Insomnia and Nofap: When the urge comes how to escape?

Hey so in terms of fighting PMO, I find myself in a terrible trap and though I think I know how to escape it I want some feedback as to whether there are other ways. As it appears to me, the only way I can escape the urge when it comes late at night is to pull an all nighter, which is just infeasible. What do you guys think? Also, if you are in the same situation, you can learn from me.

In my battles with PMO, the great issue is my insomnia. I have been trying to quit masturbation for some six or seven years and am not addicted to porn at all--it has not been an issue for me. What is an issue is the fact that I have always had a tough time falling asleep. This difficulty falling asleep is there regardless of how horny I feel and in fact, has always been true, even as a kid long before I experienced PMO. This is very problematic because I will be trying to fall asleep and then will not be able to and then after a few hours of insomnia the horniness will come on. It is only because I am awake late at night that it comes on, I am aware of this but again, it is not my choice to stay awake. I cannot fall asleep. It has happened countless times where I have been awake at 2:30 even though I do not want to. By that point, I just want to get to sleep because this lack of sleep is just so incredibly frustrating and because I have to wake up early.

So I am constantly falling into the same trap: though I do not want to masturbate, and though I know all the reasons against it, I feel I must masturbate in order to fall asleep. By that point, I am so horny that I cannot just fall asleep without dealing with it (I cannot fall asleep, and the added wakefulness and energy makes things worse). Lately, I have been doing stretches and meditations to kill the urges and this works. But then if I go back to my bed so I can read so I can actually fall asleep, the urges will just come back some ten minutes later. So though I know that I can kill the urges, if I try going back to sleep they will come back, and this has always been the case. When I am in that situation, the urges overcome me.

What I need to do is put my book down, get off my butt and do some stretches. That kills the urge. But I cannot go back to my bed because then the urge will come again. What can I do instead? Well, this is where the issue is. Most options for me will keep me distracted for some ten minutes, maybe a half hour, and then the urge comes back again.

Here is my first question: what other options are there that help me fall asleep, apart from reading? Watching movies is too mellow--I get distracted fast--and in general staring at computer screens keeps me awake. I only want to take melotonin if it has been a while since I last took it and if I can predict that this is the sort of situation which will develop (often I cannot predict it at all, and what I mean is that I might take melotonin at 11:00 PM but not at 2:30). The issue with melotonin is that I don't want my natural melotonin production process getting messed up. That will only make the insomnia problem worse in the long run.

Once I am in this situation, the only way out seems to be in playing video games until 5:00 AM or later. That is the only way I have ever gotten out of this problem without masturbating.

I know that such an idea is just completely impractical though. I want a better method for the future and even now when I'm just a university student it still destroys my sleep schedule and turns me to a zombie the next day(although being terribly tired is always better than the other feelings I get after relapsing, in my mind).

I know what you are going to say: well don't go to sleep late. You're right. I shouldn't. But really it is not something I can avoid. It is not something I do intentionally. You're right that I should turn off the lights a few hours before going to sleep so I can give my melotonin production a good warning. You're right that I should do exercise in the day to make myself more tired and thus likelier to fall asleep. Here is the issue though: as a university student right now I feel forced to stay up until 11:00 doing homework. I can't escape the blinking lights of my computer screen. I have little choice.

The thing about telling me to go to sleep earlier and to avoid my computer screen so I can fall asleep more easily is that those are preventative measures but they are not measures that help in the situation. In the situation where I am already awake late at night, this advice is useless.

And again, I know that I should be avoiding late nights and that that is my solution, but I already know this and it does not help me in the moment. Even if I go to sleep at 10:30 I might still have this problem. Because the problem is really my difficulty falling asleep. I suppose I could go to sleep at 9:00 but with my university-level schoolwork and everything I feel too busy to rearrange the schedule of my day this way. Just don't tell me to avoid late nights. I already know. I want advice for when I am already in the situation. Also, I do not want advice for how to kill an urge--I know how to kill an urge. I am looking for advice that prevents the urge from coming back ten minutes later and yet allows me to fall asleep. There seems to be very little advice given on this specific issue.

So here are my questions:
1) Do you guys sometimes stay up until 5:00 AM just to avoid fapping? Or am I the only one?
2) If you are in the same situation as me, where you have insomnia and it is late at night, do you have any method of falling asleep that does not create a big risk of fapping (i.e. if I am reading in bed or watching TV I am likely to fap, what sort of other suggestions might you have? what helps you fall asleep?)

 

Well I wish you read it all because if you kept reading you would see that this is exactly the knowledge I already have. I know what I need to do. I need to go to sleep earlier. If you kept reading, you would have seen that my situation is more complicated than that. Argh! You did not help. Oh well though I do appreciate your effort.

 

Wow thanks! I will give that youtube video a try. And Ampilox, I think your advice is good. I will try harder to implement these ideas so that I go to sleep more regularly.

I think I have all the necessary materials for fighting this battle. All I need to do is actually put these words into action.