Posted by sleepydenver on September 08, 2009 at 07:16:27:

Hello All,

This is my first post on this board although I've been reading it off and on for a few years. I've really enjoyed reading everyone’s success stories and really hope to join the ranks of Tom-N-Texas someday. I'm in my mid 20s and have had pretty bad insomnia for the last 4 years. I've had periods where I've slept well (5-7 hours) for 2-6 weeks, but have always had at least one insomnia night (0-4 hours) per week and have never slept well for any meaningful number of days in a row (10 days or more). Although I've been very tempted I've never taken any medication other than Ambien and Lunesta for the first few months when this all started 4 years ago.

I've read all the books and tried all the non drug things you can think of: yoga, mindful meditation, SR, stimulus control, self hypnosis and nothing other than maybe SR has really affected my sleep or outlook on sleeping problems in a lasting positive way. What hinders my sleep most is clearly my obsessive thoughts about sleep and if I'll sleep tonight or the next. I would say there isn't 15 minutes that go by where I'm not thinking about sleep. I think lately all the non drug treatments have kind of become like drugs to me... I'm doing the same alchemy others do with drugs with all the non drug treatments: "if I do yoga in the after noon, then exercise in the evening and restrict my sleep to 6.5 hours, then take a bath I'll do well"

Currently I'm allowing myself around 6 hours in bed and sleep well 40-50% of nights. I can function fine off of 5 hours of deep sleep, but begin to expereience extreme depression after 3-4 nights (common) of light or little sleep. I do practice stimulus control, but don't have the energy to do much when I'm out of bed (any ideas?)

Just looking for any postive words.

Follow Ups:

• Re: no drug advice utired2? 22:00 9/08/09 (0)
• Re: no drug advice insomniac6622 19:35 9/08/09 (0)
• Re: no drug advice velsor 11:15 9/08/09 (1)
  • Re: no drug advice Selini 17:27 9/09/09 (0)
• Re: no drug advice lulubelle 08:32 9/08/09 (0)

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