I hope it's ok to share this...

My title is such because I am new here, and I don't want to come across as someone who "knows the answer" because, no, I don't - I just know what has worked for me, and what I believe could work for a lot of people (re sleep)

I know this will sound insane and/or something impossible to accomplish, so just bare with me, Ok?

What is the number one reason we can't sleep? There are more reasons, but the #1 reason we can't sleep is we are unable to turn off our thoughts. So it stands to reason that if we could learn to turn off our thoughts, we would be able to sleep, yes? Yeah, right! WHO can do that? lol No one can!

So then what? Well, it may not be possible to completely turn our thoughts off, but we CAN choose to not run with those thoughts, or what I call it, "have conversations in our head." As long as I'm having conversations in my head, I won't be able to sleep because the brain is incapable of doing both. Equally, if I can learn to discipline myself to stop the conversations in my head, I will sleep. It's impossible not to.

So how do you do it? Everybody has to do it their own way, but what I do is as soon as I lay down, of course, a thought will come to mind - that's Ok if that's as far as it goes - but if I run with that thought, which will of course, lead to another thought, then it's all over for me. I won't be getting to sleep anytime soon.

So what I do is the moment a thought enters my mind, I tell myself, "No! It's time for bed!" then 2 seconds later, another thought will pop into my head - same thing, I turn it off - meaning, I don't continue the conversation in my head. You do that over and over until finally, you are asleep! Sometimes it will take me a short time, and other times it will take longer - but the key is, don't give in.

A bit of history for me is I had been taking sleeping pills for 25 years (not daily, but on average, 40-70% of each month, sometimes more). My insomnia was due to medication.

One day I just got tired of taking sleeping pills, so this idea came to mind. I stopped sleeping pills cold turkey, so the first 3 nights was difficult, but after that, the only times I've had to resort to sleeping pills is because I was extremely wired, and there was no way I was going to sleep!

I told my then Psychiatrist about how I get to sleep now, and he just smiled and said he does the same.

I know it's hard, but not impossible! You're looking at someone who took sleeping pills for 25 years, and now doesn't take them at all; and I had insomnia just like the worst of them!

Something to think about.

Debbie

I just re-read this post, and wanted to run and hide. lol I unfortunately, got into my "teaching" mode on the topic. This is no excuse, but when I learn something that could possibly also be benefit someone else, I tend to come across the way I did in my original post.

I apologize if maybe not what I said, but how I said it was came across to anyone in a "better than thou" tone. I am certainly not that kind of person, but you don't know that of me.

Thank you for hearing me.

Debbie

Anxiety causes this. Less anxiety, the easyier it is to fall asleep

I'm confused re your reply to my post - I don't have problems falling asleep anymore - I was sharing why I don't, and my follow up post was to apologize re how I think it came or may have come across.

Debbie