How to sleep when you're an Aspie?

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Yes, I'm asking.

I REALLY need sleep.
Insomnia is plaguing me day and night, and I'm suspecting the "normal" reasons why people with Asperger's sometimes have a hard time sleeping.
I'm either thinking a million miles a second about any interesting thing that might be in my mind, or I have 3-4 musical scores going through my head, or I'm counting sheep forwards and backwards and using negative numbers (yes, yes, negative sheep) and spanish numbers and whatever I can come up with. Ive even memorized strings of numbers just to make myself tired.

Or, I feel EVERYTHING. My hair itches. It's too cold. Too hot. That stupid dog scratched his cage. My pajamas don't sit on me right. I can hear my pulse through the pillow.

Has anyone else ever heard their pulse through a pillow??

It keeps me up - fixated on the rhythm, and because I have a heart murmur, it even changes, which makes it more attention-demanding. Great.

So, I get the wise idea to take the medicine my doctor gave me for anxiety: propranolol. It's supposed to calm your adrenaline response down, right? Well, yes, it makes me feel in control of my own body, great. It lessens my meltdowns, great. But does it help me actually physically calm down, or lessen sensory issues? No.
In fact, I feel so good on it, that I STAY UP.

How to sleep when you're an Aspie? That's the question of the year for me.

Try some sedatives on your doctor's prescription like Alprazolam.
Once I lost sleep for 5 days and then thought it was enough.I took a little amount of Whiskey and it slowly put me to sleep within 30 minutes.

Unfortunately, amnesia is one of our curses. Mozart stayed up for days polishing his manuscripts. This no doubt contributed to his declining health. It also didn't help that he had a few cranial fractures from falling related to military fever. (I think when all is said and done, Mozart was most likely anemic).

Yes I've had the pulse through the pillow thing, its horrible, as well as the thoughts going back and to. It is especially hard to sswitch off when working on interests. Melatonin helps sometimes, I don't like sedatives but it is quite mild.

Yeah. Insomnia. My bad. The anemia is in reference to, when he was dying, he was as pale as a ghost and had projectile vomiting. Sophie Weber, Constanze's sister, said that. She was at his bedside with Constanze and Karl when Amadeus died. People with severe abdominal bleeding exhibit those symptoms.

my favorite insomnia remedy stack:
Valarian Root
Melatonin
Magnesium

I also routinely listen to music engineered to induce delta waves.

Weighted blankets are also reported to be a help -- I'm in the process of making one to test the theory.

So far, I've tried a weighted blanket (of course make sure you get the right size and weight) and also been using valarian root, magnesium and one other thing before bed. It's been working lately.

Even if I stay up to 3 am, at least I fall asleep now, which is a huge improvement on before. I have been going to bed earlier the longer I have been taking them. Still have the occasional night where I can't sleep, but it's no longer every single night at least. I expect it will get better the longer I keep taking them.

Some of us just have body clocks that deviate from the norm, which seems to be more common in those with ASD. I know mine certainly does.

Closing my eyes when I'm tired is how I do it.

I have found Melatonin to be the single most helpful treatment for insomnia. I've read that people with ASDs tend to be deficient in Melatonin which I think was true in my case because I noticed a significant improvement in my quality of sleep once I started taking it.

A few other techniques I've picked up are spraying lavender oil on my pillow at night, taking a hot bath/shower about 2 hours before bed, being sure to relax and not do anything too stimulating in the hours before going to bed, exercising during the day and doing soothing yoga poses like legs up the wall before bedtime.

Melatonin works good for me too but it makes it hard to get out of bed in the morning, I'm all relaxed. Normally I just spring right out of bed just like that, and head for the coffee machine, like I'd just been sitting down for a minute.

Also: hospital corners. When you get under the sheets it feels like you've been Saran-wrapped onto the bed, it's great.

Do you have a relaxing, quiet ritual before going to bed that you've been doing for a long time (as those things don't work quick magic, especially with autistic people who first need to get used to changes)? If it's real insomnia, this isn't going to cure it but this helps.

Rituals for going to bed are usually for little kids who need this exact sameness to support to calm down, to help them stop activity, to help them stop thinking which due to their age, they cannot do as easily on their own as an adult because of their yet immature self-control/because of the over-stimulation of childhood and reliance on external guidance (the stimulation from going to new places, noticing new things, learning new things, straining to think and figure things out day after day, from the excitement and confusion about daily or weekly events that are yet unexpected).

Given the issue of over-stimulation for someone with an autistic perception, it's smart to keep the evenings/nights autism-friendly instead of stimulating the heck out of the autistic brain only to then wait for sleep when it's modus is on wide-awake and productive; to have the same few things going on every evening (on as many evenings as possible), to not randomly change the order of things to be done before/when getting ready for bed, to not study right before going to bed... so on.

Trazodone. I have to use it every night or I wake up constantly after spending an hour trying to sleep. (Actually it has been a long time since I didn't take trazodone). It isn't a benzo like xanax or valium (which can cause physical dependence if you use them daily). It is a atypical anti-depressant. You have to make sure that your doc prescribes 50 mg (25-50mg is the recommended dose for sleep--300 mg is for depression. . .do NOT take 300 mg, you will be out of it for days). I actually take 3/4 of a 50 mg pill a night. I found that is just the right amount to get me to sleep and keep me asleep and not make me feel groggy in the morning.
PS the doctor in my tag isn't because I'm a medical doctor. . .I have a PhD in behavioral pharmacology. . .so I am not giving you medical advice

If I am having a rough time sleeping, I take melatonin (but it only helps a little). I also take Tylenol PM (which works well but I hate taking it due to the grogginess the next morning).

What has helped me the most though is to settle down before bed. No thought-provoking activities an hour before sleep- no TV news, projects, family issue discussions, things to do in the morning, etc. My wife is aware of this 'rule' and if she wants to discuss any of this, it waits until morning.

Also, I run a fan to create some white noise to drown out sounds. It took me a while to get used to it but it does work.