I recently fixed my sleep so I'm cherry picking your post to show off my experience in a most favourable way, hmkay? In other words: here's my 2 cents but it's not worth more. But perhaps of some info to you.
But it's the time I'm going to sleep that's the current problem
my sleep dr said to change the times not more than 15 minutes at a time. Slowwwly.
And don't ride that second wind of cortisol that starts at 11 at night. Be in bed before that.
I don't drink tea or coffee, but I do get a lot of caffeine from chocolate, so that is something I should probably cut out in the evening.
Yeah, that's my experience too. And I don't drink after half past six either because otherwise I wake up. Also: nothing in my belly that excites it. No raw vegetables, no whole wheat grains, no corn, no nuts, no egg white, no lentils etc. Anything that keeps my belly busy at night.
I'm interested in the gut effect on sleep. I tried resistant starch and that made no difference for me. I'm very focused on improving my gut but it's a mess after ten months of abx,
This! I did this! I fixed my gut. With gelatine. I make a big pan of chicken soup every week, cook the bird to the bones. Eat trice a day. Or I make fish stew. Or plain gelatine pudding. I've been eating gelatine for a year now and it has healed my guts. Also the no-excitement thing, which is personal to each gut.
I also follow a slightly ketonic diet meaning I get all my energy from fats, not from protein or carbs. My blood sugar is level and with fat you don't grow hungry in the night. (You also won't grow fat on this diet because there's no insuline to store excess energy away in fat cells.)
The suggestion of the day lights is something the sleep clinic also reccomended, though I never tried it. They were quite expensive when I looked before, but I might take another look at that.
They're still expensive but I'm happy with mine. I have a full spectrum light I use during the day in the winter. But excess vit D3 helps too. I need more vit D than my blood work suggests because my receptors are shot. Only when I did the genetic research it made sense that I function better on higher levels, even though my blood levels seemed fine before.
I have a cheap alarm clock with a light that slowly brightens. This is not the real day light light but it helps me very well to wake up in the morning. I lie there and slowly brighten it, waiting to get properly awake. I always wake at the same time, very strict. My body learned it better go to sleep when I lie in bed because at half past 6 that light will go on and we. will. rise.
You mentioned in OP about distracting yourself from bad body. That's a big one. I have no answer.
I cried a lot, sighed a lot. Still do. I only have this lame suggestion I used myself: a "ta-dah" note book in which I wrote each evening the things I did accomplish/was happy about that day. It's lame but it's the best I could think of.
It did help a bit. Especially reading back and seeing I did something each day or had a profound thought or had noticed a bird singing. Reading back and realizing my recent past was not one big hole of doom and misery.
Also, each evening I write down the plan for the next day. They usually consist of only two things. I'll never get more done than two so I don't bother writing down more than two. Prioritizing is such a big part of chronic illness and writing down the plans for the day after help me to resign to it and to park away the day of tomorrow which will be doable, with only two things.
It helps when at the end of the day I can strike through the two things I did. I feel accomplished.
When I was really ill my two things were: get dressed, cook food. Or: get dressed, take shower.
Now that I'm better it's more like: call plumber, knit. Or: clean room, write friend. Always something
blergh/useful and something lovely. The lovely things are a must to get through illness. And they count as accomplishments.
best to you, sorry for my weird english