Staying up through the night was not uncommon for me. My body had been conditioned for many years before I got sober to stay up until the sun came up. I never prioritized sleep until I began my recovery journey.
During those years, while I was struggling with insomnia, I tried many tactics to overcome it and find a solution (short or long term), just to get a few hours of shut-eye.
In this post, I’ll share 7 things I did to overcome insomnia.
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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, and clearly self-inflicted.
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, with or without substances.
My body doesn’t like dabbling in between states. Either I was sleepy or I was 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 fourth) 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 most of the time, it makes it harder to fall asleep.
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 it harder to fall asleep.
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) Reading A Book
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 are 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 lie comfortably in bed and choose a guided meditation video that plays softly in the background.
Not only has meditation healed me from insomnia, but 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!!
Thanks for stopping by 
