insomnia and body repairs?

[chefguru]

So I've read that you need a certain amount of rest/sleep for your body to recover and such. How does this work with insomniacs?

I don't normally sleep very much, I have gone for months at a time on as little as 2 hours of sleep a night. For the past few months, I have had no recognizable sleep cycle at all- some nights I can sleep at 2am, some nights I'm up til 6am, on rare occasions, I'll pass out at 8pm and sleep for 1-2 hours, then I'm wide awake until the next night. and then there's the occasional nights when I don't go to sleep at all. When I do sleep, it's usually only for about 4 hours.

I get plenty of "rest" late at night (sitting, surfing the net, watching tv, reading, waiting to fall asleep) but not much sleep.

Nothing seems to work to help with falling alseep- sleeping pills don't have much effect at all, melatonin doesn't work, I don't do caffine or stimulants late at night, no nicotine or alcohol, I don't eat or exercise too close to "bedtime".

I'm not sure if my body is not getting enough sleep to repair itself, or if my resting and relaxing late at night are enough. Has anyone else here ever dealt with something similar? any ideas or suggestions?

[.V.]

I used to have insomnia too. Then when I started controlling my carbohydrates, lost a lot of fat, and gained some muscle my sleep improved. That's just me though, can't promise it would work for you.

One other thing I've heard helps sleep be better and recovery be better is supplimenting with GABA before you workout. I haven't tried this and can't say if it is true or not. It might be worth a try though.