First of all, to all you daisies still out there: thanks for the warm welcome back. I luff you. I lerve you. I love you. I wanted to post last night but I went for the third episode of THE WIRE. Although one of the benefits of the THE WIRE is that you can do some emailing while watching when the verisimilitude goes deep and it’s boring for 5-7 minutes. Another thing: i have three seasons to go and I’m already feeling sad about it ending. Lerner, living in the future living in the past. Also, let’s talk about insomnia. Me=Benadryl.
How do you get to sleep?
Filed under: Uncategorized |
Betsy Lerner 
When you say “thanks for the warm welcome back” does it mean what I hope it does ?
Right now I’m using melatonin for jet lag
Sweet Jaysus, insomnia. So it’s not just me. I haven’t had a decent night’s sleep in 5 years. Benadryl and I are becoming best friends.
Benedryl gives me whacky restless legs. I’ve used Aleve PM. And yes it’s a pain reliever but something always aches on me somewhere so that’s how I justify it.
Benedryl! I grew up on it! My mother used to stand my sister and me up in the kitchen and give us each a teaspoon full of the red liquid benedryl in the bottle. I still remember its taste and smell. Anybody have any suggestions for what to take for restless legs?
Quinine in the form of tonic water — really works.
Gabapentin
I now wear a medieval device in my mouth. My dentist calls it a mouth guard, but really no one is safe. And I’m on revision 4,010 and counting. Perhaps I will die of sleep apnea before I am published.
I haven’t slept through the night since my oldest son was born 26 years ago. I assumed that elusive SOB–sleep–would return when my kids moved out, but he hasn’t even given me a one-night stand.
Reading generally knocks me out with no problem, but I wake up about every hour on the hour. I’ve toyed for years about starting a Facebook group called “The 3 a.m. Club,” where all we insomniacs could chat and bitch to each other
I’d love nothing better than a good night’s sleep. But seeing you back in the blog-seat is a pretty close second. 😉
Ambien. Best. Drug. Ever.
Me=Benadryl=Vanilla=strawberries=whipped cream=a good nights sleep
When a person who is seventy-three and can’t sleep for more than an hour at a time gets a puppy, it’s time for the home. She (the puppy) is very cute, though.
I have to quiet the loop of self-loathing to sleep. The only way to do that is to have something else to focus my thoughts on so I plug in my earbuds and listen to the same episode of a TV show every night. I know the dialogue cold but following along with it in my head keeps me from thinking about all the mistakes I’ve made long enough to drift off. The worst part is that the episodes on Netflix keep rolling and I’m often awakened by the screaming in an episode that comes on about 3 hours later. At that point I start the process all over again.
Tease. You’re not even going to tell us what the show is?
How I sleep – me/bed/good book. I read till I get so sleepy I’ve re-read the same thing a few times – or -until it whacks me in the face. Which seems counter productive, but somehow works.
RESTLESS LEG SYNDROME – take magnesium. (not too much or you’ll be running to the bathroom) I take a calcium/magnesium/zinc supplement. I don’t have restless legs but hubby does. I used to have horrible leg cramps at night. Started taking this and leg cramps are gone, and if he takes too much cold medicine he gets RLS and the magnesium has helped him with that. I don’t even take the recommended dosage which is about 400 mg a day. I’m only getting about 125 mg – and that worked for the leg cramps. You might need more for RLS.
Thanks!
Oh. I forgot – BONUS. Magnesium helps with sleep. My work here is done.
Xanax every night.
Magnesium is good shit. I prefer more unnatural concoctions like good ol’ trazodone.
Wait – you’re back? Three posts in one month? You’re not just playing with us, are you?
I’m with Augustina29–Xanax takes the edge off the anxiety that keeps us awake.
Also, I find that if I try to work out a scene or a plot point in my head, I fall out very quickly. I don’t know why that works so well. I guess it takes my mind off other things.
Why has no one mentioned valium? Tried and true and tested. My 2:00 am fuck-I-can’t-sleep salvation. Add the white noise of all-night news (Up-To-the-MInute on CBS from 2:30-4:30). I’d rather sleep than know it.
Really, people, should we be encouraging drug use? There are documented accounts of Ambien-takers sleepwalking, sleep-driving, and consuming entire bags of Oreos in the wee hours. A night’s sleep isn’t worth a traffic accident or a five-pound weight gain. Sometimes the white-noise of a fan works for me. Meditation is worth a try. And if you’re still awake, you can always watch one more episode of The Wire while sipping a wine spritzer (kind of a drug, I know, but it’s light on the alcohol, and it’s a drag to be too pure).
There was a case in New Mexico a few years back of a woman taking Ambien and then sleep-driving her car into a DWI bust. She was tried and found guilty and the fact that she was having a decidedly adverse reaction to a drug that was not supposed to make her get up and drive while she was still asleep was found by the court to be no defense.
Hey, maybe Ambien would produce sleep WRITING! That would be nice. You could wake up in the morning and see what you’d written!
I exhaust myself with pointless activity and flop straight down like a toddler, and if that doesn’t work I move on to the OG Kush. Although sometimes it works out to be the other way around.
Much can be said for the nightly knock out. It’s step one before plugging in the earbuds and listening to the TV show. Midsomer Murders – Blood Will Out, BTW. Come to think of it, that probably deserves more credit than Netflix.
Bourbon and weed. Don’t smoke to close to beddy bye time or it just gets the mind all racing and shit.
(Last night I fell asleep after shaking my head, sick shit; saw a buddy earlier — aforementioned alcohol and weed, raucous rock and roll,– and he was wearing a new T-shirt, reverse silhouette, white on black, two guys running with mountains in the background, words, Dannemora Prison Run, 2015).
Sleep? Guilt and regret mulled in scotch laced with wasted potential.
Is there any other kind?
Benedryl or melatonin, but I try to avoid both. Don’t go to bed too early. Don’t drink too much. But, if you’re awake again at 3, I hereby allow you to have a bit of bourbon. And eat something.
Are you exercising? A five mile walk will make you sleep.
I’m with someone else up there about prescription drugs for sleep. Not a good idea. Don’t do it. So there.
Melatonin and exercise. Up to 3 mels tho. A bit of insomnia never hurt anybody. But it does, a little, the next day. Not too much coffee before bed, the mocha latte is all for my body. I do a little dance. In the mirror. Before I sleep. Benadryl will cause oversleptedness (lol) I think I’m ready for my mimosa. Is it morning? Bets, I love you back.
Here in Kentucky we’re having nightly thunderstorms and my terrified Golden Retriever paces and pants and cries and then climbs up on a table to stand stiff as a statue until I drag the poor sweetheart into a chair to cuddle with me.
The dog settles, goes back to sleep. I’m stuck in the chair.
______
P.S. I give the dog Benadryl. He laughs.
Um, sex anyone?
Are you passing out invites?
“How do you get to sleep?”
ziss a trick quesh?
Exhaustion gets me there. Keeps me there as long as it can, but I’m ever the one that slips away.
Mirtazapine + Gabapentin + Trazodone + Netflix = zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
P.S. I do not recommend this to others, I am simply answering Betsy’s question with what works for me.