I can only sleep after about 3-5 days of sleeping anywhere between 0-4 hours a night, usually on the weekends when I don’t have to get up for work. In fact I think part of the reason I can’t sleep precisely because of the anticipation of having to get up for work at 4:30, but this has been a lifelong problem. I can usually fall asleep but not stay asleep. Anyone else?

Majority of the times I try to sleep can’t ever get the right position and I used to always have to face where my door is. Can’t find a good pillow or something when I try to sleep on my back the back of my head hurts. I usually put YouTube on my tv and have it playing long videos like dahsiegames videos with the brighness at the lowest and having the sound low I can hear it but the audio isn’t comprehensible so it won’t distract me and I’m just getting so pissed because I can’t do this forever also if I do sleep I wake up around 2am I also take sleeping pills like clonodine and something else.

Does anyone have a much harder time winding down after exercising in the evening? I have started kickboxing and I also feel that the lights are so white and bright that I swear that alone stimulates me! It's like an early morning bright day but, at night. The kickboxing is vigorous. I can't wind down at night and am super charged up!

Hello I’m looking for any and every suggestion on how to sleep. I was ingesting a lot of thc which was making me sick, and it was the ONLY thing that had helped w my sleep. I don’t want to take anything addictive or more extreme than weed.

My body wants to go to sleep. But Everytime I I try my heart starts beating faster. I start sweating and then my body has this rythmic tremor that pops me back into light sleep. It's goes in a cycle. I'll feel like I'm falling asleep then tremors. It's frustrating cause I don't understand why it's happening. It doesn't seem like a sleep start. I don't know if it's stress from years of lack of sleep or what's going on.

Hi all,

I prolly don't belong on this sub. I never struggled with insomnia, more with the opposite. While being stuck in an episode of depression i used to sleep a lot. That's about as unhealthy as sleeping as little as some of you guys do and made my life hard enough.

In the recent years, starting in january 2021, i however started sleeping worse and worse. That led to nights with very little sleep and high anxiety. Now the problem is: i still have this drive in me to sleep a lot. I still am tired all the time. Right now, it's 7:39 in the morning in germany and i couldn't sleep after 5am. That is because everytime i start falling asleep and start to see weird pictures in my mind (like i'm starting to dream) i get a jolt of panic and i'm fully awake. I then try again and again which most of the time works after one hour or so, but in this case it did not work. I tried to and fell asleep a couple dozen times. I have 3 hours of sleep now and being more tired the next night is not the same as with usual insomnia.

My question is: is this something different than insomnia? As i really don't struggle with not being tired or laying somewhere awake. I do sleep in a matter of minutes but the panic keep waking me up.

And then, what would i do about this ? Does someone have the same and knows what to do ?

Hello! I'm really struggling to get a night's sleep at my new house. I (24, F) recently moved in with my boyfriend, and although I never had any problems with sleep, on our third night at the apartment, I didn't get any sleep at all. I decided to try melatonin to get to rest a bit and although it worked for me on Friday, and I even slept without it on Saturday, yesterday (Sunday) I took a pill to reassure I'd sleep and my brain just wouldn't shut down. This whole thing is making me really anxious, and it's making me resent my new house a bit. I've seen some tips here and there, but I feel like nothing helps and that on these nights, my brain just doesn't know how to fall asleep.

What I mean by that is if someone gets FFI, will their insomnia show up out of nowhere? Or bit by bit?

So if it is sudden, the person will be sleeping fine, and suddenly won't be able to at all.

And if it shows up bit by bit, the person will be finding it harder and harder to sleep with each night.

I was incredibly sleepy throughout the day, I was dosing off and my eyes were heavy and I wanted to sleep super fucking badly

I waited like an hour or two (I didn’t have the time to sleep/couldn’t) And all of a sudden my body “forgot?” Or what, how sleepy I was

Why does that happen? I’m supposed to be insanely sleepy and it just “went away”? How?

Ive done everything but I just cant fall asleep. Been reading a book for about half an hour now but nothing. Not a single sign of sleepiness. I drank some really bitter coffee at 10:30 and woke up at 12 today so I think that’s why but still, I NEED to sleep. Any advice???

I’ve always suffered with my sleep however the past couple of months it’s got really bad. 5 or 6 nights a weeks I’m only sleeping 1-3 hours per night with multiple wake ups during that sleep even if I’m exhausted. Then 1 or 2 days a week I’ll end up sleeping about 8-10 hours. It’s making me feel really ill and flaring up my chronic pain from Hypermobility syndrome and causing me daily migraines. I rang my gp multiple times the past week to try and get an appointment and they won’t book a future appointment for it and say that they can’t get me an appointment that day due to not having many doctors in even when I ring and get straight through just when they’ve opened and that I should call again the next day. I have no energy at all and the pain and lack of sleep have sent my anxiety and depression through the roof. I’ve tried otc sleeping pills but they didn’t help at all. Has anyone got any recommendations at all that I can try to help me even get a few hours uninterrupted sleep each night.

I’m 14 years old with extreme insomnia, tonight I took 5 MG of “extra strength” melatonin, two cups of Sleepytime tea, and used magnesium spray, and your probably wondering how I’m still awake and perfectly typing this after an hour, that’s because I don’t sleep and I need help, I don’t feel very tired at all and I tried going 2 weeks without any pills and it didn’t go well, I literally tried everything I have no idea what to do.

I started lying in bed by 2.40pm yesterday, and wake up by 10pm, with my parents said that they check on me a few times and I "slept like a log", with only once where I greeted my dad "hi " and "good morning", and proceed to be unresponsive again, which I have no recollection of this scenario happening at all when I heard of it. But for the whole day since I woke up till now (for about 13 hours), I had been even more fatigue then the past few days which I actually didn't sleep well and lie awake in bed. Did I actually get a good sleep yesterday? And also is that experience where I can't recall I greeted my dad considered normal? (It most probably isn't dream talk, because according to him I only greeted him when he enters the room)

My mom has had chronic insomnia for decades now and have used a variety of prescribed medication with no efficacy, and this last year has been the worst from all the nights with no sleep, constant fatigue, and substantial weight loss. She's in her mid-70s.
Her English is not good. She needs a patient doctor who can speak Chinese.
Does anyone have any personal recommendations?

I take Xanax for sleep sometimes half of 0.25 and sometimes full But can't sleep quick My sleep breaks I think 5 times For pee as I am diabetic Can I take melotonin with Xanax pls guide

I don’t know what to do anymore. I feel like it’s all or nothing. Without ambien I sleep an average 3 hrs a night with many sleepless nights. With ambien I sleep all day.

I’m struggling with insomnia. My brain decides it can’t oversleep if it won’t let me sleep. Even if the thing I have the next day isn’t until 2 pm and I would have gotten plenty of sleep to feel rested. I can be on the verge of falling asleep all day but when I try to fall asleep I can’t, even if I’ve been awake 2 days.

If I’m lucky enough to fall asleep, someone in my house will wake me up for something stupid. Once I wake up I can’t fall back asleep. It doesn’t matter how tired I am or how long I slept.

I’m inefficient and I have a hard time thinking. So my tasks take longer than they should and I get more and more behind.

My doctor just prescribed ambien. I hadn’t slept in 2 nights and passed out right away. Then I slept 19 hours. I was groggy all day. I haven’t done anything since I started taking it two days ago.

This is worse than just being tired before. I lost the whole weekend.

I’ve had a bad sleep schedule for so long, like 11 years, and for the past year I’ve been trying to fix it. I’m trying my best to go to sleep in the same hour every night and do everything else I can do get a good sleep.

But I always get woken up in the night, usually around morning time, the first time I wake up I have to pee (which btw isn’t the reason I wake up, I don’t think…) sometimes it’s cause I have to drink water. Then after the first time I’ll wake up a couple times after and rinse and repeat until it’s day time.

Do I just have to wait until my body is properly adjusted to a sleep cycle. If so, how long will that take?

( I take melatonin and magnesium, which the melatonin makes it easy to fall asleep at the right time)

so sometimes i don't feel like eating and i guess it's when I'm especially awake all night or even days even when I'm awfully tired and sleepy, i just can't fall asleep. anyways and then sometimes i get the urge to eat more and then sleep easily. my problem is that I'm a recovering binge eating disorder. so i feel very uncomfortable with the idea of forcing myself to eat when i don't feel like it.

and for the record i eat, i eat well. but maybe not enough? and also I'm a moslem and is currently fasting so by default i can't really eat all that much and feels full very easily after sundown.

I’ve tried so much to fix it, I’ve basically done all nighters to try to fix my sleep so that I would fall asleep at night but it doesn’t work. What do I do???

Even if I stay up all night and the whole day to try to make myself fall asleep the whole night it doesn’t work. If I manage to wake to fall asleep at night I’ll wake up an hour later with severe night confusion and heart palpitations and often times but not always nausea, which is why I’m too scared of trying anymore.

Hello everyone, I've always had difficulty falling asleep (for about 7-8 years) But generally, melatonin is enough, so I didn't have any problem falling asleep. Since this summer, I've had tinnitus that prevents me from sleeping, so I started taking 2mg of Lormetazepam every night.

I take one systematically every night, but I would like to stop (I've learned to "live" with my tinnitus, and I feel that it's less severe than this summer, or at least I tolerate it better).

Now the question arises about sleeping pills, are they really dangerous? Do you have any tips for stopping? Is it even worth stopping? (I am French, the prescription and the drugs cost me nothing)

Are there people here who were on sleeping pills for a very long period and managed to stop? What should I do? Take a week off where I will sleep every night at 5 AM from exhaustion before regulating myself?

Thank you very much!

Hi

For the past week or so, I’ve been consistently waking up after every single hour and a half that passes since I initially fall asleep. It’s so strange because I’m able to fall back asleep relatively okay but I wake up again exactly an hour and a half later and I don’t know how to just STAY ASLEEP. I’ve tried melatonin and it literally does nothing. I don’t take any medication that would keep me awake or interrupt my sleep habits. I haven’t changed anything lately or done anything new that would suddenly mess up my sleep. But now I have all this dread and anxiety about going to bed at night because I get so bizarrely angry every time I wake up and I hate those feelings. I’m also a hypochondriac so I’m afraid that whatever is going on won’t ever stop and I’ll never sleep soundly again 😭 I don’t know what to do ugh

Hollywood deffinetely has a thing for insomnia. Of all the movies/tv shows/books out there, how well do you guys think they portray insomnia? Are there any over/under represented aspects? Misinformation that you've noticed?

I feel like its usally a toss up between two (mostly unrealistic) situations:

#1. The "normal insomniac". In this the character is usually fully functional and doesn't appear to suffer from any syptoms beyond vauge annoyance at their sleeplessness. They may even be happy about the extra time they have at night. Root-causes of insomnia are almost never mentioned in the media, but if they're mentioned here, it might be as absurd as the character "just doesn't have time for sleep" or their insomnia is treated as a fun character quirk rather than a condition. These kinds of characters are just a little too unaffected (e.g Sleepless in Seattle.) However, I like that these kinds of movies are able to give an insomniac character a story outside of their struggle with insomnia.

#2. Complete opposite of example number one, the "absolutely crazy insomniac". I feel like I see this one come up more often, just because insomnia is a much bigger deal in these kinds of movies. In example one, usually insomnia is just a side note, but here, insomnia is often the driving issue of the story. This example at least bothers to portray syptoms of insomnia, but they may be exxagurrated to only extreme/unrealistic cases. Hallucinations and self-destructive behavior come up a lot in these examples, often with edgy, extreme represenation. (While insomniacs can suffer from hallucinations, its my understanding that they're very rarely as complex or consistant as the kind portrayed in film. E.g Fight Club, The Machinist) My one positive note is that at least these films do a good job of demonstrating just how much insomnia sucks, and they can still give depth to their characters.

Anyway, I know this has been a long post but I wanted to get a discussion going. What're your favorite insomnia movies? If you wrote/directed an insomnia movie what would you change? Any other insomnia-movie stereotypes you've noticed?

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I try to cycle, first of all I am afraid I will be addicted to a particular drug and second of all, nothing seems really working so well

I’m trying to control my stress and anxiety. Specifically my the thoughts, feelings, and expectation that contribute to sleep disturbance. Does anyone know where to find high quality CBT-I (I for Insomnia) resources, free online for the cognition part of it?

Hello, I’m going to start tappering from seroquel (25 mg). I take this for sleep for about 4 years and I can’t sleep without it, so I will start cutting pills. But also I take venlafaxine (37,5 mg). And I wonder what should I start to quit first? I’m afraid that I’ll get more insomnia from tappering venlafaxine. I had panic attacks and anxiety, but I think I can deal with it without medication.

Insomnia can be literally caused by an underlying medical condition. Sleep apnea seems to be the main culprit to cause insomnia. Hypothyroidism or hyperthyroidism are others

Iron deficiency with or without anemia (<50 ferritin) can do too.

B12 and Vitamin D deficiency as well

And Restless Legs Syndrome/Periodic Limb Movements or an estrogen and/or testosterone deficiency

I think it's a self esteem issue when people act like their insomnia is "all their fault" and can't be caused by an underlying condition. if you've had it too long, you'll feel that treating it the "easy way" worsens your esteem

I can never sleep for more than 4 hours straight always wake up at 3am when i go to bed at 1030 or 11...either it's arousal or pee then I sleep for an hour or 2 after wake up then hour or 2 after and never feel refreshed. Is this insomnia?..

Also for example I always get broken sleep do you think it's a good idea on my days off to try to sleep a couple extra hours instead of waking up like normal at 7 or 8 am

Had a terrible sleep last night so I took a zopiclone and some melatonin tonight and now it's 3am and i know I won't sleep. Wfh tomorrow thank God.

The past 3 months have been the worst 3 months of my life. I had bad anxiety and heart palpitations which led me to try celexa. Celexa gave me hypnic jerks that kept me up ALL night long and I was terrified. I stopped the celexa and the jerks were gone after a few days. Fast forward 2 months later and now I have bad sleep anxiety. STILL. I originally had sleep anxiety because I was worried I’d have the jerks. Then when I didn’t have the jerks I was worried the trazodone they gave me for sleep would stop working and the jerks would come back. Once I was finally able to sleep without trazodone I was worried if I could sleep at all. Now my anxiety keeps me up at night. No matter how many days in a row where I get 6-7 hours of sleep, I still feel super anxious at night. You would think after sleeping EVERY night for 2 months I would have accepted I’m ok now, but I haven’t. I’ll have days in a row were I sleep at least 6 hours. Then I’ll get a night where I sleep 4-5 and I get super anxious I have a problem when I really don’t. I know it’s all my anxiety and my OCD. It really sucks knowing that nothing is wrong with you, yet your brain wants you to think you have a problem. I just can’t seem to get out of this loop with sleep anxiety. Does anyone have any advice? Thank you all

I’ve never been a great sleeper but the past year has been worse. Weirdly I went away to a different time zone for 2.5 weeks and slept fine, soon as I’m home it’s back. I have an elderly dog who wakes me up at 7 every morning and whines and fusses. I’m starting to think it might be him, although my bedroom is also quite noisy. I’m considering moving just to sleep better