Telika: Usual suggestions revolve around avoiding screen light (mobile phone, computer monitor) during the hour that precedes sleep, lowering the temperature, avoiding coffee, sugar and cocaine before bed, thinking abot calm faraway places, or reading a super boring (but not infuriatingly boring) book. Or listening to long talkative scientific podcasts.
Also the world not being absolutely atrociously horribly terrible and evil and cataclysmic all the time would help sleep too.
adelle2505: Do you know what should I do after waking up at 3 a.m and feeling I'm not sleepy at all? The problem is that I have to wake up at 6 and work for 12 hours then, so I need more than 4 hours of sleep.
Seems you know about sleeping well more then I do, that's why asking. Thanks.
Ah no. I know the theory (I repeat what people say), but I'm not very good at it in practice. Because DAMN, the thought monsters that bite me awake at 3 am have solid jaws. And the ticking clock makes it worse. I usually just go "fuck that, sleep-deprived day it is, then". Paradoxically, this fatalism helps gather a little more sleep sometimes. Having functionned a few days without sleep at all, and thus having the memory that "it's just that", that's it's do-able, is a bit calming. But that's all. I usually consider my insomnia causes to be serious and respectable enough to not fight them too much.
Usually, such periods of life just disjoin my sleep. I can fall asleep for an hour or so in the evening, especially after a glass of alcohol on an empty stomach. This also alleviates some stress : at 3 am, I calculate my missing sleeping hours by taking in account such little bonus moments taken at 7 pm, and, while not ideal, it does help me treat it as survivable.
I also know that we're supposed to not try to sleep forcefully, when we wake up like that, but make a break, have a bit of nocturnal reading or writing (not on a screen, though). I seldom do that, as it sounds too counter-intuitive. But, hey, that's what we're told.
Ah, and I've turned on the "blue light" filter on my mobile phone. I think it helped, although it may be a coincidence.
For some reason, The Guardian LOVES to publish pieces about insomnia. Put "insomnia" or "sleep" in their search bar, you'll get thousands of articles and how-to. They tend to recycle the same advices, but, if anything, they are quite soothing to read.
Look at that. At two days of interval :
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2019/feb/11/how-busy-famous-people-manage-sleep-cope-work-odd-hours https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2019/feb/09/bedtime-routines-five-ways-to-get-a-good-nights-sleep They're completely obsessed.