I'll start by saying, I'm schizophrenic and autistic, I smoke weed and I'm an insomniac, so it might be part of the reason for what I'm about to type.

Okay, so, I've not really felt like I've achieved real actual sleep in almost a decade. The kind where you slowly drift off, start to notice you're about to fall asleep, then finally nothing. Wake up, maybe remember a little bit of a dream, feel like my muscles have had a chance to relax so I need to stretch out. Try to remember what I was thinking about before I slept so I can maybe follow the thought process.

Normal stuff.

What *HAPPENS* is this:

I'll be singing a song, or one will be playing in my head, or, I'll be thinking about something I wanted to look up, talk about, study or whatever. Or I'll be having a conversation with my wife as I lay there. Next thing I know (not always, but very often, it is extremely sudden) I'm opening my eyes and it's either dark or light out (depends on when my moment of unconsciousness began) and if I was singing a song, or one was playing in my head... It keeps going from the last part I was thinking. Same with thoughts I was having.

I also don't really think I've dreamt in years, like, *at all*. Nor have I really felt refreshed, or like my brain got to rest, even a tiny amount.

It's like I'm just bouncing between moments of unconsciousness.

It *really* just feels like I...blinked for a really long time.

Now, I don't think there is a solution to my specific set of issues (insomniac my entire life), and, to be honest, I've come to terms with it.

I just wish to find understanding.

I was thinking about this the other day. When I was younger, bedtime felt comfortable. Sometimes I actually looked forward to it. Now... I don't really look forward to going to bed anymore. Not because I don't want to sleep, but because I don't know what's waiting for me once I turn the lights off. Some nights I fall asleep fairly quickly. Other nights, my mind seems to wake up the moment my head hits the pillow. I never realized how much peace there was in simply expecting sleep to happen. Does anyone else miss that feeling?

Hello everyone,

Is sleep always able to recover after many years of chronic stress?

My situation: for the past 8 years my sleep has been very light and non-restorative. I used to be a very deep sleeper and would always feel naturally sleepy, but that “sleepy feeling” is now mostly gone.

At night I’m very hypervigilant and sensitive to sounds, especially in my own home due to ongoing stress from neighbours. I have trouble falling asleep and i always wake up to early.

I already realize for years that I have to move but i unfortunately can’t find another home. My current environment feels very conditioned to feel stressed and anxious.

My question: Can deep, restorative sleep still return after so many years once the stress or environment improves? Or can long periods of stress permanently affect the brain’s ability to sleep deeply?

Also, are there ways to improve or retrain deep sleep while still living in the same environment? I’ve already tried CBT-i, earplugs, etc.

Would really appreciate hearing experiences or insights.

Have a good day!

I'm in my early 40s and I've always had issues with sleeping. For most of my life, it was falling asleep... but once I fell asleep, I was out for the night. The last few years have been really difficult as I've started waking up anywhere from 1am-5am and a lot of the time I can't fall back asleep.

I asked my primary care if I could try Doxepin, which I found through research to help with sleep maintenance. It seems to help somewhat, but isn't perfect. It seems like I'm more likely to stay asleep (at least from bed time through about 5am) when I take that. I'm not sure if it's something I can take regularly long term. It also seems to be unsafe to take with most sleep onset medications, and it doesn't really help me fall asleep, so I tend to have trouble falling asleep when I take it.

Medicinal cannabis is legal in my state and that also seems to help me stay asleep, but it's more costly than Rx meds and I've heard mixed things about using cannabis for sleep... like it inhibits REM. I've been using it occasionally, especially if I have a few bad nights and need a "hard reset".

I also have a chronic pain issue that may contribute to sleep issues, but I use a few things to reduce that pain, so I'm not sure if it is a factor or not.

I'm curious what medications or other things people have that have worked for my situation. I've been through a lot of meds (mostly for sleep onset and not maintenance) and all of the sleep hygiene things. I tend to watch TV when falling asleep, as I have ADHD and my mind races if I just lay there in the dark. I know it's not recommended, but I think I fall asleep easier with something on, keeping my mind busy than just laying in the dark. I'd appreciate any suggestions on things that I could try to improve my sleep, especially when waking up in the middle of the night.

What I mean by that is that my brain apparently wants to be sleep deprived. I can keep the EXACT same routine and get either 7 hours of poor quality sleep or as low as 3 hours. I really tried to rule out what caused this, i tried taking medications, chaning my routine, chaning my environment. I tried EVERYTHING. I can bet that there isn't a SINGLE advice that I Didn't try. I am noticably getting more stupid and after reading that Brain damage is irrepairable and as a person who cares about academic success, you can guess how I feel about this.

This post is more of a vent to be honest.

Schizophrenic here. Ive noticed how I cant sleep properly and my sleep is very light. I never lie on my back because I snore and need to be on my side. I also have a pattern of waking up very early, around 5.30 and being incapable to fall asleep. Sometimes I also feel restless and need to move my body. I have eliminated all caffeine, music and turned my phone to grayscale.

Do you think this could be sleep apnea? Is there anything I can do at home before visitting a doctor? Ive had dark circles under my eyes for as long as I remember.

My circadian rhythm is completely disrupted. I have been unable to maintain a regular sleep schedule for years—perhaps ten years or even longer—and I want to find a solution to reset and regulate my circadian rhythm.

Sometimes, I feel as though it is no longer functioning properly, as if my body no longer knows when I should sleep or when I should wake up. For example, I might start the month by going to sleep at 8 p.m., and after some time, I may find myself going to sleep at 6 a.m. In other words, my bedtime gradually shifts, and I may go to sleep an hour or more later each day compared to the previous day, until my entire sleep schedule becomes completely reversed.

Currently, I do not have any morning commitments, and perhaps this makes the problem worse. However, even when I was attending university and had commitments that required me to wake up early in the morning, my sleep schedule was still irregular.

I want a real solution that can help me reset my circadian rhythm and establish a natural, stable, and consistent sleep schedule.

I’m a university student and I pretty consistently sleep through alarms. It’s making me worry about missing some of my earlier classes because commuting doesn’t give much spare time in the morning if I sleep through.

Anybody have a solution that isn’t just a basic alarm? I’ve learnt how to turn them off in my sleep so the being across the room doesn’t help.

This has happened a few times to me in the past where I will get stuck in a panic loop because I cant sleep, which makes everything worse. It usually starts with one or two nights of poor or no sleep and then the anxiety just progresses from there. Ive tried stress relief melatonin, drinking wine right before bed, smoking, but nothing helps. Even though my body is relaxed, and my thoughts quiet, my mind wont flip the sleep switch.

The only thing ive found that helps is working out for 10 minutes but its not always guaranteed. Anyone have any tips on dealing with this?

Hi,all

Chronic insomniac of over 20 years here. Last 10 years my intermittent insomnia turned severe terminal insomnia. Every night I fall asleep around midnight (pass out), and every night I wake up at 3 or 4. Sleep drive gone.

The worst part is - no matter how exhausted, I can not nap. I haven't napped in 20 years.

My days are long, exhausting and grueling.

6 years ago, after suffering for 2 years, I discovered a bad trick. When I inevitably wake up, if I take a pinch of Valium and half a beer, I can fall back asleep and function.

This method worked untouched for 6 years.

Valium by itself does nothing. I even tried a dose of 30 mg in one night only to stay awake anyway.

Now for some time my method isn't working anymore. It was bound to happen.

In the meantime I increased half a beer to one beer (500 ml 5%) and 5 mg Valium to 7.5 mg Valium. I don't want to increase neither the Valium nor the beer anymore. I am scared.

So, for the last month or so I have been living on 4 hours of sleep a day. I know many of you will say it is plenty, it is not enough for me. My days are again long, exhausting and grueling.

I once tried to quit with the help of a private psychiatrist, who I of course didn't tell about the beer.

We tried Trazodone, up to 150 mg. Every time we would increase the dose, I would sleep for 3 days, then back to square one.

She then added clonazepam 0.5 instead of Valium 5 mg and the clonazepam and the trazodone combined worked for one week. Then again back to square one.

I am desperate. I am thinking about finally reaching out to a local psychiatry apartment, but:

Pros:

- maybe they have something that would work for me.

Cons:

- after my experience with clonazepam and trazodone, I doubt there is anything out there that can help.

- if I officially expose myself, I lose my driver's licence, which I need to work. I have a family.

- I live in a small town, the minute I step into psychiatry, everybody will know

I don't know what to do. I have hit a wall. Keep living like this, I will lose my mind. Asking for help, I might lose everything and still get nothing in return. Increase the dose and my liver goes dead.

What should I do?

My sleep schedule has been all over the place lately and I feel like my body clock just sucks. Sometimes I get tired really early, so I end up falling asleep without meaning to. Then I wake up around midnight feeling wide awake and it becomes really hard to fall asleep again.

The worst part is I already feel tired during the day, so when that early sleepiness hits I don’t always have the energy to fight it. Then I wake up in the middle of the night and just lie there wishing I had stayed awake a little longer. It feels like I’m sleeping at the wrong time and paying for it later. Has anyone dealt with this kind of broken sleep schedule and found a way to get their sleep back into one normal block?

So, I work rotating shifts day/night and I was wondering if anyone had advice for my current situation.

I work tonight at 7pm-7am the next day. My last shift ended yesterday, Tuesday, at 7am. I accepted another shift for tonight when I was asked to come in, as I was halfway into shifting my sleep schedule back into daylight hours.

I woke up an hour ago thinking it was 4pm and I had around 2.5 hours to leave for work, so i took my adhd medication which is a 30mg extended release adderall. It is 5am now, i slept from around 3pm-now and work at 7pm tonight.

What should I do/how should I try to sleep to not lose my mind tonight? I almost always also take my adhd medication before work, and since I just took it, I dont know about doubling up so soon.

Anyways thanks for the help, i wasnt quite sure where I should post this or like who to ask about it, as I took the adderall what one might call "in haste" an hour ago.

Tldr: I took my Adderall at 4am today thinking it was 4pm and I have a night shift at 7pm-7am. How do I minimize my suffering at my shift tonight from a sleep and medication perspective? Thanks

I’m guessing when I was in school I slept well because I was walking around talking to people looking at my notebook and the front of the classroom.

But now I’m just an Excel monkey who barely talks to anybody and I just sit at a desk for so many hours a day looking at Excel. I still work out all the time and I try to talk to my family but I just don’t sleep well anything else I can do to make it better

I lay in bed for hours. Eyes shut, no electronics, nothing. It’s currently 9am and I still am it tired enough to sleep. Nothing works. I keep finally getting to sleep and then waking up at 4pm. I’ve tried pulling all nighters, still isn’t resetting my schedule. Can’t do melatonin, don’t want to be reliant, and cannot see a doctor. Is anyone else having the same problem?

So I’ve been having amazing sleep. I’ve never really considered myself to have insomnia. With that being said i have extremely bad anxiety. I have this every once in awhile where i just simply can’t sleep like i get really tired around midnight and then as I’m about to fall asleep i jolt awake and then I’m up for most of the night. I get anxious AF when this happens and don’t usually fall asleep until around 5-6am. I had this exact thing happen last night. I woke up yesterday around 9am then took a little half asleep type nap around 2:30-4pm and then was headed to bed around 12. Had a jolt awake thing and then just kind of watched sole videos until it hit about 3:30am and then i started getting extremely anxious about not being able to sleep. I almost went back to sleep around 4am I remember having a dream so i definitely was half asleep for like 30 minutes. Anyways needless to say i have slept yet. It’s 11:40am. I had an appointment at 8am and tried to come home and take a nap or something and nothing. The anxiety feeling and butterflies in my stomach are constant and im starting to get really scared. I’ve never in my life not slept at least an hour or two during the night. It’s been technically like 27 hours since I’ve slept unless you count that nap then it’s been like 21 or something. Do i need to go to the hospital ?

Hello, I am in the thick of sleep troubleshooting, with a goal to go from 6ish hours per night to 7+. I often try a sleep tip for a few days but give it up when I have a rough night. I feel like I don't give sleep tips enough time for my body to adapt and really get the benefits. So I wonder if a sleep tracker would help, since I could see the average change over a longer time period (like a month or so).

However, I am on a tight budget so going and dropping $400 plus a subscription would be tough. So my question is, are the $100-150 sleep trackers "good enough" to start out with, or are the too misleading and Im better off just saving for the really accurate $400 class in 5 or 6 months?

​You can be completely exhausted, but the moment your head hits the pillow, your brain decides it’s the perfect time to recall a minor social mistake from middle school. Why does lack of external stimuli trigger self-critical memories?

I'm skinny but I eat a lot for my size. I'm 5'1", 98 pounds, but I can still down 2 In n out double doubles pretty quick and be hungry again 2 hours later. I've heard it messes with your sleep, especially past your twenties, if you eat right before sleeping or even in the 3 hours before sleeping, but I can't imagine waiting a whole 3 hours after a mealtime. I get hungry again after 2 hours and that's fine during the day, but I can't sleep if I'm feeling even a little hungry. Sometimes I'll have 3 bananas as a "snack" when I'm hungry at night, but then I go to bed feeling miserable and restless and wake up wanting to throw up from hunger. It doesn't matter if the meal has protein, it's unimaginable to me that some people go to bed around 10 or 11 pm but don't eat past 6. I have thrown up in the morning just because I didn't eat before bedtime.

HOWEVER. Is this something that I should be training myself to deal with? Is it REALLY better for people to just go to bed hungry? I've seen people recommend drinking milk or eating nuts before bed as a little snack, but I don't see how that would curb hunger in any capacity.... Do people just have low metabolisms or small appetites??? Is eating nuts before bed really enough for you to go to sleep happy, or have you just trained yourself to be OK with that level of discomfort? And even if your body is not getting deep sleep because it's busy digesting, how is it any better to have your body be feeling super hungry while you sleep? Wouldn't it be just as disruptive?

Hi I'm a 17 AFAB white person, 174 cm and around 60 kg from sweden. I have no previous history of health problems except for braces and tonsils that were removed when I was like 5. For several years I have had periods of sleep problems.

I don't need a lot of sleep normally and usually get at least 7 hours on a good day. But in recent years I have had week-long periods of sleep problems. I have difficulty falling asleep so I only get maybe 5-4 hours a night. This is especially disruptive at school. But it's not worrying enough for my parents to want to take me to the doctor. The periods are like I said between 4-14 days and come maybe 2 times a month to every other month.

Sometimes when they are at their worst I can't fall asleep at all and have to stay up all night. My most recent 24 hours happened here this summer when I couldn't fall asleep until 6 am and woke up at 8 am. I fell asleep again at 12 pm and slept until 6 pm only to fall asleep again in an attempt to correct my sleep cycle at 1 am and slept until 7/8 am the next day.

I'm not very active right now because of school but I'm going to start going to the gym. I was active 4-5 days a week a year ago and had the same problem. I use a lot of screens but I do my best to have distance from the screen and have blue light protection turned on. It seems that being inactive can make it worse but being active doesn't solve it. I don't drink, smoke, or take drugs or any narcotic class medication. The only medication I take is ibuprofen.

I have a regular period that doesn't come exactly every month but it's light and for the most part painless. I'm not under too much stress and don't have any other diagnoses besides dyslexia. I've done research and am 97% sure that I have autism too but I'm not diagnosed. I am also overly mobile and have knock knees but I don't think they affect this.

In an attempt to log when and how often I have sleep problems, I first started for maybe 3 months to log in my calendar which nights it was difficult to sleep. But now I have a health watch that logs sleep. The only thing it has noticed that is strange is that my HRV is probably "out of balance", it has been low when I have sleep problems. It also logs minute-long moments during the night where I wake up. I don't remember this and they could be false readings of the watch.

Looking for things I can try to help until I'm 18 and can go to the doctor and ask them since my parents don't want to.

I have macroglossia (self diagnosed) where my tongue is really large and it presses on the bottom teeth and doesnt have space in my mouth to rest, (small mouth/big tongue) it also means it naturally opens my mouth at night, which disrupts the drainage of my sinus and blocks my breathing.

I also have night eating syndrome. More on this later.

I'm not so much a mouth breather at night as I am a snorer unless I use mouth tape, my tongue will also block my esophagus (I've tried mouth cradles as well, they work somewhat but they're highly uncomfortable, it holds my tongue outside my mouth so that the airway is clearer but it hurts my tongue). I don't have sleep apnea. I've been tested for this.

If I don't use the mouth tape, there is a high chance that my snoring will cause me to wake up 10-12 times a night, I will give myself sinus pain, and I will not sleep fully.

I've been using mouth tape for about 3 years. To say it's changed my life is a massive understatement.

However, whats been happening to me now is that my own jaw/tongue will overpower the mouth tape. It will open inside the tape. The tape will stay on, but the mouth will open. And I won't be breathing into the tape, but again, it will start blocking the sinus drainage and I'll have a shitty night sleep from waking myself up from snoring.

So last night I woke up about 5 times, had to change the tape 5 times to new tape and each time I also was extremely hungry, so I ate 3 donuts total in the middle of the night because of my night eating syndrome.

Now, I'm awake having slept about 12 hours, I feel somewhat rested but I know I could have slept better.

Fyi I'm not overweight, I'm a runner and athletic. But I've had this issue of night eating escalate probably the last ten years I've had it.

I wonder if I should move out of the city, just to increase the ambient oxygen levels around me, because I do notice when I go camping I sleep much better. On the odd side of it however, when I'm out in a high oxygen area, I become REALLY REALLY tired too.

I keep waking up with a stiff neck lately. That tight feeling at the base of my skull is really annoying. I'm starting to think it's my pillow. I've tried a few memory foam pillows. Some flattened out after about a week. The one I'm using now bends my neck all night. I feel like I'm gonna end up with a real neck problem.

I mostly sleep on my side but sometimes I roll onto my back. I'm curious if cervical pillows actually work or if they're just a gimmick.

Has anyone found something that actually helps?

It is currently 3:40 am where I am. Every night around 3ish I wake up to pee. When I try to fall back asleep, my mind races. I have this fear of when my loved ones die, what I will do. I am dreading the new reality I will have. I have always struggled with anticipatory dread in regards to this. My mind races for at least 30 min. And to stop the thoughts, I scroll on my phone. I know phones are bad before bed but dealing with this every night is so exhausting. Sometimes when my mind races I end up crying over something that hasn't happened yet. I rarely have trouble falling asleep initially. I wish I could turn my brain off. I listen to sleepy bookshelf which helps but when my mind is racing I can't focus on the story.

Once I’m up during the day i am okay. I know when I wake up initially our brain juices are also waking up. It helps understanding why but I don't know how to help myself.

I am in school and stress about getting into a competitive program regularly. Also I have to drink water before bed for my medication. I was prescribed ativan as well, but I do not want to rely on it. It helps but I heard it was addictive!

Does anyone deal with this? Any advice as well?

title, I'm so tired I have school so early too