Yes, absolutely. Last night I got 0 hours of sleep. To put it lightly, today is going to be tough. My body actually seems to have adapted to pulling one or two all-nighters in a row, but it still affects me. In particular it affects my mouth motor skills, my balance, my wit, and of course I feel weird. The less sleep I get, the weirder I feel. It's hard to explain the feeling, but part of it is that I can feel the bags under my eyes. I sometimes become more irritable. I often have a mini-depression and decline any offers to hang out with friends or go out to eat with my family. I just want to stay home and be mad at my insomnia. I also usually avoid driving because driving often makes me drowsy, and I fear falling asleep at the wheel. Ooh that gives me a thought. I don't know if car rides make you sleepy, but if you're ever DESPERATE for a nap consider asking a friend or family member to drive you around a little till you fall asleep. It would work for me. Let me give you some tips that may help you fall asleep:
Swilow mentioned meditation... There's a man who was in the military many years ago who was shot in the head in such a way that he didn't die, but after that bullet wound he essentially lost part of his brain and subsequently lost the ability to sleep. True story. Look it up. I don't know if he's still alive, but this guy literally could not fall asleep until he died. But everybody needs rest, so every night he would lie in bed and meditate for four hours. My father's side of the family is from India and does much meditation, and I have often heard from them that just a few hours of good meditation can equal eight hours of sleep in terms of rest. In other words, meditating can be way more restful than sleeping. If you're good at meditating.
So, I have severe insomnia. Mon-Thurs of last week I got collectively 7 hours of sleep, maybe. I have RBD, which is like sleepwalking. I'm prescribed klonopin for it. It keeps me from hitting my wife and baby in my sleep and knocking things off of the bedside table. I usually take 2 mg, and I've been taking that for at least six months. I also have restless leg syndrome, and for that I'm prescribed 700 mg of gabapentin (weird dosage, I know). The gabapentin is pretty sedating. I sometimes take 50mg of benadryl, but if I don't have any gabapentin the benadryl just worsens my RLS. Because of my RBD I am also instructed to take 15 mg of melatonin a night. I also often take 2000mg of valerian root.
I have sleep anxiety, and other types of anxiety, so despite all of these sedatives I often still can't fall asleep until like, 5am or later. And I take my meds before midnight, taking them in order of their peak time. Gaba first, klonopin an hour later, melatonin and valerian 1.5 hours later. I think I'm f*ing immune to sedatives, because all of those together STILL do not put me to sleep.
So here comes the useful info. When I was first prescribed gaba, which was rather recently, I went through it pretty fast because it was more sedating than my other meds. When I ran out, I had bad RLS, so I googled what can help with RLS. Many websites said that stretching and working out can help. My dad told me today that stretching RIGHT before bed wakes your body up, but stretching, or more specifically doing yoga, near bedtime can help you with sleep. How? Well, just like medicine, there are some yoga moves that are sedating, and some that are stimulating. Most are stimulating. If you have any interest in learning about sedating yoga poses, I'm pretty sure you could find them pretty easily through google.
You've probably heard this before, but warm milk supposedly does something with L-Tryptophan that can make you lethargic. However, all humans are at least a tiny bit lactose intolerant, which can upset the stomach and wake up the body. I have a theory that warm soy milk or almond milk may be less stimulating and just as sedating. The purpose in warming the milk is to make the milk more easily digestible, kind of like how when people are sick they often eat chicken noodle soup because it's easy to digest and hard to upset the stomach.
But wait, there's more. As a chronic insomniac, I've done a crap ton of research about things that can help me sleep. Okay, so I have to admit, I CAN get to sleep at a reasonable time if I REALLY need to. But for me it takes a hella lot of effort. I have to wake up early. I have to actively not be lazy. Like, if I want to go to a store a mile away, I'll walk there instead. Basically all throughout the day I'm expending energy to tire myself out. If I want to go to bed at a reasonable time each night I also have to work out at least every three days, ideally every other day, with a combination of weight and cardio exercises. Don't push yourself too much though. You don't want to be super sore when you're done, but you want to feel like you had a good workout. This applies to both guys and girls. If your gym has a shower and/or massage chair/bed, take advantage of it! Especially if it has a massage bed.
Okay that's not all though. So, you want to work out before it gets dark. That's my rule. Work out too late and you'll wake up your body. You can modify your rule for when you want to work out. It just has to be at least several hours before bed.
Before and after I work out, I stretch and do yoga. After the workout and the post-workout yoga, I do that simple yoga pose where you just lie on your back and stretch and relax.
You don't have to do all of the things that I'm suggesting, but the more you do, the better chance you'll have at getting to sleep.
The other important thing to do is either journal or meditate before bed. This is SUPER important because people with insomnia tend to carry a lot of thoughts in their head around the time that they should be asleep. I prefer a journal. Like, seriously, get a journal and write in it every night before bed. Write everything that you can think of until there are basically no more thoughts in your head. This is probably more effective than going to the gym every other night.
Now come the things to avoid. Most of them are pretty obvious. I don't remember the exact timings, so I'm gonna estimate/try to remember...
Obviously no caffeine in the evening. Same with nicotine. I used to smoke a pack a day, but if I wanted to sleep that night I'd stop smoking around 6.
Turn off all monitors -- tv, computers, phones -- at least 2 hours before bed, ideally 4 hours before. Keep your phone off of your bed for anxiety reasons.
If you like to have a midnight snack like I do, eat something small that won't stimulate your digestive system too much. A quick google search can help you find a list of appropriate night-time foods, but a suggestion that I really liked was low-sugar yogurt. One egg is also a good idea, especially if you take my advice about working out.
This kind of goes without saying, but once your sleep starts improving, try to set a regular sleep schedule so that your body can get used to sleeping at a certain time. I don't know if you have any kids, but I have a toddler and she goes to sleep every night right around 10:30. It's because she's been going to bed at 10:30 for so long (6 months?) that her body now naturally gets tired at that time. Same thing with adults. Circadian rhythm. (Speaking of, during my sleep study I learned that some people just naturally have abnormal circadian rhythms that can't really be helped with melatonin and stuff)
Out of all the things that I just said, the most helpful things are working out or doing yoga regularly, avoiding all of those things that I listed before bedtime, and writing in a journal or meditating before bed. Especially the last one.
Okay, I saved the best for last. This is probably the least known technique to help one get to sleep. Btw I'm a BL noob, but I am not associated with the app that I'm about to endorse. I'm not trying to promote a brand, I just want to share this incredibly helpful software. So, I bought this app on my phone called iDoser. I'm not suggesting that you buy it. TBH I torrented the PC version of it and converted the files to the right type (easier than it sounds). The cool thing about having the app on my computer is that I can listen to iDoser and Pandora or music on youtube at the same time. So, iDoser is a software that plays binaural beats that create different effects. These beats essentially hypnotize you into feeling a certain way by playing different tones in each ear. It's really cool stuff. They have "doses" for recreational experiences like Oxy, they have doses that improve sex and video game experiences, but most awesomely they have doses that help you sleep. The doses on the phone are okay, but the doses on the computer version are better in my opinion. There is one in particular called "SleepingAngel" that's on both the PC and phone. What many of these doses do is their individual beats going into each ear change your brain wave to something else. With SleepingAngel, I lie down with bluetooth noise-cancelling headphones, play some calm background music on youtube, close my eyes after making sure that the room is very dark, and then I start the dose. I don't understand the science of it exactly, but Sleeping Angel, I believe, carries your brainwave into lower and lower brainwaves, until eventually your brain has the brainwave that is associated with deep sleep. Out of all the things that I've suggested, SleepingAngel has the highest success rate of putting me to sleep. Like sometimes I'm skeptical of binaural beats but then I play my sleep dose playlist and I wake up 8 hours later and my reassurance in the software is brought back. Again, the app/computer program is called iDoser. If you go to the website you can buy the software and some doses, but if you're sneaky like me there are other ways to get iDoser and its various doses. Note, a lot of people try iDoser one time and it doesn't work and they give it up. There are tutorials on how to use the software. Essentially, use noise-cancelling over-the-ear headphones. Keep your room as dark as possible (no live monitors) and close your eyes. A sleep mask helps. The hard part is, the doses work best if you adopt a meditational mindset while you listen. If you've ever meditated you know what I mean. And also, the doses become more effective the more that you dose because your mind kind of has to adapt to listening to the beats.
It sounds like a lot of work but it's really not that much work, and as a chronic insomniac I have to say that this has been the most helpful thing for me. If I have an important meeting or interview the following morning, I follow all of my rules for what not to do before sleep, do some yoga, and then listen to some binaural beats and calming music, and before I know it I fall asleep. Like I said before, the way that this software works is kind of like hypnotism. And like hypnotism, the more you believe it'll affect you, the more it will.
I think I'm about out of suggestions. Plus I've been talking A LOT. I'll end with suggesting some good OTC sleep aids. Melatonin is the most helpful. Benadryl (diphenhydramine) can be helpful but can make insomnia worse if you have a history of RLS. Valerian Root helps me a little. Concerning prescriptions, I advise not getting benzos or non-benzos like ambien. They'll help a lot, but you'll quickly get a tolerance and if you ever want to stop taking these medications, it will lead to hellish nights of possible RLS and definite insomnia. The best sleep med I've ever been prescribed is mirtazapine/remeron. It's a sedating anti-depressant, so it's best for people with insomnia AND depression. But it can be used off-label for insomnia as needed, and IME its nearly as sedating as xanax.
I hope at least some of what I said was helpful! Good luck to you.