I used to have trouble trying to fall asleep, but that went away. What did it for me was when I first found out about Lucid Dreaming a few months back. I found that as soon as I had something to look forward to in my sleep, I found that it was a lot easier to fall asleep. As soon as I got motivated, it never took more that 30 minutes to fall asleep when before it hours sometimes.
Well on the rare occassion it can be difficult for myself to sleep… but I find that’s just when i’m overly excited about something, or due to poor nutrition and even back/neck pain (poor posture is related to this).
I recently learned of an excellent breathing tehnique that has helped some friends of mine. What you do is pick a number, say, between 15 and 50. Then you focus on a nice deep breath in through your nose, and a nice slow exhalation throught your mouth. As you exhale you count, 28, 28, 28, 28, 28, and on the next exhalation 27,27,27,27,27 etc. My friends said they got to sleep in just a couple minutes.
Hi
Everynight it takes me atleast 30 mins - 1 hour.
To get to sleep.
I just wont sleep. I think I have lucid dreams on my mind to much with result in me not sleeping for a long time.
Someone please help 
youre probably thinking too much about how you cant sleep. For me before i go to bed i dont think about the present ( i mean my body and my surroundings at the moment and how im falling asleep). Its a lot easier to kind of just let your brain wander and random thoughts such as what you did that day or what youre doing the next day. Its easier to fall asleep and go into dreams. And dont try to direct your thought, just let them “flow”.
yeh well I have thoughts about what has happened and I just cut them out because im too woried about going to sleep.
Its really annoying
I used to have that problem too… Try to make a “movie” in your mind! That’s what i did and now i can sleep in a very short time. Imagine the characters, their personalities, their clothing, everything… then think of a scenario… Start “playing” the film in your mind, you’re the director! Don’t do the whole movie in one night, split it in four, or five nights!! I don’t know how, but this has helped me a lot… Plus it’s cool! 
With that in mind, it’s extremely hard to fall asleep. What you can do is power yourself out over the day, just do something that occupies your mind and body. It hasn’t really got to be something too physical, just get something to do.
Or you can take a general break from the subject Lucid Dreaming and try to live life the normal way and in a few days you probably get to the point where you find it easy to fall asleep and then start to LD again and you can use this. You kinda play a trick on your mind. 
Or you can try WILD!! 
I always fall asleep when i try that… 
For me its always been about 30mins-1 hour and 30 mins to get to sleep. I wish i could get to sleep faster 
Hmm…I only just found this topic. Too bad i could have used it a long time ago.
Well, i get cases of Insomnia every couple of months. I went to Syria on December 21st, and since then i haven’t slept properly once. During my vacation, i was never able to sleep in one city. When i travelled to another city in Syria, i slept beautifully. When i went back i slept horribly. I thought this phase would end when i would go back to Qatar(where i live) but it didn’t.
I finished my exams, and my work and i still can’t sleep. This is what happens:
I go to bed tired and sometimes, not tired. I read for a bit, and go to sleep. The whole night, i never enter REM for sometime. I am almost always at the HI/HH phase. I don’t want to try WILD at that time, because once i fail at WILD there is no chance i will sleep at all. Another annoying thing, is that i always end up waking up at 4.00 am and 5 am. Always. I often need to go to the toilet during that time.
I don’t know what to do, Darn it! My Insomnia during Weekends is even worse - but i’ll discuss that once i get some good information on how to get a good nights sleep, hopefully. You don’t know how much i would appreciate tips, and help on what to do. Thanks in advance to those who reply.
The title says it all…
Since I’ve started telling myself “I will remember my dreams in the morning!” and having a dream diary I found myself in 2 problems:
- I wake up on 5:00 and can’t fall asleep again.
- My recall is getting worse and worse… I mean, in the first 2-3 days I remembered my dreams really well and i got up on 6:30 am (good for me), but then the dream recall got worse and worse and I started to get up on 5 am…
Please help me with my problems, I will greatly appreciate it.
Aviran
how does that have to do with Insomnia? You posted in the wrong topic.
I know - I posted it in “Helpdesk” but someone suggested to move it and I confirmed, and I think it was the right choice…
Wissam, did you read the post in full before replying
my first impulse was to put it in the remembering dreams topic…
but the main problem is waking up too early and not being able to go back to sleep again! and this is classed as insomnia if it results in not getting enough sleep.
People in another forum told me to see an adventure movie or to read a book before go to sleep, and I have, and I got to bed later then usual, and I woke up at 6:40 am! I didn’t told to myself “I will remember dreams and the morning” a lot of times, only once - and when I woke up this morning I felt good(even I didn’t sleep enough, but it was better then the past few days, and I hope it will get better) and I think I had an interesting dream, even I don’t remember it all… I just remember I ripped something.
Sorry guys…I was in a bad mood as i was hoping someone replied to my insomnia problem. I guess it does count as insomnia.
I discovered that I got up later because i got to bed later… 1 day later I got to bed and thought I’ll wake up at 6:40 again, but I woke up at 5:00… And I solved the dream recall problem… The early waking up makes my recall suckish…
The recall isn’t suck for real - I remember my last dream when I wake up, but because it is so early I don’t think about writing it, but about going back to sleep, and then I forget my dream… Please help me as soon as possible!
One more thing, about the insomnia of the guy who posted the message - try see a movie or something like that before you go to sleep - watch the movie while lying on your bed - I always fall asleep when I do that. If you can’t watch a movie from your bed, just try to let your minds “flow”, and if that doesn’t work too, you can always use pills…
/me reads through topic…
imm0rtal
just relax in bed
go to bed tired
watch TV or read in bed to relax
Sleepyhead
more physical exercise in the day can help
Learjet
don’t nap in the day to catch up
#sixFirst I think it’s good to write all about what went on during the day, because most likely those recent day thoughts are what’ll keep you up. Youv’e got to get it out of you some way, and just thinking about it is the root to insomnia.
clarkkent
avoid caffeine
Ev
try melatonin
SeanIRL
Apparantly, it’s best to sleep with your head pointing NORTH because of the Earth’s magnetic field
ihatejacknjills
Meditation
Nathan Roy
Try warm milk with a little bit of vanilla and sugar in it.
try counting: 1, im dreaming, 2, im dreaming, etc. Sorta like sheep but Dreams instead.
milod789
do not exercise before bed
only use your bedroon for sleeping
Don’t watch the clock when you are trying to sleep.
R3TRO
61 point relaxation method <-- link
Dark Sider
keep healthy sleep habits: only use the bed for sleep, and always go to bed at the same time, and always get up at the same time, even on weekends.
FireHorse
Lay still, because just by laying quietly and thinking pleasant thoughts you are resting your body and your mind.
While not quite as refreshing as sleep, it is quite enough to keep you going and more importantly it takes the pressure off of trying to go to sleep. Laying still and not fretting, try it.
Abyss
Lay down in bed early, and practice using a WILD method. I find a lot of hidden fatigue will come up
Iluminada
I have cornflakes w/ warm milk and some sugar (splenda) but sugar is better. or a cup of chamomille tea w/ honey.
Basilus West
Here you can find a general article about insomnia:
Treatment Methods for Insomnia: Critical Evaluation
In herbal treatments or tea, chamomile, valerian and passion flower are said to be sedative.
mystic
Drink some good hot milk before going to bed It must be hot because cold milk doesn’t work (because in hot milk there’s far more tryptophan, a precursor to some important brain chemicals involved with sleep).
pasQuale
i found this article with helpful tips. Hope it is of help to anyone.
selfgrowth.com/articles/Turo-Shields8.html
Spreaderoffear
How about using Brainwave generator or another Binaural beat program or Cd.Walmart sells a Cd called “Sleep” that works
siiw
I have found out that there is little use in trying hard to fall asleep. What works best for me, is to make the time in bed less boring by for example imagining interesting scenes. They have to be far from real life, to not start distracting trains of thought. More often than not, I fall asleep in the middle of that.
Something else that works for me is to pay attention to the feeling of lying in bed, how comfortable it is, and how hard it would be if i had to get up now.
Kindreamings
Try reading something that is really boring to you at the time.
finally as a last resort there is always mild sleeping tablets
I will split this topic now. 
At times it can also be helpful to try not to think about anything, or to imagine something. It really depends on the insomniac. The warm milk trick mentioned above does wonders .