Hey Kiki,

I just started going on here, so hopefully some more people will too and it will live up a little more again :) especially when the new message board is up soon!

A lot of people think meditation is THE best thing when you can't fall asleep or stay asleep. There are guided meditations on youtube, that you could just put on on your phone or computer (there is a youtube app for the phone) and just lay down, relax and listen to. It will tell you to let thoughts go and focus on your breathing, relax each body part individually etc. Just type in something like 'sleep meditation' and a lot of suggestions will come up :)
Not each of those will work for you personally, so just have a look through them and see which voice you might like (e.g. some talk really slowly and that can sometimes be really annoying ;)) and which way of guidance works for you (some are designed like fantasy journeys that take you to the sea or some have you focus a lot more on your breathing than others etc.).
Give it a try :) And don't get frustrated if it doesn't work right away, maybe you need to find one that fits you and on different days different ones are better.

Also: taking a hot bath (or shower) before going to bed might be helpful! It relaxes your muscles and makes you sleepy. As well as having a hot drink like tea or hot chocolate - the only problem is, that it might make you wake up to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night ;)
And sometimes the reason can be that you don't have enough movement and/or fresh air during the day and doing some sports or going for a walk or something like that might be helpful! Be careful though, how it makes you feel. If it helps then perfect! But sometimes sports can worsen your well-being, for example if it is actually due to something else like a magnesium deficiency! You might want to ask you GP about it or just get a dietry supplement. They have those at boots and you don't need a subscription and they are not expensive. I know that for a lot of people that was what did the trick ;)

I hope there is at least one thing on here that you might want to give a try and that will help you! I know how draining and frustrating it can be when you always feel exhausted but can't sleep...
Maybe it also helps you to know: We are not biologically designed to sleep 8 hours straight. Our ancestors would usually sleep for 3-4 hours, then get up and do things and then go back to sleep for another 3-4 hours. I know this is really hard in our society and with school and everything... But maybe it helps you not to stress out so much and know that it's OK to sometimes be awake in the night and do something else, like listen to music or something else you enjoy, before going back to sleep. If that works for you, maybe just try to go to bed earlier, so that you are still fit when school starts. Or have a powernap in the afternoon. (Try not to sleep much longer than 1 hour though, cause you might not be able to sleep at night again)

I hope this really long novel that I wrote has at least some useful info in it for you ;)
If you have any more questions on any of these, don't hesitate to ask! :)

All the best,
Mira