Getting to sleep and staying asleep

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Is there any inexpensive, safe and legal way to fall asleep at night and stay asleep for at least 8 hours? My sleep is usually fairly disrupted, and it's been worse lately, and due to intrusive OCD thoughts that are harder to fight off at night, being wide awake at 4am is not the most pleasant thing.
Thanks in advance for any help.

hi Who_Am_I,
sleeping has always been a difficult task for me. falling asleep is hard enough and then I would wake up 3 hour afterwards...
i used to take valerian, the herbal sedative, but it's too weak for me.
now i got sleeping pills from doctors, they are really good, but sometimes it can make me sleep a bit too much. I have imrest, and seroquel (which i no longer take), it is a anti-psychotic for my anxiety, can make me sleep up to 15 hrs...
also, in my past experience, when i can't fall asleep, it is better to just get up and do something relaxing in stead of turning around in bed. it is the same when i woke up in the middle of the night.

Thanks for the suggestions. I have had sleeping pills once before, and while they do get me to sleep, I still wake up.
Anyway, I can't afford to see a doctor.
Doing something relaxing is probably a good idea.

Taurine is great because it activates both glycine and GABA(A) receptors. Plus it's an amino acid so it's nontoxic.

I've had the same problem all my life. My parents tell me that it was really hard to get me to sleep as a baby, and I would wake up every few hours, and not necessarily due to hunger. Then, as I grew, this continued. Now, at 17, I finally figured out that it's way better to do something I like when I wake up, and sometimes I'll even fall asleep doing it, which is way better than tossing and turning on bed, and not being able to sleep at all.

I don't have trouble sleeping once I get to sleep. The problem is going to sleep. lol

However I know my girlfriend (who's not on the spectrum but does suffer from OCD) if she wakes up at like 3am, she usually just cleans (as she likes cleaning) until she's tired again.

Who am i , i have the same problem and my OCD thoughts are part of it. I also realized i stay up at night cause it is the only time when it is peaceful and i can rest my mind. I cant handle stress lately, at all. so i guess this is how Ive been coping. but mine has gotten way out of hand. last week i couldn't fall asleep for 2 whole days!

If you find a solution please let me know. until then i wish you good sleep.

I used to take medications that helped me to sleep. But they also made me sleep way too long, and left me really hung over the next day. What works for me now, is 2 capsules of Valerian, and 3 mg of melatonin taken together before midnight. Sometimes I still wake, anywhere from about 3 or 6 am, but it happens a lot less frequently, and I can usually fall asleep again. Better, when I do wake, I am not hung over. I still keep medications around for occasional use, but that is geared more towards anxiety attacks. I also have the OCD thoughts going on, which kick into high gear as soon as I wake. On the nights when I wake and can't go back to sleep, I get up and do something until I get groggy again. While the things I take didn't entirely make the problem go away, they did help enormously.

Don't know if it will work for you, but this has done wonders for me. Physical exercise, a good amount 5 days a week whether you want to or not. And by a good amount, more than an hour a day. Since I started cycling I sleep more than I ever thought possible, and have no trouble drifting off--I sleep long and hard and generally wake up a lot more rested and able to cope. It also helps with sensory overload and subsequent shut down.

I used to have very severe insomnia...

I've found melatonin to be fairly useless.
Drowsy Benadryll works well and is over the counter, but it's ineffective after a few weeks of use.
Chloral Hydrate works really well, but it tastes like death and you can't use it long term.

The best long term solution though, for me, was a healthy diet and regular exercise.