Insomnia, My Friend and Enemy…

As a university student, my schedule tends to make sleep difficult when the work begins to pile up. When an essay is due the next day and I have yet to even start it, pulling an all-nighter tends to be the only option I have. And when this sort of things happens, it throws off my system, and sleep tends to evade for me for a few days. This tends to be something I try to avoid, but like I said above, sometimes it is unavoidable.

Now I doesn’t always necessarily bother me to go a couple of days without sleep. It allows me to get a lot of things done, such as extra reading, or finishing that next level in whatever XBOX 360 game I happen to be playing at the time. I am able to watch entire seasons of TV shows such as 30 Rock, and make gourmet breakfasts every morning, because lets face, what else would I do with hours of time to waste, and nothing to do?

However, not sleeping isn’t always as pleasant as I make it sound in the paragraph above. There are some nights when I just know that I am tired, and I want to sleep more than anything in the world, but it just doesn’t happen. I will lie in bed for hours at a time, just lying there, staring at the ceiling, or staring at the wall, or staring at the door, not knowing why I can’t sleep. There are other times however when I have something on my mind, whether it be a school assignment, or just something stupid that I can’t get out of my head. It is these times that make insomnia one of the most frustrating occurrences to endure.

There are a few tricks however that I have learned over the last couple years that may help with insomnia, I know it has helped me to a certain degree when I can’t sleep. Now I am not guaranteeing these steps as a sure fire way to avoid insomnia, however they have helped me, and they may help someone else who is encountering a similar situation.

The first step is to try and keep a regular sleep schedule during the week. From Monday to Friday, try and go to sleep at the same time every night, regardless of what time you have to wake up in the morning. To go along with this, try and have a uniform time to wake up every morning, which will put your internal clock into a routine that will allow for a solid night sleep every night. Now on the weekends (especially when your at university), keeping a sleep schedule tends to be a futile process, because your going to end up staying up late, and sleeping in the next morning. But that’s alright, as long as your maintain your schedule during the weekdays.

The other step that one can take to avoid insomnia is quite simple. If you can’t sleep, just get up. When lying in bed, and you find that you are unable to sleep, do not struggle, and toss and turn, just get up, watch TV, read a book, do anything except sleep. This will force you to be sleep deprived for the following night, allowing for a full night sleep the next day. The other rule to go along with this one is also very important. If you decide not to sleep, it is imperative that you not have a nap the next day, as this will ruin the rhythm  that you are trying to establish. However if you must sleep during the next day, limit your nap to one hour. This shouldn’t hurt the routine much, if at all.

Well there are my suggestions for a better night sleep. But like I said, sometimes, if you are really struggling from insomnia, even these rules will not help you in any way at all, and if this is the case, that is when you should probably consult your doctor. But if you just struggle with sleep every now and then, feel free to try this suggestions and see how they work for you. And if they do indeed help, please comment and let me know. And if you have any other suggestions, feel free to comment on them as well, as I would love to try out other ways of solving my sleep problems, and trust me, sometimes I need all the help I can get.