For years I had trouble sleeping. It was the worst time of my life and I do not wish this upon anyone. The stress on your mental health and the deterioration of your physical health takes years to recover.

During those years while I was living with this sleep disorder, I tried many tactics to overcome it and find a solution (short or long term), just to get a few hours of shut eye.

Here is my experience with the following solutions:

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7 Things I Did To Overcome Insomnia

1) Popping Pills

Melatonin, Benadryl, OTC sleep aids, Zopiclone, you name it, I’ve probably tried it.

This is the easiest way out, the quickest short term solution.

In my experience, it didn’t work. Your body can quickly adapt to almost anything and after a short period of time, it develops tolerance and then it stops working or you have to up your dosage.

Most of the time, you can’t up the dosage because of the maximum limit before it starts severely damaging your liver.

What I did was cycle through each of the medications but I found myself still not being able to sleep because my body had developed such a high tolerance as it recognized what it was even if I had time in between each type of medication.

My advice, don’t even start.

2) Pure Exhaustion

I used to say to myself, “if I can’t sleep at night then that means I’m not working hard enough during the day”.

Good motto to live by but this insomnia was caused by a myriad of issues.

In order to save my liver from all the medication, I decided to overwork myself to the point where my body was aching so much I’d have no choice but to sleep.

And it did work. I slept like a baby.

But that was only after staying up for 2 days.

One thing I learned was that we have so much energy and strength. Even I was surprised by the fact that it took me such a long time to feel tired enough to shut down.

Our bodies don’t like dabbling in between states. Either you’re sleepy or you’re awake.

If you feel tired but not quite tired enough to fall asleep and you get passed that point…

BAMMM!

You’re hit with your second (or third or forth) wind and you can do it all over again.

Amazing. The human body is truly amazing in that regard but this tactic also didn’t work too well for me.

3) Staying On My Phone

You’re in bed looking at your phone and SPLAT it falls on your face.

Happens to everyone right?

Well, it used to happen to me almost every night.

I used this tactic for a while and it was not too bad.

I would read articles, search for random stuff or put items I don’t really need in the shopping cart because I’m tired and not thinking straight. I did this until my eyes were so heavy they’d shut on their own.

Some nights were better than others. I would be able to fall asleep quickly but some nights, I found myself staying up even later and prolonging the goal of falling asleep because of the screen light.

I’d put my phone on night time mode and still some nights it would wake me up instead of putting me to sleep, especially if I start reading stuff I’m really interested in.

So, this method is alright, although I wouldn’t recommend it because at the end of the day, it’s still not good for your health.

4) Staying Off My Phone

The next natural method was to stay off my phone and avoid that light stimulation.

In the beginning it wasn’t very effective because my mind would run wild. Thoughts would be racing through and my anxiety and stress levels would go way up which made my insomnia even worse.

I would obsess over my to-do list for the next day and rehearse my schedule over and over again making sure I get done everything I had planned.

To calm my thoughts, I moved on to breathing exercises.

The basic counting sheep. Yes. I counted sheep.

It would be effective some nights but other nights my mind wasn’t focused enough and my thoughts would overpower my sheep counting which made me lose track and I usually ended up starting from 1 all over again multiple times throughout the night 😒

Then there was the 4-7-8 formula; inhale for 4, hold for 7, exhale for 8.

And this was awesome!

Although sometimes my thoughts would still distract me from falling asleep, this exercise was very effective!

5) Bookworm

In efforts to distract my thoughts, I decided reading before bed was a good technique. My book choices were always on personal growth.

Depending on how I was feeling and what I was reading, sometimes the book was so interesting, I’d end up staying up all night.

Other times, I’d fall asleep very quickly. Like one page quickly.

The only down side to this was that most of the time, I don’t remember what I was reading when I woke up.

I would be stuck on chapter 1 of a book for so long because I kept falling asleep.

So did it help my insomnia? Yes.

Did I learn anything before bed? Probably not.

6) Binaural Beats

Binaural beats is a type of auditory illusion that is generated by playing a different frequency in each ear, producing a third sound called a rhythmic beat.

Everything in life is governed by vibrations and this type of sound therapy puts your mind and body in different vibrational levels which can produce various healing effects.

The most effective way is to use headphones. Sometimes you may feel your body physically vibrating in harmony with the beat that can put you into a trance like state called “entrainment”, similar to rocking a baby or falling asleep in a moving vehicle.

There are 4 main brainwave states. Using binaural beats, you can consciously put yourself in each state depending on what you want to achieve.

Beta (13 – 30 Hz) – Conscious state; fully alert, focused, fast mental activity

Promote concentration
Improve cognitive function
Can be used for studying

Alpha (9 – 12 Hz) – Conscious state; relaxed mental activity, inner world becomes more real than outer world.

Used to promote relaxation
Increase positivity
Decrease anxiety

Theta (4 – 8 Hz) – Subconscious state; dream-like, imaginative thinking, body is asleep, mind is awake

Relieve stress
Meditation
Internal healing
Lucid dreaming

Delta (0.1 – 3 Hz) – Subconscious state; REM sleep, restoration, healing

Boost immunity
Overcome insomnia
Eliminate negative energy

In my experience, this method has proven very effective in helping me fall asleep peacefully!

7) Meditation

This method never fails me and I usually fall asleep very early into the meditation.

I lay comfortably in bed and choose a guided meditation video that plays softly in the background.

Not only has meditation healed me from insomnia, it has also helped me learn how to control my thoughts.

Sometimes during the day when I feel tired, instead of taking a nap I put on a short 10 minute meditation video and by the end of it, it feels almost as if I have slept for 8 hours!

MEDITATION IS MAGIC!

I love it, highly recommend it!!