INSOMNIMANIA!

[Liamh1982]

I'm an intermittent insomniac, which seems to be tied in with bouts of tinnitus.

Have to drown out the squeaks and pulses with music to try and get to sleep, with mixed results.

[ToxieDogg]

I often get by on just 3 or 4 hours sleep...I'm just use to it now and really bad habits die hard I suppose. I have tried going to bed earlier, reading something boring, etc but once I start feeling tired, turn out the light and try to go to sleep, I invariably end up just lying there awake for ages instead.

On the upside, there's no squeaky voiced American brats still awake shouting abuse at me on Xbox Live by the time I go on there playing anything.

[Dave300]

I went through a phase where I was staying up later and later into the night, feeling worse and worse in the morning, so bingeing on caffeine to try and wake me up, only for it to make me stay up even later, and so on and so on.

I broke this cycle by cutting caffeine down to a minimum (one cup of decaf in the morning and that's it - just water afterwards), drinking a hot chocolate late in the afternoon to try and bring me down, and trying to read at night instead of lie up and watch a film (which forced me to stay awake until the end).

[JazzFunk]

I have Tourette's (not in the same league as 'John's Not Mad', mind!), and seem to be currently undergoing a hypersensitivity to caffeine, I'm ticcing like mad after I foolishly decided to stick the percolator on earlier for a nice cup of 'proper coffee'!!! *Definitely* will have trouble getting to sleep tonite...but once I'm asleep, I might be out between 8-14 hours(!!!!), not good when I'm working tomorrow.

I actually find the 2-a-night non-herbal Nytol to be pretty good at getting me off to sleep (herbal is sh!te, Valerian's sh!te, plus it reeks), though they give me sore eyes and make me a bit crabby the next day. Codeine is also a great knocker-outer for me, though as it's A. habit-forming and B. hard to get hold of in significant quantities, it's not really an ideal solution.

PS: The Nytols (diphenhydramine) often give me harmless 'translucent hallucination' effects when they kick in, you kind of see weird, see-through imagery in the dark shortly before sleep - it's quite trippy, a bit odd, but quite fun once you get used to them.

[thevulture]

Do mixed shifts at work, 12 HR Day/Nights, so used to body clock being all over the place.Finished a 'short turn around' last week (3 Nights on, 1 night off, 3 Nights on).My days off i'd sleep for 4 hrs, wake feeling great, only to be shattered 4 hrs later.

Get buy on 4 hrs sleep when doing day shifts, but then sleep 12-14 hrs on 1st day off, feel terrible when i wake up.

Non-herbal Nytols will get me to sleep, but i do not awake feeling refreshed, far from it (thumping headache), so gave up on those, herbal type=Useless as do Waitrose 'sleep Aid' tablets.Warm bath, having plenty of fresh air in the room, milky drink before bed all utterly useless.

what does work (for myself) listening to music, reading a book and above all else, turning digital clock radio face towards the wall-nothing worse than having glowing red clock numbers boring their way into your head, whilst you think 'my god, look at the time, i have to up in a few hrs' and worrying about lack of sleep.