As anyone who has dealt with insomnia can tell you, it’s tough to deal with. You might be exhausted and tired enough to sleep, but your body has other ideas. The causes of insomnia range from physical to psychological, but if you are really suffering you probably don’t care too much about why you have insomnia. Your focus is on how to fix it.

The good news is there are many treatments for insomnia. Something might work for you and not your neighbor while a treatment that’s been successful for your neighbor might do nothing for you. There really is an element of trial and error in figuring out what’s going to work. Some effective treatment options are medical (prescription medication) but others are about behavior and changing habits.

One of the most popular therapies for insomnia is something called sleep hygiene. It’s all about respecting the concept of sleep by doing a few things differently. For example, you might begin exercising regularly (but not in the hours before sleep) and you might keep a regular sleep and wake schedule so your body can develop a natural sleep pattern. You will also likely learn to restrict caffeine and alcohol in the hours before bed and you might even have to give up smoking. The bedroom environment might be changed so it’s more conducive to sleep and rest.

Relaxation therapy involves things like doing yoga before bed or meditating, and changing the environment of the bedroom like playing soothing music or controlling the light in the room better. Stimulus control is all about controlling the stimuli in your bedroom. It’s similar to sleep hygiene in that you control the stimuli that might affect your ability to sleep. It’s also important to adopt a natural sleep pattern (go to bed when sleepy, for example), adjusting how you use the bed and using it for only sleeping (no television, no reading, no worrying).

Sleep experts will tell you that you should never oversleep if you are trying to deal with insomnia. Many will tell you that the best thing you can do for your sleep is to develop regular sleep rhythms, which means sleeping when you’re tired at night and waking at roughly the same time each day regardless of the day of the week (so there’s no sleeping in on the weekends).

There are medications you can take for insomnia, and some people find that they can use these with success, especially when combined with the non-medical treatments.

Some of the most popular of the medications for insomnia include Lunesta and Ambien. Halcion is also sometimes prescribed.

Insomnia can be tough to live with and it’s fair to say that it’s exhausting, but with some effort, you can deal with the challenges of insomnia.

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