Ciao!

Try warm milk with honey. Sounds disgusting but is supposed to help.

cut out caffiene after 2pm. i have noticed that as I get older it has a stronger effect on me. so i try to not consume it late in the day if possible. I have found it to help. also, maybe a baileys on ice at night is a good sleep aid as well.

That's too bad, I think you're getting anxious about your trip back to the U.S. and about what you have left to do here in Bolivia.

I suggest you relax alone in your apt, take a long bath listening to your favorite music and finally go to bed and watch a good or a very bad movie (I can lend you a VCD of Star Wars episode II I tried to watch it 4 times and it was so boring that I could not stand awake for more than 45 min.).

Try adding some slow, simple exercises to the breathing techniques.
And try counting slowly along as you do it, envision nothing but the numbers themselves.

Go to the pub, drink lots of beer, find a female who has consumed just as much beer, then take her to your place and do the horizontal tango with her. You'll sleep like a baby. Trust me.

wow.. you're really stressed, huh?

I hate insomnia; tends to wreck the entire following day.

I take sleeping pills. Not to enough to get me hooked on them, but once I take one it gets me back on my schedule. If you nap during the day i would also try and cut out naps, they really mess up sleeping patterns.

Also, the horizontal tango idea isn't a bad one either...

Definitely the beer and the tango...

What about jerking yourself off? How do they say it in the movie Something About Mary... "kissing the dolphins? Spanking the money"? That'd help, right?

Um. Thaks for the suggestions. Even the, um, "interesting" ones. I don't know if I'm stressed or not. I certainly don't think I need any "sexual healing" (as Marvin Gaye would say). And I'm watching plenty of crappy movies on cable, which might be the problem. No coffee past 11pm was already status quo. I just feel antsy, you know?

Steph: you can be so funny! And now we know how you get to sleep on sleepless nights.

I think "spanking the money" is what a greedy capitalist would do. The rest of the male population "spanks the monKey." And I think most men "flog" their dolphins, instead of kissing them.

As a sufferrer of some serious insomnia, I suggest cutting caffeine altogether for a bit. When you have a sleeping problem the effects of caffeine rise exponentially. As you own a coffee house that is a rather tough thing to do, but it really is one way to combat it.

If you do find the cure to insomnia, let me know. Fall is coming soon and I know it will kick in again for me.

-Josh

Josh's idea is good.

Here's another suggestion. List all the things u have crowding your mind. Divide the stuffs into:

1. Absolutely Must-Dos (biggest worries),
2. Have-to-dos (medium sized worries),
3. By-the-way (little worries that take too much mental space)

There're probably very few of (1). Set aside time to complete them.

Too many (2) and (3)? Get someone to help u with some of them. Perhaps u can't complete them alone.

Tick each one off the list as the chore gets done.

Seeing whats left for u to do may help u relax.

You can beat that clock ticking away!!

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And Tom? I rarely have sleepless nights. Haha.

Good advice. Proprastination & insomnia usually go hand in hand.

Actually Cosmopolitan says men do tend to get tired after either actual sex or manually pleasuring themselves. Women on the other hand feel more energized. So you might want to try the beer and horizontal tango thing like people have been suggesting. And Cosmo has only been wrong on one thing since I've read the magazine.

Actually, I'm usually rather energized after. Girls always think that's odd.

And why's everyone obsessed w/ thinking my not sleeping has anything to do w/ sex? Seriously. The act itself isn't that important in the grand scheme of things. Is that really all people think about? Wow. I've much more important things on my mind.

Don't get me wrong. I like making out as much as the next person. But sometimes I'd rather just watch TV.

If you can't sleep, resting is the next best thing for your body. Turn out the lights; lie on your back; stretch and relax and your muscles in turn, from your toes to your fingers; and breath slowly, deeply and regularly. A final strategy is to move your consciousness deeper into your skull. What I mean is, during normal waking hours, you probably feel the center of your "self" to be pinpointed a couple inches behind your eyes. If you relax and try to sink that center deeper -- say, between your ears -- this may be enough to propel you into slumber.

Hope this works!

Why don't you go up to Linares and ask one of the medicinal plant people what she would recommend? Some relaxing mate like hojas de naranja agria or something.

There's a funny Dear Abby where a woman stops drinking coffee after noon and her husband's snoring "stops." That might help.

Try not eating an hour before you want to sleep, too.

Anne Lamotte recommends a clever technique for clearing the mind in _Bird By Bird_: Imagine that each thought is a mouse, and then imagine picking up each one by the tail and dropping each into a jar until all of the thoughts are collected and the "noise" in your head stops.

Mucha suerte.

The pastor at a christian seminar I'm attending this week, recommends reading and memorising a scripture before going to sleep. U're supposed to place all your worries to God and the problems will be taken care of (if u believe there's one, depending on your religion).

So anyway, have u been cured of your insomnia yet?

insomnia really sucks but i think that if u have a dog or a little buddy next to you for you to hold on to its is a tool and great helpfull way to get to sleep. insomnia can also be less affective if you drink alot of milk as well as doing alot of exercising. the more you exercise, the more tired out you will get and soon enough fall stright to sleep, like a baby. trust me, i know how it feel to be up 4, 5 in the morning, thinking i didnt get one wink of sleep last night, and it sucks to know that but now i exercise. everything is alot better as well as taking some remedy. over the counter found in the nearest drugstore... well i hope i have helped good luck and get some sleep!!!!!!

Hi! Oy sleeping troubles can be a drag, and believe you me I know from experience (its 3 in the morning now)! The night before I went to the bed at 12 and couldn't sleep practicaly all night. Last night however, I went into bed and starting reading the tales of King Arthur, which my friend gave me as a birthday present, and I fell asleep almost instantly like a baby lamb. I suggest this and other fairly boring novels. Especially lengthy ones with old english, knights, wars, round tables and magical swords! Another good technique is listening to italian, spanish, german (or whatever language you fancy) leaning tapes. They are also educational and in the morning you are guaranteed to be fluent! Going with other people's suggestions of focusing you thoughts to you "inner brain" and finding the center between your ears...you can try headstands, they tend to work for me as they make blood flow to your head and leave you with a heavy feeling. Hard to explain, but works for me! If you are not as cordinated and are unable to do a headstand, yoga is a good stress reliever (although that also takes some extent of cordination). Anyways good luck, and keep me updated!

To everyone that posted here, thanks! You've helped more than one person tonight. ^ ^;

~ [An insomniac-ish] Silver