[notsokeeks]

On of my biggest symptoms that even occurs when I'm on the up and up is insomnia. I've been taking a 15-20mg of zopliclone a night for a long time. I go through periods where it works great and others when's its basically pointless. The last few weeks its leaning more towards pointless.
9:30ish this evening I'm tired and start to fall sleep. This seemed promising so I took my night pills including 15mg of the sleep blunder drug and am sleeping in minutes. That was short lived woke up at 1130/mindnight-ish and not been able to fall asleep. Tried that extra zoploclone and nudda. Got up did some scrapbooking and cleaned the bathroom. Body feels like it might be tired so since its been 4 hours since I last tried sleeping pills i took another one. That was nearly 90 min ago and I'm wide awake.
I no longer know what to do. If I continue to stay up I will become useless by noon as my brain will decide its tired and not want to function right. If I was to magically fall sleep then I'd be screwed for tomorrow night.

I'm pretty sure I'm just going to give up on sleeping pills altogether since they just make me sketchy when I don't sleep.
Anyone else have any suggestions, short of ramming my head into a wall?

[yagalada]

Melatonin worked for me for a little bit, trazodone helps some people (not me awful nightmares). I hated those z-drugs personally. They never put me to sleep and I just felt odd.

I'm giving up on sleep too.

[wiretwister]

In bed at 10 up at 11:30 and 4 then up for good at 5:30 please if you find a answer tell me....

[notsokeeks]

Only answer I think I have at the moment us I may go clean my kitchen. Doesn't solve the issue but might make the time go by faster.

[notsokeeks]

And now that it's 10 to 8 in the morning I can proudly say I was once again up all night. My house is 75% clean and I made two scrapbooking cards. Now the goal is to stay up all day so this doesn't happen again tonight.

[Darvula]

I used to stress about waking up in the middle of the night till I found out about segmented sleep and how experts think this is the natural human sleep pattern. This was apparently the way people slept until just a couple of hundred years ago. Check it out - it's really interesting.

Segmented sleep - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Darvula

[wiretwister]

I knew I was old fashioned but really,, middle ages..

[Darvula]

Originally Posted by wiretwister

I knew I was old fashioned but really,, middle ages..

LOL!

Hey, I just discovered that messages have to be at least 8 characters long. You can't just "LOL" someone. LOL!

[LastQuestion]

Dark/light therapy, time release melatonin, and ashwagandha root extract have enabled me to get the sleep I need. Correcting my Circadian Rhythm was what helped the most and sedatives were not conducive towards achieving that outcome.

My efforts are paying off as now getting up in the morning is no longer hard and falling asleep is gradually becoming easier. I've found relying on sedatives for sleep to be problematic. I would never wake up feeling rested when using them, but now mornings are, easy. Breaking my reliance on sedatives/AD for getting sleep has been extremely beneficial even though it has been hard to do so and maintaining my sleep cycle can be difficult. However, maintaining my sleep cycle has brought much greater stability and quality of life.

[supportjessica100]

Sleep eludes the manic (hypomanic) and I don't know why! I would stay up for days and it was AWFUL. It wasn't until I finally got to a good psychopharmacologist who regulated my medications that I began sleeping like a normal human being again. Yes, I am on a ton of meds (many of which are neutraceuticals) but I finally feel better. People love preaching how medications are evil and that you don't need them - not true. Also, be wary of psychiatrists who won't prescribe certain medications out of principle. For example, Ambien is an excellent medication to help regulate sleep. Adderall is a perfect medication to use in combination with Ambien as it has immediate mood lifting effects that make it easy to start your day at a certain time - and no, it is not just for abuse. Other non-controlled medications include Seroquel, Amitriptyline, Trazodone. I was an insomniac for years. I would stay up for days, then sleep for days. It does NOT have to be that way and makes feeling better impossible. Even Benadryl will help.

[lilacsmoke]

Ugh sleep is overrated lol. I was up for nearly 4 days earlier this week before totally crashing down from my hypomanic state. The past few days have been awful.

Anyways, melatonin can play a HUGE role in helping you fall asleep, since it is the hormone that is naturally released when we are in a dark environment, and makes us sleepy easier. Getting exercise, and making sure that you go outside during the day can help a LOT. Trying to get out that excess energy, and being exposed to natural light are good ways to tire you out.

Good luck! If all else fails, I mean, being productive isn't a bad thing either haha.

[~Christina]

I have suffered from Insomnia since I was 12 , yeah long time... 3-4 hours a nite is my normal.

I have tried literally every medication possible... What I have learned is this

Yes its fun to have all the extra time to clean and create and what not.. But you must force yourself to lay down and stay down, meditate whatever, Your body needs to be horizontal for at least 4-6 hours. Sometimes you'll just fall asleep by accident.

Practice good sleep hygiene , it really does make a huge difference.

[RavenStark]

Its great that you've at least found an outlet for your wakefulness that's productive! I used to turn to booze when very manic. Helped to sleep, but bad idea.