"I try to get eight hours most days and usually do. This adds to my detachment from western culture by being in bed early :shock: in respect for my body and with a little thought for tomorrow."
im with ya man, i get a respectable 8 hours or close most every night. try to hit the hay around midnight, some times it's 1, sometimes it's 11 haha. every now and then i decide to drink and im up like 2-3, but as it stands now i usually only drink when my friends warm me up to the idea, and i have absolutely nothing to do the next day. i don't really care for it anymore (ill have MAYBE 2 beers, generally not) it's mostly a social thing, ill generally be there to talk to people, not to drink. last year and before however, i was still transitioning into this phase now, so i was staying up later, disregarding sleep hours as well as being ignorant about my health...
this cycle of responsibility generally started at the beginning of this year, (although the start of the transition goes back further) and as of now, i can plainly see that i am not going back. this cycle started to become solid around the same time i started consistently taking kickboxing. i was doing it nearly every day until i got sick just recently...
sounds like you guys need to stop drinking coffee after 5, or work on your meditation...
i get to sleep by trying to meditate lying down every night. it never works because i generally pass out about 5-10 mins in, which means it worked perfectly
substances before bed(not necessarily RIGHT before bed, even close to that time) WILL cause insomnia after a while, because your body has "forgotten" how to turn itself off by itself... also, if you worry and stress, then you will have insomnia as well. to cure this i keep a pen and paper next to my bed, so i can write things down that pop into my head. this way i definitely remember in the morning, and i dont have to piss my brain off by trying to remember a bunch of random shit while im half unconscious...