Problems sleeping due to excess energy

[sleeper]

wow you actually answered all of the questions.

most people just get overwhelmed.

i'll give you whatever tips i think will help, but i must tell you in advance that you are on a journey and the best approach will probably be to take one step at a time, making little bits of progress with each step.

have you tried expending your energy in other ways before bed?

what is your sleeping area like? what is the temperature in your room (cool/warm)?

I have a small apartment so besides a bathroom and kitchen and an entrance I only have a single room which I use for both sleeping and living.
My bed is next to a window which is slightly open all year round, and I usually open it fully for 10-15 mins. before bed time to cool the room but also to ventilate, so it's cool at bed time.

I have lived in many places that are tight on space. It is very important, critical, that you keep your belongings organized and tidy. If you have any piles, make sure that they are sorted and folded. That means books with books, pants with pants, shirts with shirts. bad spirits will take up residence in messy homes, and they can ruin your sleep and invade your dreams (and waking mind). Everything should be stacked as squarely into rows and straightly as possible. remember: what is "tidy" and "sorted" to you might not be enough to keep the bad stuff away; a tight adherence to feng shui is usually required at minimum to garnish the benefits of this.

how much light is in your room at night? are there many electronic devices in your room?

There's no light in the room besides a small red LED from my TV when it's in standby mode. Besides the TV I have my computer and an guitar amplifier but they're (usually) turned off at night.

any light shining on your body can lower your melatonin levels, even if it only hits your skin on your hand or leg. so cover the computer light with a sticker or a sock or something, if you can.

do you stay up late playing on the computer?

have you tried sleeping in other areas of your room/moving your bed? have you tried sleeping on the floor (with several blankets underneath?

I sometimes fall asleep on my couch instead of my bed, but the room is rather small and filled with stuff and furniture so moving the bed is not really an option, as I'd have to move everything else as well and it's placed most conveniently as it is now. I have thought about it before though, actually ever since I read Castaneda's books when I was 15 or so, to see if facing north, south, east or west would make any difference.
I'm not to keen on experimenting with sleeping on the floor since I had a bad experience a couple of years ago when the cleansing process was more intensive. I was moving to a new apartment at the time, and was going to spend the night there because I had a party to attend in the city I was moving to the day after, bud hadn't had time to move my bed yet. I remember the night before my intuition told me this would be a problem, but I didn't listen much to it back then and since I had slept on the floor at friends' places many times with no problem I figured it should work just the one night. I had two thin madrases and slept ok as far as I can recall but the morning after I could barely move and had a horrible pain in my back for 3 days, so I prefer a bed these days .

Do you fall asleep easier on your couch than on your bed? do you ever split the sleep between your bed, floor and couch? do you have back pain often? how is your posture when you're standing? is your spine strong and healthy? do you have a lordosis or scoliosis or any other curvature problems? In what position do you sleep best (face down, face up, fetal position, etc.)?

how quiet is your room at night? do you have pets that sleep with you? do you wake up to an alarm clock?

My room is quiet at night apart from the occasional car on the road outside and my cat walking around and chewing dry food. He's usually outside hunting at night if the temperatures aren't too low though.
I use my mobile phone as an alarm clock the days I have to attend something at a specific time.

that sounds pretty much ideal. for the most part.

how is your adrenal health? are you under a lot of stress during the day? do you feel fatigued in the middle of the day? do you feel energized or catch your "second wind" of energy late at night? do you consume much caffeine or energy drinks? when do you eat dinner and what kinds of meal does your dinner consist of?

I don't know how my adrenal health is. I'm not under much stress as I'm unemployed, two friends died recently and untimely though and that has been on my mind a lot but have coped with it now. Yea I do experience a period of fatigue in the middle of the day or in the morning when I'm supposed to wake up instead heh. But I usually don't have time to sleep at those times and also don't want to mess up my sleeping pattern more than it is, so I try to stay awake till night time, where instead of falling asleep early as I'd hoped I feel energized and often stay up all night again and so the circle continues. I don't use any stimulants at all and haven't for a long time. I usually eat dinner at around 6PM and eat lots of vegetables and fish, eggs, chicken and turkey.

I have actually slept really well these last two nights for around 7 hours I think, I'm not entirely sure thought as I've gone to bed rather late at night and then woken up around noon, but it feels like an improvement for sure. I'll do more experimentation but I'm pretty sure it has to do with I've tried walking around barefoot in the garden outside before I go to bed to do some grounding / earthing, it's freaking cold this time of year though, so visualizing roots from my root chakra isn't possible for me this time of year, I simply can't focus on it because it's so cold for my feet so I've just taken a really quick walk from one end of the garden to the other and back maybe 1-2 minutes in total, but I believe is had had an positive effect.

when you fall asleep, do you wake up about 25 minutes later with a "jolt?"

are you on a low fat diet?

are you familiar with the "circadian rhythm?" (if not, you should google-search the terms and look at some of the pictures and articles and you'll benefit from seeing it).

i recommend that people sleep when they are tired. unless there is an important or urgent reason to stay awake, i really think you should snooze a bit when you are tired. on the first night, you might stay up late again but in the long run it will take pressure off of your endocrine system and may help you tremendously in your goal of getting to bed on time. also it might help you to think more clearly.

ok this is probably enough for now.

ciao!

~dale

[CFTraveler]

One more thing, since we're doing this- Blue LEDs are terrible for sleeping- amber or red are not so bad for sleeping, but blue LEDs have been shown to mess with brainwaves and not allow your sleep to get to the deep stage.
I can't quote a source because I saw it on a TV special about sleep.

[Floond]

wow you actually answered all of the questions.

most people just get overwhelmed.

i'll give you whatever tips i think will help, but i must tell you in advance that you are on a journey and the best approach will probably be to take one step at a time, making little bits of progress with each step.

Well to be honest I was a bit overwhelmed by the amount of questions lol but figured when you are trying to help me the least I could do was to reply. I'm in no hurry and just enjoy the ride.

I have lived in many places that are tight on space. It is very important, critical, that you keep your belongings organized and tidy. If you have any piles, make sure that they are sorted and folded. That means books with books, pants with pants, shirts with shirts. bad spirits will take up residence in messy homes, and they can ruin your sleep and invade your dreams (and waking mind). Everything should be stacked as squarely into rows and straightly as possible. remember: what is "tidy" and "sorted" to you might not be enough to keep the bad stuff away; a tight adherence to feng shui is usually required at minimum to garnish the benefits of this.

Ehem, looks like I've got some work cut out for me here as I've never been very organized, always excused myself being on those that rule chaos. But this should help as motivation to get all my stuff sorted . I see bad spirits and negs often mentioned, how common are they? I recall one experience years ago when I was in an altered state where I felt the presence of some spirits with bad vibes which I 'fought' off by sending them love. But haven't been consciously aware of anything similar since neither in waking state or dreams.
Could you recommend me any books on Feng Shui? as I'm often skeptical about topics from Eastern thought that have become popularized and even trendy in the West, it often seems to spawn some diluted versions of the original, like the "yoga" teached locally is basically a form of gymnastics deprived of the spiritual side of yoga practice.

any light shining on your body can lower your melatonin levels, even if it only hits your skin on your hand or leg. so cover the computer light with a sticker or a sock or something, if you can.

do you stay up late playing on the computer?

I'll just start turning off the TV at the power socket, the standby LED is only lid due to it being most convenient to use the remote to turn the TV off. Sometimes I stay up late using the computer, I rarely play games, but use the computer for listening to, playing and recording music, for chatting, programming and also use it to stream TV-shows in stead of watching what ever is on the channels. So it's always turned on when I'm doing something at home. I turn it off before going to bed if I feel sleepy.

Do you fall asleep easier on your couch than on your bed? do you ever split the sleep between your bed, floor and couch? do you have back pain often? how is your posture when you're standing? is your spine strong and healthy? do you have a lordosis or scoliosis or any other curvature problems? In what position do you sleep best (face down, face up, fetal position, etc.)?

Yes I often fall asleep easier on my couch actually, especially when I take a nap in the afternoon. I'm not sure I understand what you mean by splitting the sleep, like a couple of hours in bed then move to the couch for a couple of hours or? I rarely have back pain, not since my sleeping on the floor experience mentioned earlier. I'm pretty sure my spine is strong and healthy but I guess everyone assumes that till they get back pain problems. At a Zen retreat once I was told that my spine is a little too straight, I'm not sure what the medical term is for it though. I usually sleep on my right side with my right arm under the pillow, I've sort of gotten used to that from when I suffered from problems with my left shoulder as it would hurt a lot whenever I moved around during sleep, enough to wake me up. I've never could fall asleep when lying on my back but remember always sleeping on my stomach with my face to the left side as a kid.

when you fall asleep, do you wake up about 25 minutes later with a "jolt?"

I can't recall ever experiencing that no

are you on a low fat diet?

I'm not on any particular diet, but have been trying to loose some weight to get rid of my wheel hehe, I'm just trying to eat more healthy these days as I have been living mainly on junk food in the past and haven't been physically active much for years. I've been intrigued by raw food diets lately though and waiting for a cookbook to arrive with solely raw food recipes.

are you familiar with the "circadian rhythm?" (if not, you should google-search the terms and look at some of the pictures and articles and you'll benefit from seeing it).

Thanks so much for bringing this to my attention, the wikipedia entry on circadian rhythm eventually led me to 'Delayed sleep phase syndrome' which I'm absolutely positive I've been suffering from since my teens and long before Kundalini awakened. The symptoms sound exactly like the story of my life since I was 15-16 years old. So while kundalini in some periods makes me not sleep for days at a time and at other times makes me feel fatigued for days, the other syndrome is what causes me problems most of the time. There is a certain comfort in a diagnosis but I'll have to figure out how to put this realization into practical use.

i recommend that people sleep when they are tired. unless there is an important or urgent reason to stay awake, i really think you should snooze a bit when you are tired. on the first night, you might stay up late again but in the long run it will take pressure off of your endocrine system and may help you tremendously in your goal of getting to bed on time. also it might help you to think more clearly.

Yes I agree, but in my current situation that's usually not an option. As mentioned elsewhere I'm unemployed and on welfare, and to get my welfare check I have to check-in each morning at 8 am at a place and twiddle my thumbs for hours each working day otherwise they deduct an amount of the little money I get. 7-8 am happens to be around the time when I'm usually tired enough to fall asleep so it isn't an ideal situation, but I can't live without any income at all so I just try to cope with it. I often take a nap in the afternoon though if I don't have other appointments to attend.