<p>I'm not sure if this is the right place to ask, but has anyone here had trouble sleeping at Cal because of anxiety or some other reasons? I just finished my first semester here at Cal and I had trouble sleeping for pretty much the entire stretch. My classes were pretty easy and I had at least 10 hours of time to sleep every night, but I'd only get around 2-5 hours of sleep a night and spend the rest of the time tossing and turning, which gets extremely frustrating. You'd think that after getting so little sleep for so long and after being exhausted you'd knock out like a light, but I guess it doesn't work that way.</p>
<p>I'm the type of person who can't function properly without a full nights sleep (i'd do all the calculus on my math homework right, and then on the last line write something like 5+5=5) so this sleep issue has kind of ruined the college experience for me. I'm a really light sleeper and light+noise bother me. Maybe I'm just not suited to life in a triple in Unit 1. My roommates have a habit of staying up really late at night every day (4am, anyone?) and have 8ams, but luckily they're understanding and we have an agreement that if they want to stay up past 11:30-12ish, they'd just move outside into a study lounge or into someone else's room. This helped me get up from around 2-3 hours an night to like 3-5. I'm still exhausted though.</p>
<p>I think I've tried just about everything besides sleeping pills, which I am not willing to try. I sleep with ear plugs every night and I have a sleeping mask, but I don't really use it because it feels uncomfortable. I've been drinking chamomile tea before bed and I don't do any work before bed either. I've even gotten desperate enough to go to counseling, but they were no help. They just kept pushing the sleeping pills, and then apologized and said they couldn't help me, and that it might be a adjustment problem. They did determine that the insomnia was anxiety related, though, because I have no problems sleeping at home or sleeping in my dorm when my boyfriend stays over. </p>
<p>I'm sorry for such a long post, but I'm pretty desperate for help. The semester is beginning soon and I'm really dreading it because I'm worried I'll be miserable again. Any help would be appreciated, thanks.</p>
<p>Don’t stress out too much over getting enough hours of sleep; when you sleep, you sleep. But do move out and get your own room. Play sports that use a variety of movements/action (no, jogging/ running/ cycling on your own is not it). Don’t drink tea before you go to bed. Watch Citizen Kane.</p>
<p>One of my old roommates had the same problem. I don’t think it has to do with anxiety, it’s just something to do with being a light sleeper. I would always leave the room to study after he had gone to bed (10-11pm) and when I come back (3-4am) he still hasn’t slept.</p>
<p>Not stressing out would probably help, but I feel like it’s much easier said than done. And I think it’s anxiety related because if my boyfriend is over, I can knock out for 10 hours regardless of what my roommates are doing.</p>
<p>actually, 1) working out at night might worsen your sleep quality. 2) don’t know if the tea is actually helping or just filling you up with water so that you end up waking up needing to go pee. :D</p>
<p>On a serious note, instead of trying different ways to force yourself to sleep, figure out what is causing your anxiety or problem. are you missing home? are you stressed out over school work? social problems? uncomfortable bed? trust issues? I mean you can try as many remedies as you want, but there’s gotta be an underlying problem of which only you know/have to figure out (unless you’d like to tell everyone on here a detailed story of your life). </p>
<p>Either that or try melatonin pills and **** up your system.</p>
don’t do anything school related 1hr before bed, no TV or computer either.
write out whatever’s occupying your mind before you sleep, and tell yourself you’ll work these problems out in the morning.
Anyway, remember you’re not alone, it sometimes takes me more than 2 hrs to fall asleep, but you should really be getting 8 hrs per night. Good luck!</p>
<p>Ok, so I’m pretty sure what you have KandiKaane is ‘learned’ insomnia. It’s nothing serious or permanent; I read somewhere that about 5% of adults get it in their lifetime. I myself got it coming back from Thanksgiving break this semester, and it was quite the hellish 3 weeks after that(last week of school + dead week + finals week).</p>
<p>I barely got enough sleep during those three weeks…I’d spend hours tossing and turning every night before finally being able to fall asleep. Even when I slept, I would wake up a few hours later and would not be able to fall to sleep again unless I was willing to spend a lot more time laying in bed before drifting off again. After a week of this, I woke up every morning with a headache that was induced from the lack of sleep.</p>
<p>Now, I’m a sophomore chemical engineer who was taking 4 technicals(ChemE 140 + Chem 112A + Physics 7B + E45). Luckily, I didn’t have much homework during the hellish 3 weeks so I managed to cope with this ‘learned’ insomnia, but like you, I normally need a good night’s sleep and/or a good nap in order to do my work efficiently and operate well. I ended up doing ok(A’s in Physics 7B, E45, A- in ChemE 140, B in Chem 112A) but upon going home I knew I had to fix this asap.</p>
<p>So I did a bit of research during the first week home and I found out that what I had was ‘learned’ insomnia. It’s basically when you worry about whether or not you’ll be able to sleep while you’re trying to sleep; this causes anxiety and ultimately makes it very hard for you to sleep. All you need to do to cure this and sleep normally again is just to relax and stop thinking about sleeping. Even if you’re REALLY tired and you don’t want to do anything, force yourself to take your mind off sleeping; this can include purposely pulling an all-nighter and committing to it(not just ‘ok, I’m going to go to bed now that I feel tired again’). In bed, think about other things to purposely keep yourself awake, and you’ll find your sleep schedule restoring itself in no time. If you get less than 8 hours(eg. 2 hours) one day, don’t try to catch up in sleep the next day by taking a nap or trying to sleep earlier. A couple of days of sleep deprived nights isn’t going to hurt you in the long run. Anyways, realizing all this plus contemplating the notes below helped my sleeping schedule return to normal. I am normally a very easy sleeper and can sleep almost anywhere at any time, and this has been evident again during these last couple of weeks. Feel free to msg me if you have any other questions/concerns about your lack of sleep.</p>
<p>Ok, so I’m going to end this post by including some notes about ‘learned’ insomnia that I think you should read and contemplate over that I took from googling ‘learned insomnia.’ Hope it helps and I hope you will be able to sleep comfortably again in the upcoming semester like I have.</p>
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<p>Btw, good call on not taking the sleeping pills. I actually tried sleeping pills for the first 2 days while I was at home again and while they worked, I knew that they wouldn’t help me sleep better after I stopped taking them. I stopped taking them and did some searching as shown above^</p>
<p>Wow, thanks for the help Sagert (and everyone else too!). I think it is learned insomnia. I always tended to freak out at around 8-9 cause I was worried about having another frustrating night. I bought myself an electric blanket and I hope I’ll just be thinking about how warm it is instead of how I might not be able to sleep. Thanks again!</p>
<p>Chamomile Tea may not work on everyone. (Have you heard some people say coffee doesn’t work on them? Same analogy… Coffee used to not work for me but these couple years it did, maybe because I drank so much.)</p>
<p>For me, MILK works wonders (both hot or cold)!!! Get a glass before you sleep! Even when I’m NOT SUPPOSED to fall asleep (when I’m writing up lab reports and what not), but happened to drink milk at night for my daily calcium intake, I WILL FALL ASLEEP whether I like it or not. Don’t think soy milk works, so if you are lactose intolerant, you can try drinking those powdered milk for adults (not baby formula but if you prefer baby formula, go ahead I guess. LOL). I heard those powdered milk taste great (gives you strong bones but less fat content or something) but I’ve never tried it so I can’t tell you for sure.</p>
<p>As you said, your classes were pretty easy so that shouldn’t be causing you any anxiety. </p>
<p>You can also try those nice smelling therapeutic aroma essence oils (I’m not sure what exactly those are called but it’s supposed to make you feel relaxed or something.)</p>
<p>Also, try not to think of anything. Stare blank into your ceiling and when your mind gets bored of it, you naturally fall asleep.</p>
<p>I used to have insomnia in college and found self-hypnosis to be very helpful. I still use a “going down the stairs slowly” approach and, if that doesn’t work, the “slowly visualizing each part of your body relaxing, starting with your toes and moving on up.” Here is a link that seems helpful:
[Insomnia</a> - Coping with Insomnia using Hypnosis and Self Hypnosis](<a href=“http://www.hypnosis.edu/articles/insomnia]Insomnia”>Insomnia - Coping with Insomnia using Hypnosis and Self Hypnosis)
During stressful times when the insomnia was caused by a fear of forgetting something, I kept a pen and notebook by the bed so that if I thought of something that I wanted to remember the next day, I could write it down and tell my brain to stop obsessing. There is always that old fallback, you could count sheep! Good luck!</p>
<p>Here are some tips I learned from the great:</p>
<p>1.Practice lucid dreaming.
2. Get a new boyfriend who will sleep with you every night (not too difficult if you are female)
3. Don’t take ambien, that stuff is whack.
4. Some guys I know drink a lot when they are stressed.
5. Take more challenging classes so that your brain is exhausted at the end of the day.
6. Look up feng shui.
7. change your diet. (ie food coma before sleeping)
8. Get a teddy bear, or body pillow(maybe with a printed face of your bf)
9. have someone sing a lullaby, have night lights and a mobile for extra credit.
10. smoke weed (i recommend getting a medical card)</p>
<p>I can definitely relate. I have the same problem during “tax season” when I’m working long hours. The less sleep you get, the more depressed you get, which causes sleeplessness. I don’t agree with the posters who suggest that you simply stop being anxious. When you are finally rested, you’ll stop being anxious. Don’t knock melatonin - it won’t hurt you to take half a tablet now and then, and it will probably help you catch up on your sleep. That’s what you need. Also, I found that if I force myself to take a brisk long walk or other exercise while the sun is out, it helps a lot. And don’t drink coffee, even first thing in the morning. No chocolate or alcohol either. Try white noise at night - a fan by your bed or whatever. We high-maintenance sleepers swear by white noise. Good luck!</p>
<p>I agree with wordworld, self hypnosis and progressive relaxation techniques can help.</p>
<p>Also, I have read that early morning sunlight into the eyes (no sunglasses) is one of the most important signals for the body to produce melatonin and and thus sleep well the upcoming night. I find I almost always sleep well on nights where I have taken a half hour early morning walk outside.</p>
<p>How about listening to a not too exciting book on tape? Or music?</p>
<p>Countdown backwards from 100 to 0 a few times.</p>
<p>If you have an iphone, try the “sleep cycle alarm” app. You may find you are actually getting more sleep than you think.</p>
<p>Most important, try not to worry about not sleeping. I tell myself that even lying with my eyes closed, but not sleeping is restful (which it is) and I will probably do better than I think the next day even on little sleep (which I have also found to be true). Above all, don’t panic about not sleeping. (The 5+5=5 may have just been an everyday mistake, don’t attribute everything to lack of sleep, you’ll just get more anxious.) </p>
<p>I like to think of the nighttime hours as time I can just relax, with no demands on me, and daydream about pleasant things - so even if I am not sleeping, it is pleasant. And then I usually fall asleep. But if there is something specific you are worrying about, than you must address that issue or tell yourself you will worry about it tomorrow. Sweet dreams!</p>
<p>Mom 483 - haha…apparently great minds think alike. I was writing my post at the same time as you, and I see we both believe in the power of a daytime walk.
And yes, I totally agree with the white noise of a fan - that is an excellent suggestion, that I had forgotten to mention.</p>