles to the worst they've ever been. If there weren't just a few weeks left, I think I would've stopped sleeping Monday and Wednesday nights so that i could crash on the other nights. I'm sick of how this rules my life. I can't fall asleep without medication. I cannot fall asleep without a concentrated effort. Reading and everything else might make me feel tired but they don't help me sleep. The fastest in my life I've ever fallen asleep is 30-40 minutes, right now my average is 1.5-2.5 hours after I lay down, regardless of what time I go to bed. If I get up and walk around and get productive till I feel exhausted, I have to start the whole thing all over again and wait at least an hour to fall asleep, usually more. So I have to go to bed 2 or 3 hours in advance of when I want to fall asleep. i haven't taken a nap since i was a baby. It's been a life long problem and it's getting continually worse. The only thing that works is 5 hours of sleep 5 days a week, and even then it takes me nearly an hour to fall asleep. It's a pain because I can't really go to sleepovers or late night events or risk getting no sleep at all, and I can't take naps to catch up.

Fine malt whisky. Not perfect by any means, but works for me. Especially when it's 12:30am and I have to be up at 6:50am for work.

I don't sleep regular hours, in any sense of the word-am more likely to be awake at night, but my sleeping hours shift & vary from day to day.
Things that work for me (activities that occupy me until I get tired enough):
Crossword puzzles.
CSPAN congressional hearings.
Music Choice cable music channel, "Sounds of the Seasons"-which plays groovy trancy music when it's NOT a holiday season.
Smoking 'til my eyes get weary.

i use herbal supplements and OTC stuff to sleep.

herbal supplements-melatonin, Night Rest, and NuAcapella are things i strongly recommend. i also will take benadryl or motrin/pamprin if i am desperate but these make me feel hungover and i sometimes leep too much which makes me depressed and useless.

i have several listing games i play. i like names ith double initials like Ansel Adams, Bob Barker, Charlie Chaplin, etc., and i wil pick a letter and try to list as many names that fit the criteria as i can. BB is most common and i am usually asleep around 85 or so.

i do a similar thing with US cities and with international cities. i pick a letter and list as many cities as i can that start with that letter.

and there is always counting backwards from 1000 in english or from 100 in spanish. sometimes i draw the number with my finger or count backwards from 100 and forwards from 1 at the same time like 100/0, 99/1, 98/2, 97/3, etc.

I have to drink coffee before bed,it seems to work for me.

My sleep schedule is completely twisted, and try as i might it wont get decent. I have too many thougths that race around, and i can never just fall asleep. Its pretty annoying

I used to have all sorts of trouble sleeping, but I'm finally doing well. It took me a long time to get strict about it, and it was really hard at first, but as long as I have an alarm wake me up at the exact same time every day (even weekends), I can fall asleep just fine.

I set the TV to wake me up, and I try different methods each day to force myself to actually wake up and not sleep through it. I'll force myself to sit up as soon as I'm awake, things like that...I try to hide the remote from myself so I can't turn the TV off in my sleep. One time I turned my friend's alarm clock off in my sleep and made him late for work

I also do something relaxing for at least an hour in bed. Read a book, watch Food Network (except they moved Good Eats and Unwrapped, so I can't do that anymore), things like that. No scary movies or books, nothing with too much action. Maybe play something relaxing on the Gameboy like an RPG or a light puzzle game. The more boring it is, the less likely my mind is to race.

Logically, you would think doing something strenuous like pushups would exhaust you and put you to sleep...trust me, it prettymuch does the complete opposite.

Now I just need to figure out where I put my remote yesterday I couldn't set my TV last night, so I woke up two and a half hours late