Welcome sleepyheads.  This blog will be a description of one man's personal experiences with a really bad case of insomnia.

I intend this to be helpful information, but I will describe my experiences with things which worked for me, and which didn't work for me.  I will discuss lifestyle, OTC medications, nutrition, foods and food additives, lifestyle, prescription meds, LIFESTYLE, and other topics.

THESE ARE NOT RECOMMENDATIONS OR ADVICE.  I AM NOT A PHYSICIAN.


If you're finding this blog in the middle of the night after desperately trying to fall asleep, I know your pain.  I let my symptoms go on without properly reacting to them for WAY TOO LONG, and wound up in a somewhat desperate state.

After more than five years of dealing with this debilitating condition, more or less successfully, I can now describe with some measure of confidence many factors which either contribute to or diminish the quality of my sleep.  You can expect this blog to evolve, so don't expect it to look the same every time you come back.  As I add more info I will attempt to organize it somewhat.

I will over time break down those things which affect me in the short term (hours or less), medium term (6 months to 2 years), and long term.

Short Term - FOOD ADDITIVES, anything containing MSG or any MSG- or free glutamate-loaded products which hide under the hundreds of names used to hide MSG.  See http://msgtruth.com/avoid.htm    I AM CERTAIN BEYOND A DOUBT THAT MSG KEEPS ME AWAKE AT NIGHT.  And here's the problem with this: MSG, and foods containing high (and artificially enhanced) amounts of free glutamate, taste fantastic.  MSG makes stuff taste great!  And so, if you are in the business of selling food, you want people to love your food and so you will add these products to it.  You have to because everyone else is, so if you don't your prepared food will seem bland by comparison.

This means that I am virtually guaranteed to be eating foods high in free glutamate whenever I buy any prepared food, in a restaurant, grocery store takeout, etc.  Some grocery store hot bars will post ingredient lists.  I READ THEM, ALWAYS.  I look for anything that says "natural flavor", "natural XXX flavor", etc.  They really can't help themselves; IT'S IN EVERYTHING, and avoiding it is quite difficult.

Many foods which are know to be naturally very tasty are...guess what....HIGH IN FREE GLUTAMATE.  Beer.  Parmesan cheese.  Ripe tomatoes.  Soy sauce.  I never eat Chinese, ever.  I avoid soy altogether.  I love homegrown tomatoes, but eat them very sparingly.

A heavy dose of MSG will keep me awake, in spite of any sleep medication I am taking.

It took me years of denial before I came to terms with the list on msgtruth.org.  But after I did, and I finally began very carefully avoiding nearly all processed foods, I started sleeping better.  And after some deliberate experiments on myself (and some unintentional ones), I confirmed this.

A can of popular chicken noodle soup contains at least 7 sources of free glutamate: chicken stock, monosodium glutamate, modified food starch, flavoring, dehydrated chicken broth, soy protein isolate, yeast extract.  They could put a bowl of dog poo in front of us and if they loaded it with enough chemicals it would taste good to us.  It is being used at least partially to hide food price inflation; lower quality food can be made to taste good by the liberal addition of chemicals.  However, people are becoming aware of this.  Perhaps this is why the chairman of Campbells' Soups recently made this telling statement:

http://www.wsj.com/articles/campbell-soup-to-unveil-cost-cutting-plan-1424268625

Ms. Morrison said consumers now days want a more authentic, genuine food experience, and they are skeptical of the ability of large food companies to create that. “We are well aware of the mounting distrust of Big Food,” she said, adding that it is proving difficult to change that perception.

Yes, I prefer my food "authentic" and "genuine".  But Americans are busy busy busy, and no one cooks anymore.  So everyone is eating food prepared by someone else.  Food that is designed from the start to "taste great!", because otherwise it won't sell.  So whatever they have to do to it to make it "taste great!", they will do it without hesitation.  If that means blowing up my sleep cycle, well that's tough.