Welcome ladies and gentlemen to the Insomniac's Thread. This thread is dedicated to those who have either trouble falling asleep or getting back to asleep. Sufferers from transient, acute, or God help you, chronic insomnia are welcome!

Allow me to introduce myself. I'm Brandon aka "dalf". I'm currently running on about two....maybe three hours of sleep. I've damn near pounded down a bottle of wine, and yet it is still 3:04 AM.

Reason(s) I cannot sleep tonight: I was driven from my home because the power has been turned off for tonight. So I decided to crash @ mom's place because she has modern conveniences like electricity. However, my mom's roomie snores. It's not just sawing lumber. It's chopping down the whole ****ing forest. And the acoustics of mom's house means that said snoring is amplified about 5 dB (hardwood flooring).

So my fellow insomniacs, why are you up?

I was up the night before last because my wife ate too much and her body decided at 3am it was time to evacuate her belly so that the baby I put there has more room to kick her.

So I was back rubbing.

The day before that she wanted some gaviscon, and I promptly fell down the stairs en route to said medication. Nothing like an adrenaline rush after a painful accident to keep you awake!

Last night she woke up the night, went for a pee, came back into bed and stubbed her toe and so YELLED REALLY LOUD IN MY EAR too. That was confusing.

I suppose it's preparing me for the little bundle of lungs that will be popping out of her in the next 6 weeks or so...

Hahahaha! That was an amusing set of stories!

I suppose you will soon be posting in this thread, Mr. Martyn, quite frequently with those early AM feedings.

I'm studying for my Sharepoint certification and stressing about it because it's taking longer than I want to study for it (aka a few weeks too long).

I want to take the test next week, crossing my fingers (I schedule it whenever I want).

And listening to the BSG season 4 soundtrack. Which is actually making it take slightly longer to finish this section, but still is entertaining.

A buzzing bug, dad's snoring, and a whistling noise from the attic all conspired to keep me awake last night.

I was getting in a bad habit before my vacation of staying up til 6AM/7AM and then sleeping till 4PM.

Last night though I didn't get much sleep. I had finished a paper that was worth 100% of my grade, and all night I kept trying to submit it, but something about that 100% of my grade kept having me check it again and again throughout the night.

Indeed. You don't actually know the meaning of sleeplessness yet

(It'll be worth it, though)

I've not been able to get to sleep before about 4 am recently.

Might be the sheer volume of coke I've been drinking, which is getting embarrasing.

I was doing this about a year ago. I'm not sure how I turned it around but I still can't get to sleep before 3am.

I was lying awake in bed for like, twenty minutes the other night before falling into a deep, natural and restful sleep. It totally sucked.

My I share my problems of the opposite nature?

I just slept for 11 hours straight with no lack of sleep beforehand, and it's quite annoying when you have a lot to get done. This happens almost always when I don't set my alarm.

I often think to myself to an hour or so before I go to sleep, and wake up a couple times.
Also if I watch/play too much of something it gets itself into my head when I try to go asleep and causes strangeness, much like ME2 did two nights ago.

last night i thought my house smelled like a mix of dill and lime. i couldn' t get the smell out of my nose so i couldnt fall asleep until about 2:30 am.

I never sleep well. Ever.

You may file me under "chronic insomnia" and consider putting me on a "wishes he was dead" list around bedtime.

I can fall asleep as long as I'm tired, but if I'm woken during the night I have a hard time falling back asleep. I wear ear plugs at night to try to mitigate this, but many nights my wife gets up, or my son bangs on the door, or the other kids make noise trying to sneak cell phone calls in the middle of the night. Blargh.

My mind races at night. I don't really have a trouble falling asleep if I'm freaking exhausted.
But on normal days, my mind races so fast when I lay down and try to sleep, I just get consumed by my thoughts and pretty much end up talking to myself in my head and don't fall asleep.

I used to be a big partier, and then I started drinking even on nights by myself so I could pass out, but then that just lead to a bad road of alcoholism lol.

I take medication now to help with the obsessive thoughts at night, it seems to work. But my body is just so used to not sleeping I end up staying up a while anyways. I typically will not sleep a couple nights of the month, to try to force myself to be tired enough to sleep. because a normal sleeping pattern is too much for me.

Well I got about 4h of sleep or so. Today did suck. Although I can be kind of loopy when I'm sleep deprived. Makes for hilarity.
[quote=Squirrel King]I used to be a big partier, and then I started drinking even on nights by myself so I could pass out, but then that just lead to a bad road of alcoholism lol[/quote]
I'm the same way. My mind won't shut off. I do have to find a new means of quieting the mind other than ethanol.

Yes, I too have to find alternate methods of falling asleep. Booze works, but only in the fact that you go to sleep and don't have to deal with being awake. You sleep longer and don't feel as well in the morning as you would had you only gotten 3 hours of real sleep.

I have the racing mind issue as well, though I found writing them down by my bed helps.

In general, I have trouble falling asleep, though I think it's more from being a natural night-owl than insomnia. I feel like I should be able to wake up easier too, but I've found a regular pattern of waking up to work and not having to take it home with me has helped with that too.

Last night, though, I did sleep abnormally early for me (before midnight) so I could wake up for my haircut appointment before work, but woke up around 4AM from a nightmare and couldn't get back to sleep for an hour or so.

I tried wine for a bit to help with sleep, but I found that it didn't actually make me tired enough most of the times, and it didn't seem to improve the sleep (go figure) so I stopped.

I don't know how the hell I'm ever going to sleep if I have a snoring partner or kids or whatnot. I empathize with all of you that have to deal with that. The worse I have to deal with is slightly more sun than I'd prefer (since the blinds don't block out enough of the sun) and a non-super-nice bed.

I always had huge problems getting to sleep with a woman in my bed. Mainly because they always want to spoon and ****. I like to flail about in bed, rolling around every 5 minutes or so until I fall asleep. I get uncomfortable really quickly. This led to many nights of me sleeping on the couch in past relationships.

Hi. My name is Dixon and I'm an insomniac.

I can't sleep because of Iraq and an overactive imagination.

im out of rolling paper =[

Sometimes if I workout in the gym too late in the evening, I'll toss and turn till 1 or 2. Its frustrating cause sleep is vital for muscle recovery.

get creative!

My arms have been killing me for the last 2 days because I haven't slept well.

Picked up some NyQuil in Sam's Club today. Shouldn't be a problem tonight.

Folk say not to exercise or do any extraneous activities (besides sex) so close to bed time.

Yeah, but when have we ever trusted them before?

I work pretty late nights/overnights mostly (sucks when i have a 7am shift), so the only real time I have to do anything is after midnight, which means I waste a lot of time and don't sleep. Your schedule really never adapts, you just spent the majority of your waking hours in delirium.

Folks be wrong.

Exercise is the same no matter what time of the day you do it. 1000 calories burned is 1000 calories burned, an a half hour weight training session at 6am is the exact same as an equally difficult weight training session at 6pm. The only difference is what forms of energy you put into your body before and afterwards.

You guys might wanna get checked out for Sleep Apnea. A few people I've known suffered from sleepless nights, couldn't figure out why, and found out that they were actually suffering from it but didn't realize until it was actually tested. A lot of people have it without knowing, and yes, it can be fatal. I have it and it ****ing sucks.

You're going to get much better results later in the day because your muscles have built up glycogen, increasing their performance. If you're looking to lose weight through aerobic exercise, you're better off doing it in the morning because you will have much less glycogen to use before you start burning calories.

I have sleep apnea too.

This is actually a myth. At the end of the day, you've burned off just as many calories as you would have if you worked out later in the day. The results, are going to be the same with only very minimal differences. Definitely not enough to make up the difference, nor enough to make someone say "ah, a 5am run wil be a lot better than a 5pm run".

I've heard people try and say "But your stomach is empty, so you're burning calories you already haven't eaten yet so you force your body to use its own fat for energy!" but that's also, a little bit false. Yes, it's true in theory that because you have eaten nothing yet, you are forcing your body to go into "Starvation mode", in which it actually STORES fat in order to sustain you. This is why diets where people literally starve themselves rarely work. Not to mention that you are working out WHILE your body is in starvation mode.. And anyone that's worked out knows what happens when you work out.. You get tired, you spend energy, etc. This is going to do nothing but FORCE your body to go further into starvation mode (I actually have a calculator that goes through what percentage of body fat you likely have, versus all kinds of factors, and then determines what percentage of starvation mode you'll be in for the calories you're eating). This can be both extremely dangerous, especially if weight lifting, and also prolong your hope for getting noticeable results.

So.. In essence, yes what you said is correct, but misleading to a degree. There are many differences of opinion and no solid studies have ever been done to my knowledge that difiinitively proove that working out in the morning will yeild better results. It could also be a person to person basis, as throughout my training career I've exercised many different routines. I gained (muscle) and lost (fat) at the exact same rate I was prior to working out in the mornings. I no longer work out in the mornings.

As far as I have been taught, most of the benefits that come from working out in the mornings are mental, like feeling more alert and being able to start your day earlier now that you've developed a routine. Not to mention that you've gotten your workout out of the way for the rest of the day so you're more likely to actually do it.

But personally, if I had a client come in and ask me if they did a cardio session aiming to burn 500 calories off which time would be better to do it, 5am or 5pm... I'd kindly remind them that 500 calories burned at 5am, is exactly the same as 500 calories burned at 5pm. The glycogen factors in for these people very little. Weight trainers will rely on it a lot more if they work out in the mornings but not people that want to burn fat. Again, the starvation mode your body goes into from not eating will completely negate the fact that you've got a little boost of glycogen in your body from not eating.


Never, EVER, should you work out on an empty stomach. Cardio or weight training. It will do you absolutely zero good. It can even lead to a lot of disorders, such as GERD and increased acid reflux due to lack of stomach contents.

It is true however, that you should never work out at least 2 hours prior to bed time. You usually will have so much energy and have difficulty falling asleep. Luckily, I am not one of these people, but if my girlfriend works out for even 20 minutes within a few hours of going to bed, she tosses and turns almost all night.




It sucks doesn't it? I refuse to wear a CPAP. There is no chance of that happening. I've got Apnea as a side effect from severe GERD and LES, but it's not your usual apnea. I've read and heard from my doctors, that your usual apnea episode lasts about 10-30 seconds, whereas mine are extremely quick, probably less than a second in length. Nevertheless, it's extremely annoying.

On topic though... I've found that a nice hard cardio/weight training combo really puts me to sleep if I give myself at least a 4 hour window from when I plan on going to bed. I pass out like a baby.

EDIT: Yes I know I need to edit the workout part but it's too early in the AM right now and I could care less to be completely specific about it

I should get back into running mode. When I was serious training. I would pass out no problem especially after the dreaded "300m get-backs." Of course it did have an adverse affect on my studies. By 11 PM I was real f'n tired and couldn't really do my studies.

That's absurd. I've never once heard of the body going into famine response from exercising before eating. Your body goes into famine response after days of restricted calorie intake. While the effect of low glycogen stores in muscles may not be that great on weight loss, exerting yourself before you eat isn't going to tell your body to start storing for the long haul.

I do heavy weight training and take lots of nyquil.

No no, I didn't mean that any time you work out on an empty stomach your body can detect this and goes into starvation mode.

Any time you get hungry, that's your body telling you it's going into starvation mode. Rather, it's just beginning to and if you don't get something to eat fast, it will continue to do so. At this point, it is storing fat, and only after prolonged starvation does it actually burn off the fat it stores along with tissues and lean muscle mass afterwards. Your body stores fat first, not last, as a survival mechanism to keep you going for the first little while. Then it starts to burn off that fat after it's been stored so it can sustain for yet even longer, and then finally if it doesn't get what it needs it begins to break down tissues and lean muscle mass. And it has different levels of this mode that body builders actually measure. For example, you can actually calculate, based off of how many overall calories you want to lose, your goal date, and several other factors (it asks for a TON), just what percentage you feel like putting your body into of starvation mode. I think if I lowered my calories by another 400 per day, down from 2300, my body would be going into 20% starvation. The numbers might be a bit off because I'm going from over 6 month old memory, but it's somewhat close.

I'm not talking about hibernating here. Whenever you deprive your body of food, no matter how long of a period of time that may be, your body goes into this mode where it starts to store fat for later use and yes, this can occur even after a few hours of not eating. Once you get hungry, you need to eat. If you don't, your body recognizes that you haven't, and immediately begins to store fat. If you start to work out while your body is already in starvation mode, you're going to force it deeper into it, rather than telling it "Ok, now we need to burn that fat rather than store it". If you're already in starvation mode, you're going to be storing the same fat you wish to burn and the work you're doing isn't going to be as effective as say, working out on a slightly fuller stomach.

Had you said weight training, or cardio training in the mornings after having a small healthy breakfast (say, orange juice and an apple and perhaps some oatmeal), is way better for you I would most definitely agree with you. Not eating anything at all though, no.

The main thing is, every single persons body is different. Just because one person can work out on an empty stomach and get results, doesn't mean everyone can. You can't turn and ask your body "hey man, what kinda starvation mode we in here... We burning just fat now? Or are we at the point where we're burning away muscles and tissue because we're so starving?" It's impossible to tell when you are beginning to burn tissue and muscle rather than fat until you actually physically look in the mirror and see after a few weeks, the results.


This is the sole reason why if you ask so many bodybuilders how they got so big they will answer simply with "I ate, a lot." Take a look at (shudder) Taylor Lautner, the 300 workout, and Mario Lopez. Not to mention that there is a specific reason why they tell you it's better to eat 6 to 8 smaller meals a day rather than 3. When I was training with my trainer and talking with a few fellow PT's, we pretty much came to the same concensus that none of us went longer than 2 hours without some form of energy being put into our bodies.

Any time you go hungry hormones are released because your blood sugar drops below a certain level. Those hormones do not regulate fat storage.



I could come up with an advanced formula for how long it would take for the human body to turn into a unicorn but it wouldn't mean it actually worked or originated from plausible research.



The human body is extremely efficient at storing fat, regardless of the famine response.



Your body is storing fat anyway.



I said weight training is better at the end of the day because increased glycogen stores mean your muscles can work harder.

From what I'm reading you're a personal trainer of some sort who has been taught some flimsy exercise science, an already flimsy field. The only real exercise science I'll ever believe without a grain of salt is that if you expend more calories than you consume, you will lose weight. Everything else is more or less educated speculation.

You'll know full well when your body is consuming muscle and organs to sustain itself. Actually, you probably won't since you'll be completely delirious from starvation.




That's a complete no-brainer. No one out there is going to deny that you need plenty of calories and protein to build muscle. Nothing can be created from nothing. Anyone who paid attention in high school bio could tell you that.

Yeah, that's what killed Vegie.

Yeah thats sad what happened to vegie, from what I heard and going back to what stat said is accurate and true, I've been on a fitness routine now for 2 years and I have been learning from sources as books, Internet, learning from trainers and other Body Builders. The best diet to stay with is to have 6 to 8 small meals a day eating high protein and good carbs with a low glycemic index. Going to long without a meal during physical exertion is known as catabolicism which is the opposite of anabolic, which is what stat said is where valuable muscle tissue will be consumed instead of fat. I learned that when you eat in small increments that your body will boost your metabolism which in effect burns more calories in a period of time. Sometime I'll start a fitness thread