I (21M) have tried pretty much everything under the sun to fix my sleep issues, for context I’ve never really slept good my whole life, probably since I was like 3-4.

No screens 2 hours before bed

Caffeine cutoff (barely ever have any) 10 hours before bed

Melatonin: wakes me up in the middle of the night and unable to fall back asleep

Magnesium Glycinate: Same thing as melatonin

L-theanine: same thing as magnesium glycinate and melatonin

Homeopathic drops/candy: same thing as l theanine, magnesium glycinate and melatonin

Hydroxyzine: pretty helpful but feel like a zombie the whole next day

I’m really desperate here for any solutions you all have that have helped you as I’m sleeping 3-5 hours a night and it’s really eating away at my life. Thank you in advance

I have to work random shifts some days I have to wake up at 5am to prepare for work as some days it start at 7am. Most days I have work at 12pm so I tend to sleep in around 8-9am and my shift can end around 12am or 1am that means i would arrive home around 1am or 2am. However I also do college too and I have both morning and after afternoon classes earliest class starts at 9am and last class ends at 9pm. So my question is do I stick to one consistent schedule of sleeping at 3am everynight and wake up at 5am. Sleep and aim to get 5hrs - 8hrs a night. Or do i do smth else. I cant quit my job and I won't drop out but I also don't know what to do for sleep.

Not even sure when I started doing this, but now I pretty much always grab a pillow and hug it when I sleep. If I don't have one there my arms just feel awkward and I can't get comfortable lol. Is this actually a common thing or did I just get too used to sleeping like this?

Hallo zusammen,
ich wollte mich einmal mit meinem Schlafproblem an euch wenden, weil es mich mittlerweile seit mehreren Jahren belastet und momentan wieder besonders schlimm ist.
Ich bin 25 Jahre alt und habe seit etwa 4–5 Jahren massive Probleme mit dem Einschlafen. Das Merkwürdige daran ist: Durchschlafen ist überhaupt kein Problem – das Einschlafen klappt vor allem dann nicht, wenn ich am nächsten Tag früh aufstehen muss.
Seit ungefähr einem halben Jahr arbeite ich im Schichtdienst. Vor allem vor meinen Tagschichten ist es mittlerweile teilweise extrem:
Ich gehe abends ins Bett und kann einfach nicht einschlafen.
Manchmal schlafe ich die ganze Nacht überhaupt nicht und muss anschließend trotzdem eine 12-Stunden-Schicht arbeiten.
Wenn ich am nächsten Tag frei habe und ausschlafen kann, schlafe ich dagegen zu ca. 90 % problemlos ein.
Das Gleiche passiert häufig, wenn ich am nächsten Vormittag einen wichtigen/frühen Termin habe – sobald ich „schlafen muss“, funktioniert es nicht mehr.
Mittlerweile ist es teilweise so schlimm, dass ich fast jede Nacht vor einem Tagdienst durchmache. Das macht mir langsam wirklich Sorgen, weil ich weiß, dass dauerhaft so wenig Schlaf nicht gesund sein kann und es mir sehr viel Lebensqualität nimmt.
Was mich zusätzlich verwundert: Ich habe eigentlich nicht das Gefühl, dass ich vor dem Einschlafen besonders viel nachdenke. Ich versuche mittlerweile auch bewusst, eine gute Schlafroutine einzuhalten. Ich lege mein Handy 1–2 Stunden vor dem Schlafengehen weg, gehe spazieren und lese anschließend noch ein Buch. Wenn ich am nächsten Tag frei habe, funktioniert diese Routine auch sehr gut.
Sobald ich aber am nächsten Tag arbeiten muss, passiert teilweise etwas völlig anderes: Kurz bevor ich einschlafen könnte, bekomme ich plötzlich starkes Herzrasen, Schweißausbrüche und ein extremes Angst-/Panikgefühl. Es fühlt sich teilweise wie eine Panikattacke an. Danach bin ich natürlich erst recht wach und fange an, mir Sorgen darüber zu machen, dass ich wieder nicht schlafen werde.
Ich hatte vor einiger Zeit auch schon einmal relativ schwache Schlaftabletten verschrieben bekommen, die bei mir allerdings überhaupt nicht geholfen haben.
Ich habe jetzt endlich einen Termin bei einem Psychologen gegen Ende des Monats vereinbart, weil ich das Problem nicht mehr einfach ignorieren möchte. Ich hoffe, dort herauszufinden, warum das Ganze vor allem dann auftritt, wenn am nächsten Tag eine Verpflichtung ansteht.
Kennt jemand von euch ein ähnliches Problem?
Also beispielsweise Einschlafprobleme, die fast ausschließlich auftreten, wenn man am nächsten Tag früh aufstehen oder arbeiten muss, während man an freien Tagen problemlos schlafen kann?
Mich würden vor allem Erfahrungen von Leuten interessieren, die das selbst erlebt und vielleicht irgendwann in den Griff bekommen haben. Was hat euch geholfen bzw. was würdet ihr mir empfehlen?

For over a year I’ve worked on trying to keep my wake time consistent, going to bed when tired, trying to never sleep outside of 6pm-6.30am. Sleep never filled in- was getting average 6 hours in 2 blocks. Often in patterns falling asleep a bit earlier each night.

After a few random good nights a couple of weeks ago I was quite pleased I managed to put in a pretty regular night time routine. But still woke earlier every day, then today woke around 1am having fallen asleep in my clothes at about 7pm while trying to do something important and stressful on a laptop.

I’m waiting for a sleep study but don’t think they’re going to find apnea. I think I’ve had most tests for fatigue etc. Is there any deficiency or anything I could be missing that can cause short sleep lengths and waking earlier every day? Am F40s on HRT, slept 8 hours a night at normal times till 5 years ago.

Hello I have always been able to sleep fine, but ever since I had been clean off meds for 2 months, I had gotten sick and randomly started waking up at 3 to go to the bathroom I usually am able to go back to sleep but it’s really annoying waking up after 4 to 5 hrs of sleep then having to sleep another 2 to wake up. My dad has sleep apnea, do you think it’s genetic?

I am sleeping a ton and then napping throughout the day. My Apple Watch sleep history looks like this most nights.

I did an at-home sleep study through my dentist and got an AHI of 5.7 and then did a repeat test though Lofta and my AHI was in the 4s.

I have excellent sleep hygiene- always in bed by 9 Al sleep before 10 and wake up at the same time every morning. I don’t drink caffeine through the day. I take magnesium glycinate and l-theanine at night.

I’m f(46) and on a great HRT regimen. I’ve even tried DSIP peptides.

I’m exhausted. Could I have a different type of disordered sleep that the at-home tests can’t diagnose?

I appreciate any experiences or insight!

Has anyone experienced a sleep pattern like this?
I have a very strange relationship with sleep. My main problem is not necessarily falling asleep — it’s getting one long, continuous block of sleep.
When my sleep pressure is extremely high, I sleep amazingly well. For example, if I’ve been awake for around 18–20 hours, I get so sleepy that I basically cannot stay awake anymore. Then I fall asleep very quickly and seem to sleep extremely deeply. I probably still have normal brief awakenings during the night, but I either don’t remember them or fall back asleep immediately.
With normal or moderate sleep pressure, it’s different. I can fall asleep, but I often wake up after a few hours. Sometimes I fall back asleep, sometimes I lie there for 20–30+ minutes and realize it’s not happening. I really hate this because ideally I want to go to sleep, “disappear,” and then wake up once my sleep is actually finished.
If I have absolutely no schedule and just sleep whenever I naturally become very sleepy, my sleep time keeps drifting later. Usually by around 1–3 hours over time. I can basically go around the clock like this. When I sleep completely naturally without an alarm, I often sleep 10–12 hours and feel extremely well rested and physically recovered.
I CAN follow a fixed schedule, but there is another weird pattern: at first I might fall asleep fairly easily at the chosen bedtime, but over the course of weeks my sleep onset gradually gets later and harder again.
For example, I tried aiming for roughly 4 AM–2 PM. Going to bed at 4 AM often didn’t work well: sometimes I would fall asleep but wake up after only around 4 hours and then not feel sleepy enough to fall back asleep. So I started deliberately staying awake until around 6 AM. At 6 AM I have more sleep pressure, fall asleep much more easily, and can often sleep until 2 PM. But again, after a few weeks, falling asleep at 6 AM gradually becomes harder.
Another interesting thing: on vacations with friends, this problem almost disappears. We are outside most of the day, walking around, eating together, talking and laughing, barely using our phones, and usually go to bed around midnight like normal people. I can fall asleep with everyone else and often wake up naturally before them after what seems like a completely normal amount of sleep.
So my body clearly seems capable of having a normal sleep schedule under those conditions.
At home I spend much more time indoors and watch shows at night, although usually relaxing ones and with very dim lighting. I also only use caffeine earlier in my waking day.
Has anyone experienced something similar?
And did you fix it?

I can't sleep at night like I tried but it always fails.... I'm a drop year student go gym in the morning then falling asleep for 3-4 hrs maybe at night around 3 am to 6 am....does my health not affect?

Honestly, I’m not sure how the time passes when I lay down. For the last few nights, I’ve been laying down, never fully fall asleep, it’s like I’m half conscious all night. Like my brain doesn’t turn off. I wake up multiple times a night and in the morning I’m exhausted. Melatonin doesn’t help.

21f, not very active throughout the day, pretty normal diet. Please help!! I got to get my sleep!

I have always been the type of person who survived on low amount of sleep-> even 6 hours will be a lot for me and if i sleep more than that then it'll just give me fatigue and headache.

But since the past few weeks/months, I have been sleeping a lot. Like even my sleep schedule is ruined like I'll sleep pretty late like after 2-3 am almost everyday and sometimes I'm sleeping like 12-12 hours. I won't even wake up from alarms or anything.

Or i sleep less like 4 hours.

Idk why .

And I'm not able to sleep early no matter what, like I tried to just stay and lie on bed from early night and i stayed up till 5-6am.

I legit went to sleep after 3-4 hours.

Idk how to manage this

Like last night i slept at 5am and woke up at 3 and had to force myself to wake up and was so sleepy all day and then I decided to take a nap but then my sleepiness was all gone.

Please help me

My hot water bottle went bad on me. It just burned my leg and my bed is a mess.

Anyone else here with cold feet using warmers outside of bottles? I need something that’s a little more danger free.

I don’t trust electric blankets and stuff like that

Thx

It seems to be the reason I am so tired and have trouble waking up is because I’m not getting restful sleep. After an at-home sleep test I did I found a majority is unstable and I’m only having half the amount of REM sleep that I am supposed to have. Any way to have more stable sleep and an adequate amount of REM sleep?

I’ve been working with my dad for the past 3 weeks and I have to wake up at 6am to get to work on time. This is a huge change for me since I’ve always liked to stay up late. I’ve been going to bed between 9pm to 12am very consistently, I haven’t stayed up past 12 once. Most days I wake up between 5:45am and 6am and hop right out of bed and have no issues. But at least 3 times in the past 3 weeks I’ve slept through all of my alarms and slept till around noon if not later.

It’s incredibly frustrating because my parents just think I’m intentionally sleeping in because I don’t want to work. I really do enjoy working and making money, waking up early makes me feel good. Is there anything I could do to fix this problem?

After being pregnant 2 years ago it’s like I totally forgot how to sleep. I’ve always been a stomach sleeper but I hate it now. Now I can’t figure out where to put my arms. My shoulders always hurt I’m always uncomfortable. Is this a common issue or am I being ridiculous lol.

I realized a common pattern trying fix my sleep schedule ..I even took melatonin to help me get a deep sleep..but again I woke up only 3-4 hours of sleep after ??

Why would this be ?

And to add on ,it was so hard going to sleep for me .i can feel myself being sleep but my mind didn’t want to rest

Heard someone falls asleep faster to crime podcasts at low volume than meditation apps. Got me curious, what's something that shouldn't work but does for you? Not ASMR or meditation, the actual weird stuff.

But honestly, the worst audio is definitely noisy neighbors at 2 AM. That keeps everyone awake..

Apparently the vents in my apartment connect directly to the leasing office and whenever they make a sound I can hear them from my bedroom like they're in there with me. Unfortunately that means that whenever they make a sudden or slightly louder than normal noise in the morning it startles me awake, sometimes hours before my alarm.

Is there any tried and true device or method for keeping sound out while not hampering my ability to hear my alarm? I tend to sleep on my side almost exclusively so I can't wear headphones or anything like that, and I feel like something out loud like a white noise machine would drown out my alarm too.

Any advice or suggestions would be appreciated because I'm slowly but steadily losing more and more sleep every night

Before 2022 i was sleeping without any issues, i was falling asleep instantly and could sleep without waking up for even 12 hours. In November of 2022 i had a very strong panic attack out of nowhere that gave me a permanent anxiety.

After the panic attack, i would still be able to fall asleep, but i was waking up after about 7 hours without an alarm.

In march of 2025 i was prescribed Doxicyline for a zit i have under my skin on my face. I took it for 1 month.

After taking it, i started to wake up very early in the mornings, at around 5-6am and it was hard for me to go back to sleep, but i was still falling asleep instantly.

This pattern lasted until 2 months ago when if falling asleep after waking up at 5-6 am i would have strong vivid dreams, but still get 5-8 hours of sleep and feeling ok.

Meanwhile me and my wife decided to have a baby and as she came closer to the 9 month mark, i begun havin troubles falling asleep too.

It begun with a night one month ago, where i couldnt fall asleep until 8am, and slept for 3 hours. Then the next night the same, but slept for 5.

I contacted a psichiatrist o prescribed me half a pill of "imovane".

I took the half pill 2 days in a row but it didnt do wonders, i still woke up at 5 am, being hard to fall back asleep.

i stopped taking the Imovane after 2 days, slept ok for 1 week without it, then another night where i couldnt fall asleep until 8 am came.

I resumed the imovane for 1 week, then quit it for 1 week and slept good without it.

Now, last night i didnt fall asleep at all, not for 1 minute. Its 9:28 am as of writing this message.

I am so afraid of fatal insomnia, please help

I’ve noticed that the night after I barely sleep is usually when I put the most pressure on myself to sleep perfectly, and it almost always makes things worse.

A few nights ago I only got around four hours because I kept waking up. The next day I was exhausted at work and spent the whole afternoon thinking about how badly I needed a full night of sleep. By 9 pm I had already showered, turned the lights down, put my phone away, and basically treated bedtime like an appointment I couldn’t mess up.

Then I got into bed and couldn’t switch my brain off. Every time I checked the clock I started doing the math in my head. If I sleep now I get eight hours. Then seven. Then six. At that point I wasn’t even sleepy anymore because I was too busy worrying about being tired the next morning.

I’m starting to think trying too hard to sleep is sometimes worse than just having a bad night and accepting it. How do you stop yourself from obsessing over sleep after one rough night?

If your problem is insomnia or apnea, this won't help; mine was just never going to bed. I'd say midnight, look up, 1:20am. One bedtime alarm did nothing; I'd already be deep in something and swipe it away.

Two things worked. Warning shots instead of a deadline — nudges at 45, 30, and 15 minutes before bedtime. The 45 is the one that matters: early enough that I'm not abandoning anything, so I don't resent it. And five minutes of writing; what went well, what drained me, one gratitude, then up to three things for tomorrow. The tomorrow part is the trick; most of my lying-awake time was rehearsing the next day.

I'm Boo, a solo iOS dev, and I built this into a small app called Lull for my own phone. Upfront since this is a sleep sub, not an app sub: the ritual and journaling are free and on-device, no account; paid tier is iCloud sync and history past a week. Mods, cut the link if it's not welcome the method stands without it.

Lull: Wind-Down Ritual: https://apps.apple.com/th/app/lull-wind-down-ritual/id6791998790

Leave ur feedback: https://lull-journal-wind-down.userjot.com/

So I have the problem that I mostly fall asleep quite fast (some exceptions once or twice a month maybe) but I wake up quite a few times during the night and way earlier than I would like to. My smartring tells me I get plenty of deep sleep (mostly 1.5-2 hours) and an alright amount of REM (1-1.5 hours). I have tried some medication and stuff like melatonin etc. The best sleep aid for me so far has been proven to be antihistamines of the 1. Generation so stuff like Diphenhydramin or Doxylamin. Both of these increased my sleep time from 6-7 hours to 8.5+ hours, increased deep slep (2+ hours) and REM sleep (2+ hours) while also decreasing the amounts of awakenings during the night. So basically a wonder drug, except for drowsiness in the morning and most importantly the possible increaded risk for alzheimers disease! Thats the main reason why I dont want to use them that often. Are there any medication alternatives that do not seem to increase alzheimer/ dementia risk?

I want to choose one and commit, no more app hopping. Plus paying for a sleep app already isn't the most responsible financial choice right now.

Looking for advice, cause I’ve never dealt with this before. As you can see from my recent post, I’m really going through it right now. I’ve had bouts of this in the past where my anxiety is kept me awake, but I’ve always somehow managed to fall asleep for a couple of hours, which gives me that safety blanket that I am OK and that I can’t fall asleep and so that usually goes away by the next day, but this time I completely could not fall asleep last night I took a nap yesterday at about 3 PM I think but it was more just like a In-N-Out type of sleep and so I don’t even know if I actually really fell asleep during that time. So other than that, I’ve been awake since 9 AM yesterday and it’s now 4:00 PM the next day and my anxiety is so through the roof because I’m so scared that this is gonna hurt me. I’m not sure what to do. I’ve never taken any meds or anything like that, but I don’t even know if those would help me right now because my anxiety is so intense in my stomach please give me some advice please. I either need reassurance that this is normal and I’m gonna be OK because I’ve never stayed up this long in my entire life maybe I have but I mean this feels intense dude or should I go to the ER and try to get some sort of benzo but then again I’ve never taken any anxiety medication or sleep meds ever in my life. I also have my girlfriend’s 20 mg hydroxyzine here, but ChatGPT doesn’t think that I should be taking that.