DH has no trouble initially falling asleep but he's extremely sensitive to the slightest bit of light

I know couples can be weirdly accomodationist, but can't he use a sleep mask or something? It seems like you have to go to a lot of effort for his sensitivity.

Weird that I knew Mike Birbiglia went to Georgetown but not that meara did. Did you know John Mullaney? I don't know him, I just know he and Nick Kroll were influenced at Georgetown by Birbiglia.

So you've mad me analyze my sleep habits.

I generally fall asleep fairly quickly. I wake up a fair amount. A solid 8 is odd. If I go to bed before 10 the odds are high ( 90%) that I will wake up between 2 and 3 that I will be up until 5. Sometimes switching to the couch where it is cooler and I can't toss and turn helps ( I sleep like a cat - sleep wake up move - sleep wake up move ) If you wake me up in the middle of the night - I think you , and possibly the entire world should die. Luckily I am too tired to make it so. Ambien CR works well, but i only take it after 2 or 3 nights of waking up and not sleeping. it leaves me groggy, but that may be partially because I 've had too many days with no sleep. Exercise helps. sometimes getting up and making a list helps.

I've had some form of insomnia all my life; there has always been at least two nights a week (and never the same two) where I would be wide awake until 3 or 4 AM. It's just gotten worse as I've gotten older.

This was me until the Celexa side effects had the bonus of reducing my insomnia by a lot. I am so, so thankful to be in the small percentage of people who have lingering gronk after taking it, because it seriously reduces my need for the Lunesta.

Nope, Bon, I don't think I did (though probably they were people I vaguely recognized). Birbigs mostly hung with the improv crowd, but some of them did a bunch of regular theater too, and he did some. And we all partied together--the improv troupe was started my...sophomore year? By some theater kids. He was a year behind me, but I was closer with some of his housemates ( who did more theater).

Brad Cooper, otoh, I mostly knew as "that guy S has a completely ridiculous thing for and says she sometimes sleeps with him when he and his gf are broken up but we don't believe her, and make fun of him for his gay gay Versace pants"

This was me until the Celexa side effects had the bonus of reducing my insomnia by a lot. I am so, so thankful to be in the small percentage of people who have lingering gronk after taking it, because it seriously reduces my need for the Lunesta.

Y'know, I haven't noticed any lingering gronk from the Celexa, but I wonder if I should try moving my taking it closer to bedtime, and see if it helps with sleeping.

I'm another chronic insomniac. There seem to be a lot of us here. Unlike Jilli I'm not usually up until 3 or 4, my body goes the other way around. I used to lie awake for an hour or more before falling asleep, and then I sometimes wake up in the middle of the night, 2 or 3 or 4 am, and just lie in bed for hours, not falling back asleep.

Problem is I am scared of taking something that might make me too dopey if one of the kids has an emergency in the middle of the night. So I just take melatonin--which at least has taken care of the not falling asleep when I go bed part of the equation. And then I usually wear a sleep mask so that the early morning light doesn't contribute to keeping me awake. I feel like my insomnia is pretty under control right now.

How did I not know that Bradley Cooper was a fellow Hoya?

I have nothing but sypathy for all the insomnia sufferers. Sleep is what keeps me sane. I'm like a toddler - grumpy, take a nap. Hungry, take a nap. Unless there's any tiny chink of light I usually fall asleep in five minutes or so. If there's light I can't sleep at all. Thusly, I usually sleep with a t-shirt over my face.

ita, please tell me to bugger off for my unsolicited medical suggestion, but have you been MRI'd for Chiari malformations? I was reading an article the other day about a woman who had the malormation and didn't know about it, then she had a fall which moved it slightly so it was putting pressure on her brain/spine which led to ten years of chronic migraines before someone figured it out. Apparently you need to do a sideways MRI for them to show up, or something.

I had chronic insomnia from around age 8 until I started taking antidepressants when I was 40. ADs knocked me out like a brick to the head every night, all night. My favorite side effect ever. When I went off them last spring I was worried that my insomnia would come back, but by and large it hasn't. There've been a couple of nights, but no where near what it use to be. Maybe the ADs helped me retrain my sleep habits or something.

That's a very nice side-effect!

Effexor (which I took for a while in the '90s) had the side-effect of making me frisky. Which was great because I'd had a real problem being up for much in my first relationship. My second relationship had much better sex due to the Effexor. Which is funny because a usual complaint about ADs is that they depress your sex drive.