Last updated September, 2023

High hopes of curing my insomnia accompanied my move to Mexico. I was sure the sound of the waves crashing outside my door in Mazatlán would solve the problem, which I’m sure is genetic. 

My usual routine is four hours of sleep a night, maybe an hour or two at dawn if I’m lucky. By Sunday I am completely unspooled and crash, sometimes logging in 13 hours or more of sleep. I love that feeling so much that when I do fall asleep, I dream of sleeping. I’m convinced it must be what heroin is like.

Everyone knows what sleep deprivation can do to your waking hours. Insomnia is linked to depression and other health problems.  We all know what the benefits of a good night’s sleep are in terms of your outlook on life.  An old boyfriend once told me, "Never examine your life on three hours of sleep." Over the years he's been proven correct.

I wanted to share this comprehensive list of suggested remedies, humorously told, along with getting Ambien in Mexico because, really, Ambien isn’t good for you but a chuckle is.

Thirty-Four  Conventional and Non-Conventional Ways to Fall Asleep

The Complete List You Won’t Find Anywhere Else

1. Sex - (Can I get a prescription for that?) - Notoriously more effective for men, apparently for evolutionary reasons. The male has been hunting all day; someone needs to be alert to guard the cave while the male is passed out.

2.  Go to bed at the same time every night. This one seems non-negotiable by sleep experts.

3. Prepare your physical  surroundings for relaxation -  A good pillow, quality sheets, a cool room temperature (55 degrees) and total darkness, with a eye mask if necessary (Guys call them blindfolds, not sleeping masks BTW, in case you’re trying to avoid challenging your boyfriend’s masculinity.)

4.  Eliminate obstacles to sleep - Avoid caffeine, alcohol, exercise and heavy meals close to bedtime. Ben and Jerry’s Double Chunk Brownie Cookie Dough is fine though.

5. Teas -  Mexico has its own. In the States, chamomile, valerian, St. John’s Wort, Chinese teas or pre-mixed teas like the Sleepytime teas (as if the name of the tea will convince you).

6. Make sure room doesn’t have blinking lights from clocks. Avoid television and the use of (most) electronics before sleep, quietly wind down.

7. Melatonin - Melatonin is a hormone taken several hours before going to bed (1-3 mg.) High doses can cause dreams about knife-wielding vampires (too much melatonin can cause nightmares) so don’t overdue it.

8.  Eat foods that help you sleep - Warm milk, and bananas, high in magnesium, a calming mineral, combined in a milkshake gives you the benefit of both. You can try Kiwis and tart cherries which are high in melatonin.

9. White noise from fans or dehumidifiers.  You can find apps or tapes that play the sounds of the ocean, thunderstorms or rainfall which induce sleep when you do not have the real thing. Do a search for phone apps and plug into Bluetooth or similar high quality speakers to produce excellent sounds that continue all night.

10. Relaxing, carefully narrated podcasts - One friend of mine chooses Bible podcasts. I found that waking up in the middle of the night to a stranger in my bedroom reciting in God's voice alarming. If you try Bible podcasts, stay away from the Old Testament.

11. Aromatherapy -  A few drops of high quality brand essential oil. Doterra’s blends are Lavender, Vetiver or Serenity.  Dot few drops on the palms of the hands, the big toe or behind the neck. You can use them in vaporizers too.

12. Meditation or breathing exercises - Breathe in for 7 and out for 8 and repeat for a breathing exercise.  Books on meditation can provide hundreds of meditation techniques that provide benefits beyond just a falling asleep naturally.

13. Repetitive or progressive mind games - based on the same principle of counting sheep, you bore yourself to sleep. You can also do a step-by-step drill of a physical activity like a golf swing, or better yet think about your boyfriend’s golf swing.

14. Fantasy Games  - A spin-off from repetition like counting sheep  that I used for many years when I was younger and had more imagination.  Like meditation, whenever you lose your train of thought, You have to start all over (Them’s the rules)

15. Television  -  Television before bed keeps some people awake but how many of us watched our grandfather fall asleep in the easy chair after the 20th rerun of Gun Smoke? The key is choosing a re-run you’ve seen several times before.

16. Reading - Try books related to improving work performance or self-improvement books. You’re not completely wasting your time and there’s only so much of that we all can take so your mind will pass out in self-defense.

17. Calming music - Some music composed for sleep can be found online, which takes in account the number of beats per minute necessary to promote sleep.

18. Exercise during the day - If we don’t have active jobs, our bodies need a certain amount of movement during the day to bleed off energy i.e. release endorphins to sleep.

19. Rituals - such as a warm bath, laying out clothes for the next day, or other cues to give your subconscious to wind down.

20. Detailed check lists and to-do lists  - Capture any ideas on your mind in writing before going to bed. Having it all organized prevents your mind from spinning with what you need to do the next day.  Keep a notebook on your bedside table too.

21. Alcohol -  While studies say alcohol only works to fall asleep, not stay asleep, I still know too many people for whom a glass of wine helps them wind down.  I have a friend who, if she couldn’t sleep by 2:00 A.M., went downstairs and threw back two shots of vodka. Don’t judge.

22. Pot  -  My home state of Colorado has legalized marijuana, and purveyors in these places know their stuff. They know precisely which strains of pot make people sleepy (So do I…Indica). Mexico just legalized medical marijuana.

23. Pot Edibles - If, like me, you do not care to inhale anything, cookies and sweets made with pot are an alternative to smoking. You have to be very careful with the dosage and give it time (an hour or so) to work. Edibles are problematic when you can’t take just two bites of a cookie, a caramel or a chocolate bar.

24. Nyquil, Tylenol, antihistamines -  At the drugstore you will see that cold medicine manufacturers have gotten heavily into re-packaging their tonics as sleep aids.

26. Antidepressants - With the protocol changed for Ambien, your U.S doctor may turn to these.  No one likes taking pills, but if you have tried everything else and the alternative is severe depression, poor work performance and the host of health problems associated with lack of sleep you may not have a choice.

I have tried Trazadone and have heard of Elavil and Sinequan only to find they didn't work after taking them a week or two. Your doctor will have you keep a journal to determine which works best for you. Xanax in Mexico is called Alprozolam.

27. Weighted blankets -  Veterans with PTSD often have sleep issues and they have found that a weighted blanket helps. The “deep-touch therapy” blankets are made of plastic poly- pellets and weigh about 30 pounds. (In Mazatlán we use the 89% humidity as a weighted blanket.)

28  Cognitive therapy and muscle relaxation techniques can be led by a trained therapist.

29. As if insomnia wasn’t enough, restless leg syndrome is often a reason for not being able to sleep.  In addition (or instead of) medications, try ice packs behind the back of the legs or lay on your stomach in bed at first.

30. An aquarium - When I lived in Washington D.C., I kept an aquarium in the bedroom. The back and forth swimming of the fish served as a pendulum and often helped me nod off.

31. If you breathe with your mouth open, dry mouth will keep you up all night sipping water. Paradoxically, sleep medications cause dry mouth that will keep you awake all night. Check online for strips that attach to your teeth that help increase the production.  You have to go online for the best products. Drug stores usually only sell mouthwashes and lozenges.

If the dryness is not caused by drugs, the advice is to  train yourself to sleep with your mouth closed by taping your mouth shut or mostly shut with surgical tape. Your partner will probably be more than happy to assist you.

I like to couple the tape over my mouth with the bandana over my eyes (see # 3), This both shuts out the lights as well as indicates a hostage situation should I ever die in my sleep. Do not disclose your methods to potential romantic partners. Wait until they are in too deep.

32 Sleep-disorder clinics - You sleep with various electrodes attached to your head and body for a day or two so doctors can determine if you have sleep apnea, REM sleep behavior disorders, or the desire to kill villagers.

33. Fake baseball games, Northwoods Baseball Sleep Radio, on Spotify - full-length fake baseballs games by humorist “Mr. King.” Described by the New Yorker as giving off an “agreeably lobotomized sensation.”

34. The most radical of them all requires no drugs , marijuana or vodka. I call it  “The Hamlet Method." No pills, no calories and free. The hardest part is giving in and saying that it’s “gonna be one of those nights,”  and getting out of bed, rather than tossing and turning in vain.  

Best for those who can fall asleep, but not stay asleep, I read about it years ago when an author was making a case that electricity has disrupted our natural circadian rhythms. He claimed that before electricity was invented, many people woke up for a few hours in the middle of the night because for them (unlike me) 14 hours sleep was a little too much.

What I call The Hamlet Method (explained here as The Two Sleeps”)

1. Go to bed, but set the alarm for when you usually wake up, probably round 2:30 or 3:00 in the morning - a great time to get up and “walk the moors.”

2. Use the hour or so of “quiet wakefulness” for prayer, reading spiritual or other soothing activities. Meditate or do a walking meditation in a garden or dimly lit area. These hours of the night have a special quality that promotes deep introspection.  

3. When you get sleepy, go back to sleep another few hours. Typically the schedules of others will assist you in waking up early, construction or noises of city life, or maybe family members who need your to  begin your day with them.

4. After a regular lunch, you might get drowsy.  If you take a nap don’t sleep too long, probably a half hour at most.

This schedule should give you between eight hours of sleep a day, just not all at once. I’ve tried it a few times and loved the medieval feel of it.

The strange thing is that insomniacs often don't have any trouble taking naps in the middle of the day. When I worked in an office, I was able to conk out in five minutes in my car in a side-street during lunchtime. It was often too warm to sleep without the door open, so I’d just hang half in and half out of the car like a junkie might.

Unfortunately, between the the bandanna over my eyes and the drooling, concerned pedestrians (and once an eight-year old with a can of Coke, leading me to think I was being filmed for a commercial) forced me to give up the roadside naps. 

35. Ambien (Zolpidem) in Mexico

Memory loss attributed to long term use of Ambien and other risks has changed medical protocol regarding Ambien over the last few years. It is considered a controlled substance in Mexico, just like in the US. Ambien is expensive ($60 dollars for 30 days/10 mil. tablets).

If you are bringing Ambien with you from the US, technically you are only allowed to bring in 90 days worth of prescriptions over the border. You will not be able to fill a prescription of 90 days of Ambien from your US doctor to take with you.

Mexican doctors are supposed to write prescriptions for only 30 days at a time, but systems are not linked so this just means you have to go to several doctors if you want to stock up. Doctors will give you a specific type and only that specific type will get filled. When I got a prescription for a different brand in Guadalajara, and tried to have it filled in Mazatlán, it was very hard to find.

Pharmacists are supposed to take the prescription from you when you fill it so that you can’t use script again. Often, however, they neglect to do this (Thank god, or I’d spend half my life at this.)

You can get 10 milligrams a day prescription for 30 days, whereas in the U.S. prescribed dosage is only five milligrams.

Combining half a tab (spoken like a true addict) of Ambien with a dose of melatonin helped me forestall building up an Ambien tolerance for a time.

Doctors in consultorios, often next door to pharmacies, should charge no more 300 pesos, or about $15 dollars per visit. If they charge more, you’re in a tourist zone and have to decide. Their schedules can be erratic but some do work on Sundays.

Plan on getting any Mexican prescription well ahead of running out, in case you get unlucky in finding a consultario with your schedule or run into complications such as the ones I have only alluded to. Once you get to Mexico, if you’re going to need Ambien, you’d better get busy.

I remember years ago how easy it was to get a number of prescription drugs over the counter in Mexico. That has changed substantially.

God, I miss the 80’s.

Related Links:

Perhaps your sleep problem isn’t you. It’s America. [blog} Ventanas Mexico

"How Sleep Loss Disrupts Emotional Balance" - Psychology Today

Next up: 

How Skype can prepare you for expat life.

About author and insomniac, Kerry Baker

Hi, I write this blog and am the author of "If Only I Had a Place," on renting in Mexico My second book is “The Mexico Solution: Saving your money, sanity and quality of life through part-time life in Mexico.” Both a how - to and an entertaining romp through Mexican culture.

Most recently I published a cookbook with Mexico food blogger Fabiola Rodrigues Licona, “The Lazy Expat: Healthy Recipes That Translate in Mexico.” It has 150 healthy recipes you can make from any bare bones kitchen in Mexico.