Hi guys, I am asking a question on my girl friend current situation.
So before the detail of the problem, for your information my girl friend having normal insomnia and PCOS (Polycystic Ovary Syndrome ).

The problem start on December 2015, she started to unable to sleep for the whole night or sometime just a few hours, and starting we though that it was normal insomnia so dint take it that serious. But soon the problem getting more serious, the situation dragged to around 1/2 weeks and we started to worry about it, by the mean time she also find out that her menstruation was late for a month, so we go seek for help from normal doctor, doctor assume that it might be because of the hormone affect all those problem, and given her the medicine to force the menstruation. Soon after taking the pills, the menstruation settled but the problem of sleeping is still going on for around a month, and because of the sleepless night caused her to have anxiety, so we plan to seek help from psychiatry, what the result we get was only saying that she having too much of pressure on her lifestyle and so on, but actually she had none of those pressure, and the psychiatry gave some medicine that can help to sleep and also control the anxiety but not sleeping pill. With the help of the medicine she managed to get 8 hours of sleeping time, which ease the situation. Sadly the situation dint really going well, as time past the effect of medicine started to be unstable sometime it do function but sometime it does not. Then until now she carry on with the medicine that help to sleep, but due to financial difficulty she had decide to try reduce the amount of medicine at the same time don't wish to be too depend on he medicine and able to recover as normal, so she decide to reduce the amount of medicine time by time, initially was 2 pill reduce to 1 and half of it and the effect still working well as she manage to sleep for 2 to 3 hours wake up little while and manage to sleep back, but as the amount reduced time by time the effect started to be weaken, now she taking 4/5 of the pill and she only manage to sleep for 2 hours and unable to sleep back, while just waking up and lying there until morning.

So this problem was struggling her for 6 months, so I posted here hope that anyone that had experience or solution of it that might help my girl friend on her situation.

Thank you very much
Pill given by the psychiatry:
-Luvox
-Rivotril
-Ketipinor

Need to reevaluate the whole lifestyle to find the root cause.

Medication and supplements are not a long term solution.

Something to clarify about myself, I work a rotating shift job. People kept saying stuff about biological clock and shit, but it's not really as simple as that. I sometime have this problem despite having a solid 2 weeks of business hours shift.

Now, my issue was a lot more severe back then. Out of an entire week, I might have 5 days with just 3-4 hours of sleep. It became worse when this goes on and on as I said, anxiety kicks in when you're always sleep deprived.

So you need to find out what works for her.

For me, if I work morning shift, I just take a shower when it's time to sleep. I take a melatonin if I have no sign of being sleepy before I take my shower. Usually if I don't fall asleep within 15 minutes, I'm bound to roll around for HOURS. So if I don't fall asleep within 30 minutes, I'll go out and pour myself a shot of whiskey. I'll wake up feeling thirsty but the side effect is better than NO SLEEP.

For night shift, I work from 10pm to 8am. I reach home at 830am. This is very tricky as there's a lot of light exposure causing your mind to be confused. Sometime I'm DEAD tired but I just can't bloody fall asleep. And I got myself very worried about this sleeping problems that I started sweating IN AN AIR CONDITIONED ROOM. So I did a lot of trial and errors and found out that I need to hit the bed as soon as I'm home. Any form of distractions (phone, computer ETC) WILL keep me awake. I hit the bed immediately and I'm usually asleep within 10-15 minutes. If all else fails, whiskey will fix it.

The issue is not totally gone from me as I had a lil bit of problem sleeping today morning after an entire night of working. I really like to lay on the bed and check my phone, so I ended up going for the whiskey route. Though, I woke up a few times within 7 hours of sleep. Quality of sleep is shit but better than no sleep.

I'm not asking your gf to become alcoholic, but alcohol works wonder in this situation. I think she's a bit similar to myself. My mind is very active and I kept thinking about various random things then I became frustrated that I can't fall asleep. Heart rate will elevate, then you started sweating making it near impossible to sleep.

But I did my research on alcohol. It's not really that bad if you just do a shot everyday. You can try finding her a bottle of red/white wine that she like. Red/white wine is actually good for your health if you take moderate amount everyday.

Sorry for the long write up.

Does Milk Thistle Help for the liver ?

Have you tried meditation yet? I find meditation helps alot to ease my stress which was causing some insomnia. Just the other night I woke up and was unable to sleep back, and I meditated 15 minutes and then managed to sleep soundly.

Most of the time the more we think to ourselves that we"need" the sleep and we keep telling ourselves to "Get to sleep!", the more we couldn't sleep. The key is to let go, just letting go will bring so much peace and I am able to have good sleep.