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5 Things That Actually Helped My Insomnia (and 3 That Didn't)

Who decided that warm milk = sleep?
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I used to take the ability to sleep for granted. Then last year, for whatever reason, it suddenly became a struggle.

On a good night, I’d spend an hour or two just lying in bed and thinking about nothing in particular. Even if I got to sleep, I’d wake up fully five or six times throughout the night. It turns out I'm far from alone: One in three people suffer from at least mild insomnia, according to the Sleep Health Foundation.

So what's the difference between occasional tossing and turning and having a problem with sleep? Most people actually wake up 20 or so times throughout the night, but they rarely remember it, W. Christopher Winter, M.D., president of Charlottesville Neurology and Sleep Medicine and medical director of Martha Jefferson Hospital Sleep Medicine Center, tells SELF. Dr. Winter considers it a problem if you wake up for more than half an hour in total, which unfortunately was the case for me.

Eventually, all these sleepless nights started taking a toll on my work, my relationships, and my sanity.

After several nights of tossing and turning until the sun came up, and days making careless mistakes at work, picking fights, and struggling to think clearly, I began the long and frustrating process of reclaiming my sleep—and my health.

I spent the next nine months trying eight things I read about online and heard about from friends that would supposedly help me sleep (I was skeptical). Five of them actually worked for me, while three failed miserably.

Now most nights, I can fall asleep within a half hour of lying down in bed, and I typically get about eight or nine hours of sleep with just two or three wake-ups (lasting only a minute or two). Here are the remedies that actually helped me get back into my sleep groove and what experts have to say about them.

1. Keeping a caffeine journal to see how it affects my sleep—then ultimately cutting it out completely.

I’m not going to lie: This one sucked. I’m just not myself without coffee or caffeinated tea in the morning. But a thorough study of my caffeine habits was necessary.

The way caffeine affects you will depend on many factors including your weight, anxiety levels, and resting heart rate, Courtney Bancroft, Psy.D., a licensed clinical health psychologist specializing in insomnia and sleep wellness, tells SELF. That's why some people can pass out after a cup of tea before bed, while others need to totally eliminate it to avoid sleep disturbances. Dr. Winter recommends that insomniacs avoid caffeine completely after lunchtime. A study in the Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine found that people who had 400 mg of caffeine six hours before going to bed experienced more sleep disruptions (measured by a sleep monitor) than the placebo group.

To figure out how strict you need to be with caffeine, Bancroft recommends keeping a journal tracking how you sleep after different amounts of caffeine at different times of day. Unfortunately, I found out that pretty much any caffeine will screw with my sleep. After keeping a sleep and caffeine journal, I realized that even a cup of tea at 10 A.M. would keep me up past 3 A.M. So, I tried going cold turkey. Even though I caved and drank coffee or tea on quite a few days, falling asleep took far less time on the days when I stuck to not drinking it.

2. Sleeping under a weighted blanket.

After reading that weighted blankets, which are customized to weigh about a tenth of their users' bodyweight, could reduce stress and aid in sleep, I ordered one from Mosaic Weighted Blankets for about $150.

According to Bancroft, having weight on top of us sends the brain a signal that we don’t have to be on the lookout for dangerous things in our environment. Otherwise, if you're already feeling anxious, your “arousal drive” may kick in and prevent you from drifting into the most restful states of sleep. And Dr. Winter says that “we subliminally kind of crave that feeling of being weighted down." Weighted blankets are especially helpful for people with restless leg syndrome, since the pressure helps them stop moving, he adds.

It was weird at first to sleep under something so heavy, but I felt like I was sinking into the mattress, which really helped me fall asleep faster. I went on vacation about a month later and had more trouble sleeping under the lighter blankets because I didn’t have that comforting feeling that the weighted blanket provided. That said, Bancroft recommends talking to a sleep specialist before buying a weighted blanket because certain people shouldn't use them, especially if you have medical conditions like poor circulation or breathing problems.

3. Wearing (admittedly goofy) glasses that blocked blue light from my tech devices.

Blue-light-blocking glasses screen your eyes from the light that phone and computer screens give off. This kind of light can affect your body's production of melatonin, a hormone that helps control your sleep cycle. So, the thinking goes that if you block this blue light, your production of melatonin won't be inhibited the way it would if you just stared at your phone freely before bed, explains Dr. Winter.

So, I ordered the Eyekepper Vintage Computer Glasses for $10.99 from Amazon. I’d already implemented a few other remedies by the time I tried these glasses, so it’s hard to tell how big of an impact they had, but my sleep continued to improve after trying them.

Of course, glasses aren't the only option. Apps like Flux—which can reduce your devices’ blue light as the night goes on—have the same effect, Dr. Winter says. Some devices even have a built-in light adjustment or "night mode," so you can also use those to reduce your exposure to blue light before bed.

4. Taking a warm bath before bed instead of a shower.

I used to think showers before bed were basically the same as a bath before bed. But once I floated in the bathtub, I felt a sense of relaxation that I rarely experience in the shower. My mind went quiet as all my limbs went limp and my head tilted back to rest against the back of the tub.

Plus, baths allow your body to soak up more heat, and the cooling that follows when you get out of the tub may cue your body to sleep, Dr. Winter says. Temperatures drop at night, so we’re programmed to fall asleep when our body temperature drops, Bancroft adds. She recommends utilizing this effect by taking a warm bath and sleeping in a room that’s 60 to 67 degrees. Temperature controls our circadian clocks, she explains, and anything warmer can trigger our brains to wake up.

5. Taking melatonin on really bad nights, right when the sun goes down.

The first four fixes helped me sleep decently most nights, but I purchased a melatonin supplement for the worst nights on a friend's recommendation. As I mentioned earlier, melatonin is a hormone that your brain produces naturally as the sun starts to go down, helping your body feel like it's time for sleep. It keeps producing melatonin through the night until the sun comes up, helping you not only to fall asleep, but stay asleep.

For me, melatonin was nothing short of life-changing (or sleep-changing, I guess). But it seemed too good to be true—and it kind of is, says Dr. Winter. If you get in the habit of taking melatonin, your body may produce less on its own, so you should really reserve it for the roughest nights. You should also make sure to take it at sundown, not right before bed, he adds. Melatonin normally surges as the sun sets, so if you wait until bedtime, you can mess up your circadian rhythm, leading yourself to get tired later and later.

Over-the-counter melatonin isn’t regulated by the FDA, which can make choosing the right dose confusing. The National Sleep Foundation recommends taking between 0.2 milligrams and up to 5 milligrams for insomnia. While taking too much melatonin hasn’t been linked to immediately negative health outcomes, it can lead to grogginess and headaches. As always, talk to your doctor before starting any new supplements, including melatonin.

So now that we've covered what worked for me, here's what failed miserably:
1. Deep breathing only made my mind wander.

Celebrity doctor Andrew Weil, M.D., popularized the "4-7-8" exercise, which involves breathing in for four seconds, holding it for seven, and letting it out for eight. He claims it relieves stress and can help with insomnia.

Maybe it does if you can stick with it long enough, but my mind always wanders, and before I know it, I’m breathing normally again. While this exact method hasn’t been studied, Dr. Winter says it can’t hurt to try. Unfortunately, it did pretty much nothing for me.

2. Drinking warm milk just led to more nightly bathroom trips.

My parents taught me to drink warm milk to fall asleep as a kid, and Dr. Winter says there may be some merit to this method: Milk has sleep-promoting proteins, and the warmth and subsequent cooling can help you get to sleep the same way a bath does.

The problem is, drinking anything before bed makes me get up to pee more at night, so this didn't work for me.

3. Drinking special nighttime tea—you guessed it—made me pee constantly.

Same deal with this. I tried a nighttime tea, which is generally a chamomile blend. Unfortunately, I didn’t fall asleep any quicker—and I just had to wake up more to use the bathroom.

Dr. Winter says drinking tea before bed can help you sleep if you look look for teas with the right ingredients like valerian, an herb recommended for insomnia. But, beware that it might have a similar effect on your bladder.

I’m not going to lie—sleep is still not my strong suit.

But the late nights (and early mornings) in bed are getting less hellish, since I’m no longer lying there panicking over all the time I’m losing. Sometimes, half the the battle is reassuring yourself that you will get to sleep. And when that doesn't work, maybe try a few of the tips above.