I'm a bad sleeper too. Always have been. Sometimes I walk around tired the entire day, but round the clock of 23PM I become wide awake, again unable to sleep.

Some pointers that have helped me:
- Accept it. Don't stress over it, it only makes it worse. I stopped keeping a clock near my bed, as I would always take a peek (semi-subconciously) and then stress with how much time had passed. Now I have to get out of bed to know the time.
- Don't stay in bed. Take a walk, drink some hot coco/milk, whatever. For some reason, I find this hard to do. But when I do, it helps.
- When I get lack of sleep and am tired the following day, resist the urge to crawl in bed for too long. 2h of nappy time is the absolute maximum, according to a doctor/psychiatrist I asked this too. Resting for 20m, not longer, REALLY helps!
- Try to make your sleeping schedual a routine. Going to bed and getting up approximately at the same hour every day helps. Get up at the same hour even if you stayed awake long that night. Bite the bullet.

Hope this helps,

a fellow insomniac

I have a good number of nights where it's difficult to get to sleep no matter how tired I am. I recently stumbled upon a strange solution and I have no idea why it works.

I sleep on the floor beside my bed. I know it sounds strange; but for some reason it works for me a decent amount of the time.

I have a rule. If I lay awake for more than a half hour, I get up have a few beers and watch something stupid and boring for a hour on TV then try again. Don't serf the net or do anything that might get you interested. You'll stay up longer and you'll think about it when you get back to bed.

This may be a bit insensitive to your social situation, I don't know, but a good romp in the sack (with someone else, anyone else I won't judge)... should do the trick. I love weekends.

Drink enough to make you pass out once you finish the final deed.

The activity that works the best for me requires a second willing participant . However, if that isn't available to you, getting up and taking a short walk seems to work well for me. Or trying to read an article or two for work/school. Anything that you find dry should do the trick.

And have to agree with Katerin about the big day theory.

Working out right before bed is bad, gets your body all worked up. Make sure to do it several hours beforehand. Everybody's body is different, but that's generally a consensus.

I am a little similar. I don't often lie in bed unable to sleep, but I'm often right next to my bed, tired, but I don't get in bed for stupid reasons. Like Adult swim. Adult swim has ruined any good sleeping habits I used to have.

I am a light sleeper and have the same problems. I stopped reading in bed. Stopped watching TV and internet surfing, too. I walk in, lay down, and am out in seconds. Purity of effort.

As long as I don't play Fatal Frame II, that works for me as well.

The only game that I had nightmares and/or problems sleeping after was The Suffering (Xbox/PS2). The periodic flashing of the creatures just stuck with me for some reason.

Fresh air I could see. Like, making some hot tea and sitting outside. But forced marches around the gymnasium? That's just gonna wear out your shoes.

Stop arguing and go to sleep. Because I said so.

This is easily the best piece of advice as far as my own sleep issues go.

Every so often I hit a nice schedule where I'm up around 8am every day, not needing an alarm clock or anything to wake up, feel good, and get out of bed. Then I do something stupid like go out with friends after I get off work at 1am on Saturday night, stay up till 9am, sleep till 1pm, rush to get ready for work in fifteen minutes, and then I get home from work the next night and I don't start getting tired until almost 8am.

At that point I'm stuck in that same crap schedule where I get four hours of sleep and have a hell of a time getting out of bed in the afternoon, but I'm still never tired when I get home from work. Like now for instance. I've been home for an hour and a half. I'm practically wired.

The only thing that ever works for me as far as getting back into a better schedule is only sleeping for an hour or two one night, taking quick naps during the day, and then going to bed early that night absolutely exhausted.

I rarely have the willpower to get myself back into the nice schedule.

Most of the stuff I do is mentioned above. I've had insomnia since I was 12.

Biggest thing that helped me is no sleep binging or trying to catch up on sleep. Ever. So no matter what time you goto sleep, get out of bed 8 hours later. Having roughly the same sleep schedule over the weekend can be...well, rough. Try not to vary your sleep during the weekend by more than 2 hours from the weekdays (so if you're staying up til 11pm or 12am on weekdays, do *not* stay up past 2am on weekends, and be out of bed by 8 hours later.)

I stopped all caffeine. This sounds bad (and the headaches for a week and a half are just that...bad), however, if you can do it, and drink a pint (half liter) of water when you wake up instead, you'll be *much*, *much*, *much* more awake and alert than you ever were on caffeine in the morning. The way I used to feel after my first cup of coffee is how I feel when I wake up now, but after my big glass of water I actually feel good. I love coffee. I miss coffee. I like sleeping 8 hours, though.

As my doctor told me, "your bed should only be used for sleeping and foolin' around." And foolin' around works much better than Valerian. Too much melatonin can be carcinogenic (according to my mom, the retired oncology nurse who used to take melatonin). However, it occurs naturally in milk, chicken, and turkey. And by the by, it's higher in chicken (we just eat more food and much more turkey on Thanksgiving, so we think turkey=sleepy).

Drinking lots of water during the day, and very little starting 2 hours before bed is a good idea. And no FPS, exercise, and for Thor's sake no Civ I, II, III, or IV just before bed. Anything that gets your adrenaline pumping or yer brain whirring in circles is the bad.

One thing I haven't had to do that got suggested to me was to have a habitual pattern that you do before you sleep, always in the same order. This sequence of 5-10 pre-sleeptime things can make your brain realize what's coming, habituating yourself to an official "bed time". Not sure if it works, cause the other stuff worked fine and this was last on my list.

I am an insomniac and its gotten to the extent that I had to go onto Ambien. Now heres the screwed part, that particular type of medication works wonders untill the 15 day cycle they only will perscrib you runs out then its 72 hrs wide awake untill the temp. insomnia wears off. But I whole heartedly endorse the Ambien;) tis fun.