I am trying to reach out to others to save you the pain of insomnia that I have gone through.
Glycine, a simple amino acid that some of us are lacking, works for sleep!! I have suffered with lack of sleep since menopause. I would wake up at 3:30 to use the washroom and not be able to get back to sleep. So frustrating!! So, I just got into the habit of getting up at 3:30. What sleep I did have was quite broken up and I never seemed to be able to sleep deeply like I used to. I have taken so many different types of sleep aids, sleeping pills, over the years, behavioral sleep therapy, sleep apnea evaluations, therapy, etc, etc, etc but nothing really worked.
A pharmacist friend recommended glycine to me a couple of months ago and I have been using it for a month now. I couldn't get it at a local pharmacy so I ordered it from Amazon. She recommended 3,000 mg taken an hour to a half an hour before bedtime. I thought I would start out at 2,000 mg and see how it went. 2,000 mg is more than enough for me! (I will be turning 65 this year). I take one an hour before sleep and another one a half an hour before sleep. I am now sleeping from about 10:45 till usually 6:00. Yay!!! I still have the usual get up to go to the bathroom times during the night but seem to go back to sleep without anxious thoughts keeping me awake. (I guess it must be calming to the nervous system). My friend told me that it certainly isn't something that can hurt me and so I don't have to worry about taking it long-term. I have done a lot of research on it since and I'm truly amazed that with all the doctors I have seen about my sleep over the years, no one recommended it to me!!! Grrr!! What a difference it would have made in my life if I had known earlier!!! I'm hoping to save other women from the same pain. If you have magnesium bisglycinate handy, it will do the same thing as it has a lot of glycine in it (around a thousand milligrams per magnesium pill). If I take two of those it also works, so if you need magnesium also that might help. Good luck and sweet dreams. If this helps even one person I will be thrilled!! Cathy