Two Surprising Cures for Insomnia

There's an overwhelming amount of information available on how to cure insomnia. But that's okay because insomniacs have all night to read it, right?

I can't remember how many years I've been dealing with chronic insomnia.

I experience both the I-can't-fall-asleep-when-I-first-go-to-bed kind and the I-wake-up-during-the-night-and-can't-get-back-to-sleep kind.

I've read that most insomniacs have either one or the other. Woo-hoo, I'm special! (sorry, I get cranky when I'm tired)

The usual suggestions

The usual remedies for insomnia include things like:
Don't exercise before bed
Don't ingest caffeine before bed
Keep your room cool
Stick to a set bed-time
etc.

I believe all these things can help. But I've proven for myself they aren't a sure cure.

Two thoughts on insomnia

Actually, I don't suffer from the first kind of insomnia anymore because I've found a cure. Seriously. A cure that works for me every time. But it's only reliable for the first kind of insomnia. If I happen to wake up during the night, this cure may or may not get me back to sleep.

I read somewhere that the mind cannot hold two thoughts at the same time. You can jump back and forth between thoughts quite quickly, but you can't actually think about two things simultaneously. Some amazing person figured out that this quirk of the human brain could be harnessed to deal with insomnia.

The technique is this: Once you're lying in bed (unexercised, caffeine-free, cool, and at your set bed-time) you are to deliberately try to think of two things at the same time. If you do this, you will nod off in a surprisingly short amount of time.

I had good results the very first time I tried it. And it works consistently for me. But I've found a certain combination of thoughts works the fastest.

I choose for one thought the idea that I'm going to get up out of bed and do something, such as check to make sure I turned off the light in the kitchen. The idea that I'm going to get out of bed seems to be key for me.

The second thought can be something like, "But I'm just going to lay here for a moment first." Once I've explicitly thought those two things, I'll find my mind wandering with random thoughts. This is fine, but I have to be sure to think the first thought ("I'm going to get up and check the kitchen light") again every few seconds. I'm usually asleep within a few minutes.

I've tried this technique for my middle-of-the-night insomnia. It only works if I'm still pretty sleepy. If I'm wide awake, it's not so effective.

Shedding light on the subject

So what do I do about this second kind of insomnia? I have found a partial cure. That is, I found something that goes a long way toward helping me not wake up in the middle of the night in the first place.

This cure is based on a nugget of information I read somewhere. I was actually reading about sleep apnea at the time. I wouldn't be surprised if there's some kind of link between causes of sleep apnea and causes of insomnia.

The author was talking about quality of sleep. One theory on sleep apnea is that a person with that condition doesn't spend enough time in a deep sleep state. He claimed that a common cause contributing to this was too much light in the bedroom.

He stressed the importance of darkening your windows to eliminate light from streetlights or porch lights and he cautioned against using night lights. This is similar to advice given for insomnia, but I didn't recall hearing the deep sleep argument before.

Back into the darkness

It didn't seem like there was all that much light in my bedroom to start with, but there was some. I was certainly willing to try an insomnia experiment. So I worked to hunt down and eliminate any small lights.

For instance, there's a tv/vcr in the room. Even when it's turned off, there's a bright red dot of light on the front panel. I taped a cover over that light.

There's an air purifier in the room that has a bright green dot of light on top when it's running. I can't see the light itself from the bed, but the glow shines up onto the wall nearby. I covered that light as well.

My alarm clock has a yellow indicator light on the front panel. That light also was eliminated.

The only other light was dim light coming in around the window blinds. I left that alone.

I made these three small changes and the first night I slept over 7 hours and woke up feeling great. To say I was surprised would be an understatement.

Color me sleeping

I've thought about that a lot since then, as I continue to experience remarkably improved sleep.

I've come to the conclusion that it wasn't just the amount of light coming from those three sources. It was aggravated by the color of those lights. I don't know if every person battling insomnia is color sensitive, but apparently I am.

I was especially bothered by the red light on the tv/vcr. I felt a small relief the instant I covered it up. And that's while I was awake and standing!

The green one on the air cleaner was also surprisingly annoying, but I didn't know that until I covered it up.

The yellow light on the alarm clock was not as bright and was a more soothing color, but it was so close to the bed that its impact was still negative.

The benefits are ongoing

I still wake in the middle of the night occasionally and can't get back to sleep. But I'm happy to report that it's much less frequent. Less than 10% of what it used to be.

It's a shame in a way. I used to get a lot of writing done at 3 a.m.