sleep issues

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I dont know what you guys think but I have sleep apnea and Restless leg syndrome so I loathe sleep because everynight I feel cheated like I layed their all night with my eyes closed and no rest. I gonna get a CPAP machine soon but I am a night owl because of years of sleep issues before the sleep issues.My mom tells me that I need to practice a sleep diet which involves not watching tv or playing games before your playing games and this perfect enviroment so you can sleep which is impossible to achieve at my house thats not my problem its just I like to stay up late to spend time with my brother who is at work alot or well the other probelm with him and me hanging out I cant explain here.He has aspergers to but I argue with my mom alot like I dont find most of those sleep helping techinques help me It maybe because of my underlying problems or somthing else it just drives me crazy I dont need to be told how to sleep because has of now I cant.

I hav had problems sleeping since I was really young too. It could be that the reason that the sleep suggestions don't work for you is that they were desighned to help with NT sleeping problesm and ours might be caused by different things?


Some of them do help me though, so I will just suggest the ones that seem to help me and you can decide for yourself.

1)Some type of really hard core excercise every day...maybe biking hard or swimming or lifting weights for an hour after school? Don't make it to late or it actually may do the opposite and give you to much energy.


2) Eat something before you go to bed(not chocolate...caffeine in it). People say not to do this but I think it helps me to have something in my stomach like a piece of toast or oatmeal.


3)Body stretching an hour before bed. Yoga helps a little f you can do it but mostly you can just roll around on the floor and stretch any part of you that feels tight.


4) eat a bannana or take some potassiuit is supposed to help with restles legs...I have that too and it drives me nuts but the excercise,stretching and potassium help.

5)Keep a notebook by your bed and a flashlight or something so that if you have thoughts stuck in your head or you think of something you are afraid you will forget to do, you can write them down.


6)Think back to a time when you felt totally exausted, like you wanted nothing more then to curl up and sleep. For me...even telling myself that I should get out of bed and do the dishs makes me feel tired...I push it and try and imagine myself getting up and going through the whole boring routine of rinsing the dishs and soaking and hand washing them, etc. (I hate to do the dishs). It's weird but it does make me feel tired,lol.

7)Melatonin.....I have been taking 3mg for the past few months and it seems to help without making me feel tired, hungover or confused when I wake -up. It's cheap and wont mess you up like most sleep meds.

Sometimes a warm bath or reading a boring book helps, (I like to do sudoku)...sometimes watching TV helps,try the movies on TCM=Turner Classic Movies. Sometimes this back fires because it is a movie I like but a lot of times it is boring and helps my mind stop cycling long enough to fall asleep.


9)Make sure your room is not to hot or to cold(most people sleep better with colder room and heavier blankets on them, some aspies like the weight of blankets)...to noisy, ear plugs can help. I lalso love my sound machine for this...white noise rocks. I have a 2 fans and a fake train noise on when I sleep. I have black out curtains over my windows so no light gets in. As weird as it sounds...even certain smells can keep me awake...food cooking or cat litter.

10)Some combination of the above....pick what works for you, not your mom or me

Sometimes nothing works ...at least not all the time or right away. Consider yourself your own scientific experiment. Just remember that you are trying to shut you body and mind off, like logging of your computer so it can be shut down.... the more programs you have running on your computer the longer it takes to shut them all down.

Another difference with being aspie.....we like the night, it's quiter, less over stimulating and more aspie friendly. I built my life as an adult around this reality and work over nights and sleep during the days...that is not possible when your a kid and that sucks.

You could also just try reading this before bed time...I can usually put any one into a coma with my walls of endless rambeling

kudos to krex - good list
may I add -
Your computor analogy is right on - I also found like a computor when you are laying there at night if with your brain racing, if you throw in a radom word, like 'bollie' or ' wizbay' or any non word, and like a computor with the wrong input, your brain will stop, do a 'whaaat?' it will start up again and you may have to do this several times, but soon you will sleep.

Also My legs would twitch, shake, and jerk a lot too and after some research I found a good dose of magnisium as well as the potassium really helped.