Kicking the insomnia's ass

I am an ex-insomniac. I struggled with insomnia for almost a year, I bought tons of books on the subject, visited many web sites about sleep and even bought a CD that is supposed to hypnotize me to sleep! Some of the suggestions I read worked for me, some did not. Gradually through implementing some changes in my life I began to sleep better. What finally worked for me is a combination of practical life changes and psychological methods. I can not guarantee that what worked for me will work for you, but they are all drug-free, easy and practical suggestions so you may want top give some of them a try:

• Regulating my bed time, strictly 11:00 PM - 6:00 AM to start with. Once I sleep better I allow myself some flexibility.
  
  
• Complete elimination of caffeine intake, no tea, coffee, or even Coke! I don't mean for the rest of your life, but at least until you are sleeping more normally, but even then you should watch your caffeine consumption.
  
  


• No phone call one hour before going to bed.



• If once in bed you can not sleep after 30 minutes get out of bed, sit in a comfy chair to read until you are sleepy or too tired to continue. This is important because your bed is not a battlefield between yourself and imsomnia. If you reagard going to bed as going to war with sleeplessness you will never get any sleep. Some people become afraid of their bed and associate it with sleeplessness and struggling. Your bed should be exclusively for sleeping on, not for anything else (well, except for sex may be). So don't spend hours twisting and turning on the bed, if you can not sleep get out of the bed and do something else.



• What I did was to buy a comfy recliner chair with leg rest as well as arm rest (see picture below)
  
  
  
  (Now doesn't that make you feel all comfy already?)
  
  It's alright if you can not fall asleep on it, it's not your bed, and if you do fall asleep on it that is very well and good also.
  


• Possibly the most important thing (for me at least) is not to worry and feel all stressed about it. Don't worry that you will be tired or sleepy at work the next day. May be you will be, may be you won't be, let tomorrow take care of itself. Any kind of worrying will not help you. Tell yourself you can get by with only 3-4 hours of sleep, you may not feel wonderful but you can get through the day. Tell yourself that sleep is overrated any way, and that you don't care, you are just gonna read this book and if you fall asleep that's well and good, if you don't that's OK too.
  
  

I found that once I stopped being afraid of insomnia it will went away of its own accord, and when it comes back for the occasional visit I don't worry about it. I just use it as some extra time to read my books...

Hope that helps.