Does your brain keep you awake at night

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I wasn't aware that was a problem. I lose nights of sleep here and there due to thinking too much, but I thought it was just a side affect of being nerdy about my lifelong obsession. Like tonight for example, can't sleep at all even though it's midnight.

I have this problem all the time. If I'm alone with my thoughts It will take me hours to get to sleep, so I make sure I have a distraction. I'll put the radio on, usually to some dull late-night discussion show so I'm not too stimulated, and just focus on that. I'll put the radio on a sleep timer so it will switch itself off after an hour, but I'm normally asleep well before. Without anything to focus on my mind starts racing and keeps me awake.

It's always been a major problem for me too.

If I go to bed sober it usually take several hour before I've got any chance of falling asleep. Quite often I don't settle properly until a few hours before it's time to get up again.

If I go to bed after a drink (even after many) I wake up after 4 or 5 hours, so I'm under slept and I've got a hangover.

Lately I've found that progressive muscle relaxation and guided meditation CDs help - but on those nights when I try this and it fails ... well, that's usually a recipe for a long sleepless night.

R.

Lately I've been getting three and a half hours of sleep on average, and that's broken up over about five. It's horrendous. The doctor put me on a low dose of something called amytripteline, which is also horrendous, since then I can't wake up.

I'm loathe to self medicate, and these things seem to go in cycles for me, so I may be back to more normal sleep at some point. But right now I'm exhausted, and not taking my meds, apart from when I'm really desperate, and know I won't have to get up in the morning.

I have less of a problem now-when I do I try to focus all my attention on my breathing.

i get that too. I had manage to avoid the over thinking for like a year but now it's been 2 months that it started again I miss the 10-12 hours of sleep I was getting.

I've shared this problem since childhood. Sleep-aids make me feel like ass the next day, and some screw with my breathing. The most irritating thing is laying in bed for 6 hours knowing how fruitless my thoughts/conversations are. Weed used to help but I had to quit for work.

I'm in a cycle now where I get 2-3 hours sleep one night, next night I'll get 7 hours cause I come home from my 10-hour shift and just pass out. I do cut into that 7 hour sleep day from thoughts at times, guaranteeing a crap work night.

I have had bad insomnia for a long time.

I used to take seroquel but I stopped because I was worried about developing side effects (its also used as an anti-psychotic)
but it worked SO NICELY. It was like putting a nice little blanket in my brain, and I would wake up feeling great.
So I would suggest other people try it, but just remember to monitor side effects, because some drugs give people permanent motor problems.

Melatonin seems to work for me sometimes.
I read an article recently that melatonin has been shown to help Autistics with insomnia:
Melatonin helping autistic children

And hey, Anti aging properties aren't a bad side effect either!! LOL although I don't know if I believe the validity of that:
melatonin as fountain of youth

I have that problem with staying still, as well. Even when I am practically feeling motionless or have no energy, I always rocking my body and especially my head when falling asleep.

I also have big time problems with my brain keeping me from falling asleep. My brain is always thinking or active when I sleep. I can be having these flashbacks or things that make me talk to them in order for me to shut them up, so i can sleep. I can not just tell them to go away or then they would haunt me even more, so for instance, if they were nagging me about my looks, I would tell them things that would not only show that I disagree with them, but I would say something that would shut them up for good, relating to what they are telling me. My brain can be remembering pleasant times and I can be reliving those things, even though I am trying to sleep. I do a lot of studying and even though I am trying to go to sleep, my brain starts having me study, where I am thinking about what In was studying and my brain would "quiz" me. I would not be able to fall asleep until i either get the right answer, or my brains just quits(which can take a while). Sometimes it is so bad, i just get up, give up sleeping, and just go to my computer or books and get the answer. Actually this sleep distraction can happen with other things as well where I just give up on sleeping.
But what has been helping lately is that I have keeping my self so busy, with doing a lot of physical things and mental things, that when it time for bed, my brain is so tired that it would fall asleep within 10 minutes or less. Since I am always needing both physical and mental stimulation as part of my sensory issues, doing things throughout the day that give me both help very well. Unfortunately on days that I do not get any of them, this is where I have the problem with falling asleep and feeling like crap. Since I am now going to back to college and studying(mental stimulation) and taking the city bus, walking to the bus stop, walking to class, playing nintendo Wii, bouncing on my sensory ball listening to music and other physical things(physical stimulation), I now have the "formula" that would help with this problem. Not only that, but it also helps with my moods and my mental, emotional, and psychological well being, as well.

It used to, I now take a medication to help me sleep at night, I was paranoid at one point that I might've had terminal insomnia.

I could survive without sleeping and I would prefer not to sleep so that I could spend more time infront of my computer...The main prOblem is,I get scolded everytime

Yes. As a child, I tried counting backwards from 100, but that became rote and I could do it while thinking of other things, so I tried it from a thousand, then a hundred thousand...

The only thing I've found that really works (apart from medication, which I avoid) is exhaustion. I sleep when I can't stay awake any longer, which has the unfortunate side-effect that I'm tired all the time. I've been tired now for nearly forty years.

I can never sleep when I want to, then drop when I want to stay awake. It's absolutely ridiculous... I think because at my house it's quieter at night, so I can think of more things... that paired with seasonal depression and voila! My sleep schedule's a disaster!

Yeah...

which is why I'm taking melatonin supplements.