Out of curiosity, have to tried vigorous exercise? Any time I've had issues sleeping in the past, as soon as I got into a workout regiment, it got me right back to a normal sleep schedule.
The correct "out of curiosity" would be "what were you taking it for".
The rhetoric about exercise is sound and great advice for 80% of people. But it's annoying for people with mental health issues (particularly those that have (a) objectively valid ICD-10/DSM-5 diagnoses and (b) live a normal life with medications) to be told to walk it off.
It's almost like advising cancer patients to eat some fruit once in a while. (A sudden switch to eating a wide variety of fruits truly seems to have improved my immunity, but I'm not on chemo...)
People with mental health issues like those described don't need to hear about exercise, but not for the reasons you mention. They (should) already hear it from their doctors every visit (and they will have a professional they visit regularly to monitor their health situation, the drugs in question are very bad for you).
Not OP, but for me while working out helps being unable to sleep is tightly coupled with anxiety and my mind spinning on something. For some people the anxiety is directly related to being worried about being unable to fall asleep.
One thing that helped was to recognize that it's okay if you don't fall asleep - taking the pressure off made it less stressful. Another thing was recognizing I've never failed to eventually fall asleep.
Sleep is a weird thing though - and the lack of conscious continuity, I think people would be more afraid of it if it wasn't something we were already used to.
Me personally, I used to spend a lot of sleepless nights stressing out over something or another. Now I give myself an hour. I get up and work on the problem. I’m miserable the next day. But often my brain decides it wants sleep more than laying in bed worrying.
I’d recommend it to anyone, but for sure talk to a doctor.
Have you tried meditation and mindfulness? Curious if clearing your mind and relaxation techniques would allow you to combat the anxiety of being worried of not falling asleep? If not, why haven't you tried it?
I found CBT to be most helpful for me, I did try the mindfulness meditation but think I didn't do it consistently enough to get a lot of value out of it.
I do 45 minutes of intense cardio at the gym four or five days a week. It doesn't work for me. Which is to say, it does all sorts of wonderful things to my general sense of well-being, but does not cure my insomnia.
Have you tried meditation and mindfulness? Curious if clearing your mind and relaxation techniques would allow you to combat the anxiety of being worried of not falling asleep? If not, why haven't you tried it?
The rhetoric about exercise is sound and great advice for 80% of people. But it's annoying for people with mental health issues (particularly those that have (a) objectively valid ICD-10/DSM-5 diagnoses and (b) live a normal life with medications) to be told to walk it off.
It's almost like advising cancer patients to eat some fruit once in a while. (A sudden switch to eating a wide variety of fruits truly seems to have improved my immunity, but I'm not on chemo...)