| I've taken a multi-pronged approach including better bedtime routine, exercise, and tricks to get back to sleep when I wake up. Over the last 9 months I've been focusing on health and losing weight. A large part of this is that I'm doing 5+K on the treadmill every week day. I prefer to do this in the morning, and if I'm not on the treadmill by 7 it is going to interfere with my work. Between getting ready and cooling down, it's a solid hour or hour and a bit to get 45 minutes of jog/walk time in. This morning I was on the treadmill by 6:30, got up at 5:15 and did some work first. A few months ago an HN discussion mentioned An Algorithmic Solution to Insomnia, and I read that and tried some things in that. Largely it boiled down to: Taking a harder line on waking up early, getting a better bedtime routine. I go to bed usually around 9:30, but I've tried this last week to pushing it a little later to try to stay asleep. I have an all too frequent "wake up at 3am" problem. I try to be in bed, not using my phone or computer, by 9:30. I take a 5mg melatonin, and read on a Kindle (because of the paper-like experience, dim front-light). I'm pretty much out within half an hour. If I'm having problems getting to sleep or staying asleep, I use this trick where I go through each letter of the alphabet and think of 3 unrelated words that start with each letter. Probably >50% success rate on falling asleep when I do that. If I wake up at 3-ish, I'll try the letters, then I'll read some and try again. I try to keep my hands off my damn phone. >50% success rate there, too. :-) https://ilya.sukhar.com/blog/an-algorithmic-solution-to-inso... |