YOU ARE NOT ALONE - A companion online community discussion board for The Mental Illness Happy Hour podcast with Paul Gilmartin

Do you have any suggestions for an app that will help me with meditation and sleeping? I often wake up during the night and am unable to get back to sleep. My mind doesn't race, but I spend a lot of time thinking/worrying about all the shit I have to do - not work stuff, but stuff at home (kids, fixing stuff, managing finances). And none of this stuff should be causing me stress. I have good kids, and we are doing fairly well financially. I just can't stop worrying about all the shit I have to do. Help!

These are what I have on my phone at the moment: Relax Lite, Deep Sleep Hypnosis, and Sleep Well. Rela Lite was recommended by my therapist for panic attacks but it also put me to sleep easily. Hope this helps.

Thanks! Will give them a try.

This may sound odd, but maybe check out some of the ASMR vids on youtube. I don't get the pleasant sensations that the videos are created to trigger in some people (that would make something pleasant and maybe ease the misery marathon for which i am the poster child- and also the only ballot caster for the job, yeah me-haha). Anyways went thru severe insomnia for many months a couple years ago. Same as you, I could konk out, but wake in a couple hours to solve the world's
problems in my head along with mental flow charts, spreadsheets, and below average reports of my successful progress to date of my useless game plan to alter the future for everyone so I wouldn't snap during an important meeting and spontaneously combust from the rage of everyone not going with the program I had worked all night creating so I would be okay, which I was reminded once in the past already, is frowned upon in the employee handbook, etc. I had to party like that all night to make life flow as hiccup-free as possible. Clearly i was too stressed, depressed, anxious and exhausted to cope day to day with anyone faltering or flubbing up the lines I carefully went over and over all night long to make their day relaxing as well, see I am thoughtful that way...anyways, if they wouldn't be unpredictable, did a good job while remaining patient, helpful and genuinely warm all day I would have less stress, so would everyone else, right? Looking back, I guess I should have finger out the screenplay for them to realize how it needed to be done, for them, and the whole team.

I also blame as a factor in my sleepless, my own intrusive thought Patten of "having to forcibly keep the earth rotating at night so everyone else would rest well, and execute this plan that everyday they had a chance to make happen for me... If something didn't go tragically off the rails for just one day, maybe I could scrounge up bits of gravitational pull, after they had their fill, or had any fumes of it left to share with me to huff (not the most helpful way to exist, but so it was my only one at the time...). Warning: this didn't work and everyone is an asshole for not telepathically knowing what was expected of them. Not me, I did it right.

Wait what was the question? Oh yeah, sleep... Haha (beats self up for lack of focus and failure of containing my need to overflowing myself that was my new years resolution this year. I want to try twitter. I just can't do it in 140 characters or less.... Whoa there I go again. Shit, it gotten even longer now. They are gonna hate me here, I hate my attempt so far. God. Inhalirmg... Exhaling..... telling myself, it okay, keep trying...Regrouping...

Anyways, asmr vids -they are videos of whispering people saying lovely things, or white noise type sounds that in some folks produce a tingling sensation that it really nice, or at least that's what I get as the point. lt feels quite silly to watch them mostly, but as I was newly divorced and an empty nester, I hadn't lived alone ever and welcomed the tv's noise, it muffled weird noises potential attacker might wake me up before he put me out of my misery and I hate being the one who has to shoulder responsibility for living, dying, being me, whatever...So I was hopeful the tv would drown out homicidal maniacs crawl in thru my window-type sounds in the apt. It felt, well, like company somehow, a hum that I needed to recreate the sound of snoring I had become accustomed to sleeping next to for a couple decades.

Anyways some of those I found very capable of kinda shifting my woke up-edness awareness to, as they are so mellow that they really don't promote much thought outside of these low quiet noises that are repetitive. There was one that did the trick especially well of a woman (Sandra something or other) who wrote on news print with markers. Worked like a charm.

I know this is not a conventional tool, but after many nights of trial and error, this worked sometimes for me. I found confounding ones and made a playlist that cycled over and over. Of course this is stupid if the tv being on is not conducive to sleep for ya, well.... Just leave this idea here and maybe someone you meet someday could use it if they aren't finding relief otherwise. And I have only wasted an hour to read this rambling of an obscure too that really may not work on others at all, which makes me wanna delete this.

I wish I would stop writing now. We all do.
Sigh.

I hope you have found something that works... Oh!

P.S. spotify and I spoke other music sites have pieces that are up to 8 or 10 hours long of nature, ocean ,rain, which might be a solution to pull you back into sleep.

The ideal cure, which I have yet to patent, so snap it up now.... would be a Sunday rainy day, my dad watching golf on the tv and a clothes dryer running down the hall.... Fondest memories of the best naps ever when I was a little girl.

If someone knows of this combo of magic captured somewhere, send a link! I will be indebted forever- after I wake up, anyway.... 8/ zzzz

Awhile back, I tried a mediation podcast I liked called Mediation Oasis that I found helpful for sleep. It's also available in app form. Good luck!

I use the Meditation Oasis podcast. I find the speaker's voice soothing.

Recently I decided to meditate more regularly and started using an app called Insight. It includes thousands of free guided meditations and also social features. You can join groups on specific topics and people share about their struggles, give suggestions, etc.

I have a few apps on my phone that I use to help me get to sleep. I suffer from insomnia as well as the racing mind that keeps me from falling asleep. The app Calm has "bedtime stories" which are basically just different stories read by someone with an ultra-soothing voice. I fall asleep like a baby every time and when the story is done it will put on ambient nature sounds. Sleep Orbit is cool too because it has hundreds of sounds and you can pick your favorites to add to your list and have a go-to set of sounds that you know will help you get to sleep. For meditation/deep breathing/mindfulness practices I use Prana Breath, Headspace, and Conscious.

Hope this helps!

I used Headspace for a long time. It's not cheap but the cost is part of what has kept me on track. 10% Happier is good, too. Both have free stuff. Calm is another I've tried.

Do yoga, meditation, exercise and follow good diet plan then automatically your life will become peaceful and your sleep will also improve.

Hey, bumping this up the list, don't know why it's in the Forum Rules section.

Probably a few goodies here.,,,