How does one cure insomnia without drugs? Please be serious i'm desperate here.?

Question

I've had insomnia for about 2 months now sleeping on average 2-3 hours a night. I just can't fall asleep. I can appreciate a good joke or a funny answer but in all fairness i'm desperate and i'd like serious answers only please. And prescription drugs are not an option, I've seen my mom go through sleeping pill addiction and that was hell and I do not want to follow.

Answer 1

I have suffered with insomnia off and on for over 15 years. I am now on Lunesta which is not habit forming. I can honestly say that some times I take it every night for one or two weeks and then I just don't need it and so I won't take it.
But, since you don't want to go that route, here are some things that use to work for me before they just didn't anymore.
1) Try to go to sleep every night at about the same time. It trains your body to expect and want sleep at a certain time.
2) Avoid sugars and caffeine for at least 4 to 6 hours before bed time.
3) Try a relaxing warm drink. I preferred chamomile tea.
4) Don't read or watch TV in bed. It sounds stupid, but if you only spend extended periods of time in bed for sleeping it sort of tricks your mind into "sleep mode" when you get into bed.
5) My main problem was mind wondering. I found that when my mind would start to drift if I got up and wrote down what I was thinking it would quiet my thoughts.

Hope that helps. Good luck. I know how not being able to sleep can drive you bonkers.

Answer 2

Some people say that lavender body soaps and bath oils are relaxing. According to experts taking a bath an hour before bed will initially raise your body temp then cool it down so you feel sleepy. It is important to establish a routine for bed. Even if you don't feel tired make an effort to go to bed around the same time every night. If after 30-45 minutes you can't fall asleep, get up and go into another room and do a quiet activity (don't watch TV), perhaps reading a book. Then return to your bedroom. Experts say that leaving the bedroom for sleeping and using other rooms for activities trains your mind/body to know that when you go to bed it's for sleeping. You could also try eating something with a lot of sugar at dinner, and then the sugar crash will come around bed time. Some people claim tea also helps them sleep. Or maybe a little bit of exercise after dinner.

Answer 3

Don't ever take the sleeping pills route!!

1. They will damage your liver big time and you can get into serious health problems.

2. You will get hooked up on them and you won't be able to have a normal life any more if you don't take your pills everyday.

The sleeping pills industry is damaging our health by capitalizing on our ignorance, and by distracting people from effective and natural ways to deal with this problem. I had been taking prescription sleep medications [Ambien] for over 5 years. It stopped working and I simply took more. Still did not work. Nights were very difficult - medication put me to sleep but I would wake up after 2–3 hours with a strong sympathetic response (fast pulse, pounding heartbeat, wide awake alert). It was a very difficult cycle to break. I was really in bad shape due to lack of sleep.

After years of struggling I was able to cure my insomnia naturally and pretty fast. I followed the Sleep Tracks sleep optimization program, here is their official web -site if you want to take a look: http://www.insomniacure.net

Ohhh..and Good Luck!

Answer 4

How to Beat INSOMNIA with Sleep
http://tips-to-sleep.blogspot.com/2006/09/how-to-beat-insomnia-with-sleep.html

Treatment for Insomnia
http://tips-to-sleep.blogspot.com/2006/09/treatment-for-insomnia.html

Answer 5

This site has some good tips for Insomnia. You may also want to try an herbal sleeping tonic that is all natural and non addictive to help you rest. Good Luck!

Answer 6

I've also been having that problem.
Dont nap
exercise
eat right
do stress relieving excercise
I like to run
take a walk
try to relax before you go to bed
take a bath
read something boring

Answer 7

ive had the same problem. im hypoglycemic which means that i have low blood sugar,and i couldnt sleep because i wasnt eating regularly. i found out if you eat every meal breakfast lunch and dinner youll get to sleep faster it also helps to put in a boring movie like WAKING LIFE its about dreaming and being aware that you are dreaming it makes you kind of think life over again.
my mom also has insomnia.

Answer 8

in most of the cases insomnia is due to the lifestyle and habits.
before going to bed you can have a bath with luke warm water, have a glass of milk (hot), radio can also be turned on and fixed for any song frequency, take your meal 2 hours before you sleep. take a stroll before you sleep. the atmosphere in you room should be calm, dark and fragrant.

Answer 9

try giving up all caffeine, coke, Pepsi, coffee, mt dew, tea and chocolate. there all stimulant's, it will take about a week for all of it to get out of your system.

Answer 10

Is there any chance you're a little on the hungry side, have low blood sugar or a little too cold when you try to sleep?

Make sure you're not a little chilly.

Believe it or not, when I find I'm too frazzled and not able to sleep I have a cup of coffee with "tons" of cream in it, one sugar, and maybe something like a cookie. The cream in the coffee helps make a person a little lethargic. Don't make the coffee very strong. (Stay away from tea and colas.) Have two cups if you want to increase your chances of feeling a little more on the lethargic side.

I've found that low blood sugar makes me feel a little on the "edgy" side, and - contrary to what people say about sugar - a cookie and a spoonful of sugar in the extremely light coffee works wonders.

At night gradually dial back the noise and lights. I think it helps a person gradually get calmer. If you just go from K-Mart lighting to darkness I don't think it gives you a chance to do anything but have a "shock". If you start by doing something like this it may help: When it gets around 10 p.m. turn off brighter lights and put dimmer ones one. Turn any television or radio down a little. Your environment is now in a calmer "mode". Leave things like that until, maybe, a half hour or hour before you plan to try to sleep. Turn most lights off and just leave a nightlight or a single, small light on. Listen to some pretty or slow music for fifteen minutes or so. You may want to then turn off the music, just sit and maybe have that mild coffee with light cream in it - and then try to sleep. A routine like this gradually calms you down, and moving from one level of calmer to another level of calmer isn't asking your mind/body to make a drastic adjustments.

Don't try to sleep just because of the clock. If you try to sleep at a time when you're not ready to "pass out" you may be able to get yourself to sort of sleep for a while, but real sleep isn't going to happen. I know if you haven't been sleeping normally for as long as you haven't been you're obviously tired and ought to be able to sleep; but if you are trying to sleep against your own rhythms it won't work. (Just a thought for once you get out of this cycle and want to prevent something like it in the future.)

Some people find that having a low television droning in the background helps (I do). Low-volume, droning, talk radio is another thing I find useful. I think that my sort of listening but not really listening to something going on it takes your mind off thoughts that may keep you awake, bores you a little because you can't quite hear it enough to be able to get "wrapped up in it", and makes you feel less agitated if you're the kind of person who doesn't like to be doing nothing. Some people kind of have a resentment toward the need for sleep, and if they try to sleep they get agitated because they don't want to be sleeping. Having a low television or radio on helps a person feel as if he/she at least has a little something going on for as long as he/she is waiting to fall asleep.

Don't stay lying down and waiting for sleep if you don't fall asleep fairly quickly. I think you just get rested enough (especially if you do that ten-minute-doze kind of thing) to not be able to sleep more.

I don't know if I've offered anything useful, and I know that some of what I've said is contrary (really contrary) to what many experts would say; but I've said what works for me. I don't really know why - when the rest of the world seems to think cookies would make a person "hyper" - a cookie or even a candy bar would calm me down; but they do. I know that strong coffee wouldn't do what the mild coffee does, so that's something to remember too.