Sleeping Problems?

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Does anyone else here have sleeping problems?

I slept for perhaps 3 hours last night. My over the counter sleeping pill might as well of been a tic tac.

Most of the time its my "internal conversation" going over drive that keeps me awake. I stew over a conversation I had or even a hypothetical conversation that could occurr. Stress, I suppose.

On other occassions I am not stressed out about anything that I am aware of, my mind is relatively quiet, and I am tired, but sleep just doesn't come.

Now I'm at work and have to try to get through the day. Uggh.

Last edited by ericfromcowtown on 29 Mar 2010, 8:39 am, edited 1 time in total.

i have trouble falling as sleep and i tend to wake really early too. my mind is always racing. i use herbal sleeping pills and sometimes over the counter stuff like sominex. i have to use a different brand or alternate herbal and non herbal pills. our bodies can become too used to one sort and become desensitised.

having said that, sleeping pills are not good for the long run. a hot bath 30 mins before bed does help. it cools down your body temperature which in turn relaxes you.

i have the opposite problem. i sleep to much because the quality of my sleep is terrible because i have obstructive sleep apnea. i have had it since i was born and sleep apnea in children seems to correlate with asd's, or at least the fatigue that comes with it worsens asd symptoms.

My mind is always racing and constantly rehearsing possible future conversations.

Is this an AS thing?

Forgot to mention.... this is causing ongoing sleep problems. I have had to stop taking sleeping pills recently as my doctor was concerned about long term use/abuse issues.

OTC sleeping pills are the same ingredient in Benadryl. If your mind is going like that I don't think any OTC pill will work. My psychiatrist put me on an anti-psychotic several years ago for the same reason,. I didn't take it for long, though. I don't know how you feel about taking prescription sleep aids or anti-psychotics, but those are a stronger alternative.

What really works for me is Melatonin. It is in the vitamin aisle of your drugstore or grocery. Our brains make melatonin naturally to help keep our sleep rhythm in sync. You can try that safely to see if it works. Also try keeping a nightly schedule that will signal your body that it is time to go into "shutdown" mode. For example, if you have a bath or read a book every night for a while, your brain will learn that the bath is the beginning of the "shutdown mode" and start naturally winding down. Also, don't do things that are not related to sleep in your bed, like study or surf the Internet (Im guilty of this). That way your brain knows what it is supposed to do there.

I don't have sleeping problems since I became a mother. You know, feeding, diaper changing and stuff at night and still you have to sleep when you have a chance to
I used to have problems with sleeping but I found thinking about boring things helped. Soooo... what's for lunch tomorrow, eh?

I have real broken up sleep, usually waking up every hour or two. Personally I've been hesitant to take anything for it but I'm thinking of trying melatonin, as I've heard good things about it.

Yeah...

I hate it, and it always happens on the days when I have work the next day so I have to sit through work totally shattered. I think it's caused by anxiety but I'm not certain.

I find that going to the gym helps me sleep better but I can't afford to go at the moment so tend to have trouble going to sleep and then want to spend all day asleep to catch up for it.

Hate it

Ive been a big fan of Melantonin since I found they can actually stick the stuff in a bottle, and sell it OTC to boot.

Coarse quality of my sleep is still crap, but atleast I can get the sleeping part done on time if I need.

I've had sleeping issues for as long as I can remember.

It is indeed the reason why I eventually got "squeezed out" from my former job. During really bad periods, I have no control whatsoever of when I fall asleep or when I wake up, making it impossible to plan or promise to be somewhere early in the morning. I was late for work more frequently than an average employee.

It got somewhat better after I got married and became a father. If my son doesn't wake me up (by crying or jumping on me), my wife does.

That's true.

I really struggle getting up in the mornings and have had formal - warnings for lateness loads of times.

I often sleep through my alarms as well and only wake up with a jump when my Dad comes in and wakes me.

I was using prescribed Temazipam in the "horse tranquilizer" dosage range. If I took more than two a week they would jut make me stoned and induce their own sleeping problems. But they did mean that I had two days a week guaranteed 8 hours uninterrupted sleep.

They worked like magic. I took them and then sat and watched tv for half an hour. Then I'd notice that my body weight had increased to half a metric ton. I would then have 10 minutes to get to my bed or risk lying on the floor and sleeping where I happened to be.

But.... Now I'm off them and not getting any reasonable sleep. My batteries are running down.

I have always blamed the constant inner dialogue for this lack of sleep. For a long time I thought I was some type of schizo, but now I realise that the voice in my head is my own - but I just won't shut up.

The only thing I can do is use the voice as an internal MP3 player and get it to play music to me. Yesterday I had Radiohead's "I Can;t" on in a loop, today it's Manic Street Preachers. That's not so bad. But some days it's irritating girl pop from off the radio and that's worse than when the internal voice is writing bad poetry to itself at 3am.

Again.... Is this me? Is this an AS thing?

I think that lots of people with AS have trouble sleeping

I think it's anxiety though, because sometimes I can sleep if I really have nothing else to worry about.

I used to have sleeping problems.


Then I discovered beer.


Nitey-nite.

lol

Alcohol is the Panacea for AS not only for insomnia...

I find that it has the added properties of improving my inspiration to make conversation, reducing the discomfort of making eye-contact, making my senses of taste, smell, hearing and touch less intense, allowing me to concentrate much better than usual and relieving depression.