General Approaches to Falling Asleep:
- The most commonly used approach to sleeping is going to bed at a certain fixed time and getting up at a fixed time. If you dont fall sleep, you rest in bed.
The theory is that whether you sleep or not, at least you get some "rest". This is a good approach if you get a good nights sleep each night.
However, if you have difficulty in falling asleep as many Tinnitus sufferers do, this approach can lead to a lot of tossing and turning and an inconsistent sleep pattern. Some nights you sleep well and other nights you get little or no sleep.
You can modify this approach. If you dont fall asleep in 25-30 minutes, you can get up and read or do some other relaxing activity. You return to bed when you get sleepy. The main problem with doing this is that the time you spend out of bed takes away from your "rest" time.
- In this approach you again go to sleep at a certain fixed time and get up at a fixed time. However, you adjust your sleep schedule. For example, lets say you sleep 8 hours per night, but your sleep pattern is not very consistent. You intentionally cut your sleep time to 7 hours per night.
By doing this, you wont sleep as much each night, but, hopefully, you will eliminate the bad-sleep nights. If after a couple of weeks you still have trouble consistently falling asleep, you cut your sleep time down to 7 hours per night. You will keep cutting down your nightly sleep hours until you are able to fall asleep consistently.
Once you reach a stable sleep pattern, you will probably feel a bit tired for a couple of weeks, but eventually your body will adjust to less sleep and you will feel "normal" again. If you use this approach, try not to nap.
John Currie is a leading expert on tinnitus, hyperacusis and Menieres disease and has been running his tinnitus related website since 1999.
His advice and
tinnitus treatment plans have helped thousands of people around the world.
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tinnitus website.