Sleeping like a baby

I thought I was sleeping well until I started talking about it. My all life that I can remember I haven’t slept “good”. There are days that I do sleep really deeply, but this happens usually once a month maybe.

How did I sleep before talking with others and learning what it actually means to sleep?

I woke up after every 1,5 hours or 2 hours.
Falling back asleep took me 20 minutes.
Every night I HAD to go to the bathroom since I already was awake.
It took me 30-40 minutes sometimes hours to fall asleep.
Waking up was super hard, but thanks to the army order, I had it in me to just jump up and do the day.
Nights when I knew I didn’t have to go anywhere the next day I stayed up until 4am at night at least. Sometimes even on school days.
I saw dreams EVERY night. Sleeping was for me like going to the cinema. It scared me many nights and many mornings it made me just sleep on and on because of how good they were.
I heard every voice that the house made at night, I heard others snoring, talking in their sleep, cats walking, dogs moving, others turning sides, cars passing outside. Everything woke me up.

How most of the people sleep (what I have learned by talking with people)?

They go to sleep, they fall asleep in 15-20 minutes.
Waking up is always hard, but they feel like they actually rested.
They just sleep and remember nothing in the morning.
It’s rare when they see a dream and almost never remember what they saw.

I remember being something like 4 or 5. My parents went somewhere and I and my sisters had to stay for the night at our family friends’ place. I remember being up for a really long time after we were sent to bed. And this is the first time I remember me being amazed and confused how a little kid fell asleep like in 5 minutes. I was talking and suddenly she was asleep. WHAT? So I just looked at the yellow curtains, decided that yellow now is my favorite color, waited, had some thoughts, waited… Waited… One of the kids turned the side… I pretended to sleep so maybe I will fall asleep also… Nothing, I actually remember the moment when my parents finally drove by, the car lights making the curtain even more yellow. I remember walking out and I remember that I finally got to sleep at home that night.

So I have known since then that it is really hard for me to fall asleep and I have since then tried to find ways to fall asleep faster or fall asleep at all.

What did I do to help me fall asleep until 17?

Played games in bed with a blanket and a pillow and my teddybears until I just fell asleep. (I played A LOT 2 games – one where it was a big storm outside and the blanket was a cave with a pillow door. I was a Red Indian and I saw a bear passing in this awful storm, I called it in and kept it safe, then passed by a rabbit, same with it. I played they were wanted and I hid them. Another game was laying down and I imagined I was hanging under a plane while it flew. It was more complicated, but my imagination was so good it actually felt real, the flying.)
I tucked myself in until I felt like I was in a baby carriage. Seriously, I did it until I was around 9 years old. It worked like magic. I put the pillow over my head and blanket really tight and I felt like a cocoon.
I swung myself a tiny bit on one side. Just like someone would move a baby carriage back and forth.
I moved my legs or crunch my toes thinking only about that.
I held my eyes open really strongly and let them slowly close, like this 3 times until I had to fight it off and finally just fell asleep.
Listened to music with headphones all night to sleep well.
Or listened to music from a radio with a really low volume.

It has been a real rollercoaster and I have had countless sleepless nights while thinking – this is how people sleep. I didn’t really think it is not okay, I did know that others sleep another way, but I never stopped to think that why I don’t sleep like that. When I got 17 It got interesting because every time I talked to someone about my dreams, they said: “WHAAAT, that’s so awesome/crazy/scary/interesting, I wish I could remember/see dreams.” This is when I started to have questions: “You don’t see dreams? You sleep all night? You don’t wake up to everything?”

I have insomnia. The older I got the stronger it got. What is insomnia?

Insomnia is difficulty falling asleep or staying asleep, even when a person has the chance to do so. Habitual sleeplessness; inability to sleep.

Easy right. Apparently, if it is chronical, there is no actual cure for it. That’s the harsh truth I found out when I wanted to fix the problem. There are ways to help you sleep better and I am not talking about sleeping pills. But when you know you got the problem and stop pushing yourself to do the things to sleep better, then it will just come back, no matter how tired or not.

My sleeping has gotten better, but sadly when I went to the doctor a month ago and filled a form, it still said I have really strong insomnia. And to imagine that I have gotten it many times better.

Okay, so I will tell everything I do, to keep Matu sleeping. I am like a baby I have to work on every day.

I have had my whole life a dream catcher upon my bed. I still do, a bigger one now and it is all attached to a moon. I believe in it and apparently, me just believing helps me sleep more calmly and rather see good dreams. I try to keep the room cold. Even if it means keeping windows open in the middle of winter. I am so used to sleeping windows open, I don’t wake up with a sore throat or feeling sick. I love myself in a cocoon. When the room is cold, this is my place to sleep with 3 blankets and many pillows. Otherwise, I don’t like cold at all.

I make the room as dark as possible. To me, a room is not dark when I just close really light curtains in the summer. It means my mother buys me the thickest curtains she could find and I am still not okay with so I will sew another pair of really thick and dark curtains to the first ones and then I am okay, but I still turn my back to the window in the morning. Any kind of light will wake me up. Now my sweet boyfriend made me a nice birthday gift – a sleeping mask. It works like magic. I sometimes put it on even when we go to bed in “complete darkness”. Just so when I open my eyes it really is all black.

I try to not drink before bed. But usually, I still have to go once like 2am or 4 am. So many nights I decide to drink tea or hot milk with honey. (Calming tea, good-sleep tea, chamomile tea, nights tea.)

I am taking an all natural sleeping liquid. It doesn’t make me sleep, but it helps to build the deep sleep habit. Helps you wake up less. Link if someone is interested. It doesn’t make me dizzy or anything, but after 3 months of taking it, I feel like I am slowly getting it. I don’t take it as much as it says on it. I take it probably 4 times a week before bed. That is just how I feel I want to take it.

I don’t wear clothes while sleeping. Yeah, to some it’s disgusting, but to me, it is just something that helps me sleep. Why? Because clothes on my body will wake me up many times in one night. I have a blanket and when I stay over to someplace, yes I will wear clothes where needed. The only one who sees me sleeping, however I want with my body is my man. Just because I kind of control myself sleeping next to others. I will always know if a blanket is on or not. But next to my man… Just the other night I was suddenly sideways in bed, my legs on his stomach and I started to climb up on his body like he is a ladder. Yeah, I woke up laughing at it. That is how free I feel sleeping next to him.

I don’t look at my phone before bed and when I have to, I have the blue light filter turned on. At all, I try to NOT watch my phone as much as possible. When we watch a movie with my man, I usually fall asleep okay anyway because the time goes past my sleeping mode.

What is blue light???? So why should I use the blue light filter??

I go to sleep around the same time every night. I am a young person I know, which means I really can’t go to sleep every night at 10 o’clock. But I keep my sleeping time between 22:30 and 00:00. Weekends we sometimes go 01:00. But to me, it’s getting really hard. I’d rather wake up a little early than to stay up all night.

Good mood helps me sleep nice. I and my man are learning to fall asleep only when we are feeling nice. Yes, sometimes we fight and our egos have been so big or we just didn’t know how to get over it, but we are learning. Plus every night we find the time to talk about our days or our thought. I think it is good, that way we won’t go to bed so worried or not worried at all just because we know we have support next to us. When I feel stressed, sad, insulted, worried, not loved – I can stay up until 5am and then I will fall asleep just because I finally will also exhaust myself. (5am is my maximum)

When I go to bed bad, I will see bad dreams. Okay, when I see a bad dream I try to forget it. I tell to someone, talk about and then let it go. I lie to myself that “I slept so good.” At night I think I am going to have a good night sleep even when I don’t feel like. This kind of lies work and they don’t hurt anyone. They just start tricking your brain into thinking good and seeing good.

I bought an anatomical pillow. First I made my man buy it so he would get rid of his headaches and he did. Then I started to realize that I also sleep better with it. I bought my pillow at Dormeo. I believe strongly that the bed we sleep in should be fresh and made for you. The energy should go with yours. It means – blankets, pillows, mattress, teddy bears, night light, the direction the bed is, the light in the bedroom. Everything should be by you, to sleep the best you can. I know so many who know nothing about how important it is. I don’t know a lot either, I was also surprised when headaches were gone just thanks to a pillow. At least I am halfway there to create a nest that helps me sleep.

Sheets are as important as all that inside them. My body doesn’t like to sleep in silk, therefore, I don’t buy silk, I buy cotton. Learn to know what you like.

Last important thing is changing from time to time the direction I am sleeping. It works. Your body feels energies even if you don’t want to acknowledge. I have listened to my body a lot and thanks to this I have made sleeping easier. For example, when I lived in the sauna house, I woke up 3 times turned 180 degrees in my bed, without me knowing it. Therefore I turned my bed around and It didn’t happen anymore. Another example – when I feel before bed that we should turn around in bed, my man turns with me and then we sleep heads in foot and feet in the head.

Since I was little I liked to move my room from time to time. I think it is necessary to move energy. Sadly our new apartment has such a big bed we can’t really turn or move it. So we just change the direction in the bed.

I don’t wake up as much as before, but twice a night is for sure, sometimes more and it’s rare when I don’t wake up at all. I don’t want to take sleeping pills because it’s not just a period, it has been my whole life. I think it will get better and better. If someone feels the same way or recognizes themselves in this story. I strongly recommend trying these tips.

How to sleep better?

Make your bedroom dark, quiet, peaceful and into something you would like to sleep in.
Buy blankets, pillows, sheets that feel good against your body. One thing in life we just have to invest in.
Try sleeping naked and encourage your partner to try with you. If you don’t like it you don’t have to – people are different. But I personally know people who EEWW’d me and promised to never sleep naked until they tried and ended up doing it for years already.
Believe in good sleep
Try drinking calming teas 2 hours before bed or before bed if you are like me knowing you have to go anyway.
Set a time when starts ‘no phones’. Instead play a board game, cards or read a book in bed. Or watch a movie in the living room, but don’t bring technology into bed.
Have a shower before bed, it will feel really good after getting everything the day gave you off in the shower + wash your sheets at the minimum of twice a month.
Go to bed only with a good feeling. Or okay feeling. Going to bed crying is okay too because a bed is a safe place to a lot of us, but don’t fall asleep sad, mad or hurt.