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Comment by thorgrimr | Hacker News Reader

I've had insomnia for years, cured it with one hard rule: wake up everyday at the same time. Every other adaptation was extra.

I read about the rule in The Effortless Sleep Method by Sasha Stephens.

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Yes one other trick that has worked for me is you put alarm for sleep not waking up.

So i put three alarms in alexa everyday at 7:30pm, 8:00pm and 8:30pm where alexa says "time to sleep, I'm reminding you time to sleep for a great day tomorrow and last is final reminder, it's time to sleep." respectively.

I have seen that 3 reminders to sleep does it and we all go to bed always before the 3rd reminder. I have never slept before 4am otherwise. So weird a robot voice can have this effect, but its the only thing that was able to fix my sleep schedule.

The only con is when you have guests over and alexa starts speaking like this, it can make things very weird and people feel we are trying to make them leave :P

Wow, sleeping at 7:30pm or even 8 is super early. Lucky you! I assume you don’t live in a city.

Not OP, but where I am in the tropics it's quite common for everybody to go to bed at 8 or 8:30 and get up at 5. It gets dark at 5:45pm every day and light at 5:30am, so by getting up at 5 you optimize your daylight hours. Also it's cooler before the sun is fully blazing at 9:30am, so the early morning hours are best for jogging, outdoor errands, etc.

Definitely worth optimising for daylight hours if you're only getting 15 minutes of it!

Doh! Edited.

I used to have really bad insomnia as well, and completely agree with this.

Also:

* Get up early (like 6AM early)

* Avoid stimulants (caffeine etc) after midday (I used to drink tea/coffee in the evening, and then wonder why I couldn't sleep)

* Get a dog (helps with the getting up early part, also makes you do exercise)

* Get technology out of your bedroom (a lamp is ok, but get rid of the TV, leave your phone/tablet/laptop in another room while you sleep)

It really isn't rocket science.

What if you wake up in the middle of the night? I can go to bed consistently and easily - the problem is I'll wake up at 2am and not be able to go back to sleep. Sleep hygiene doesn't solve it for me.

It's hard to find out what causes not sleeping throughout the night. Personally I had to: - Cut out food and drink 6 hours before bedtime (even limiting water). This minimized my body waking me up for many digestive/expulsion issues. Now 3 hours before bedtime is enough. - Read novels with vocalization in your head that aren't too exciting one hour before bedtime. The reading slowed my thinking and minimized waking up with racing thoughts. I now need 15-30 minutes of reading to fall asleep. - Took 2 months of applying this daily before I could sleep through the night.

Good luck finding out what helps you!

Glad that this rule works for you! There are also other rules you might find helpful as part of stimulus control. For example:

1. Use the bed only for sleep and sex 2. Get out of bed if unable to fall asleep within 20 minutes 3. Have a plan-of-action for what to do if woken up in the middle of the night

That being said, behavioral therapy for insomnia is not just about stimulus control or sleep hygiene. This is because there is little evidence that sleep hygiene alone is sufficient to treat chronic insomnia. Instead, we use a multi-component therapy that includes cognitive restructuring, sleep restriction or consolidation, and relaxation techniques.

You can read more about it at https://slumber.one/how-does-cbt-i-work.

>Get out of bed if unable to fall asleep within 20 minutes

So basically, never sleep?

No, the point is that if you're not asleep within 20 minutes you should wind down more outside of bed and try again. it helps me to reinforce the "no phone/reading/whatever" in bed rules, and means I don't lie awake for hours in bed - I get up and read in the living room for an hour and try again.

I've tried this method. It involves me sitting somewhere else until 6am not being able to sleep instead of my bed.

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