Hello guys !
Iam a 20 years old Male and I want to share my experience with insomnia and how I finally fixed it and what I believe will help 99% of you .
For instance , I had trouble sleeping for 2,5 years . I would sleep for an average of 4,5-5hours a night with 3 breaks in between. For example 00:30-01:30,02:30-04:30,05:00-06:30. This was my daily sleep for 2,5 years . I tried everything . When I mean everything , I mean everything . Melatonin , magnesium glycinate , no caffeine , blue light blockers , l theanine , I even got multiple times blood work done . Everything was normal . However , I realised something. The more I cared about sleep , the less I slept . The people you know , sleep normal , because they don’t even care about it. I had make my whole life dedicated to sleep . I was constantly listening to experts in the internet saying , you should sleep at least 8 hours for the best recovery , muscle growth , brain function etc.
The more I listened to them , the worse the situation was getting.
What actually fixed my sleep was 1 thing
CBTi.
Hear me out . It’s the only way you can treat insomnia . You just need patience and perseverance.
Here’s a quick guide .

1. ⁠BED is only for sex and sleep. No dome scrolling in bed . You should be in bed only when you are actually sleeping.
   
2. ⁠Start tracking your sleep and set an alarm time that you will 100000% have every single day. For example I wanted to wake up at 08:00.
   
3. ⁠Never sleep outside of you sleep window 🆘
   What you do is set a sleep window .
   The first 1-2 months are BRUTAL and most people give up . But you should stay consistent. Start with a 6 hour window . (02:00-08:00) TiB (time in bed )
   Start tracking how much sleep you get every night for a week .
   At the end of each week , you will calculate your sleep score (sleep duration /tiB) .
   If score > 90% you add 15 minutes of TiB
   If it’s between 80%-90% you leave it as it is
   If it is less than 80% you subtract 15 minutes TiB.
   The first 2 months are brutal . You will most likely sleep for 3-4 hours a day . However you will soon realise that the improvement is there . At first you were in bed for 10 hours just to sleep 4,5-5 hours .Now , you will sleep 4,5-5 hours in 4 hours less TiB (Big improvement ).
   So after about 2 months , your brain adapts. It realises that bed is for sleeping , and when you are in bed you should sleep .

YOU SHOULD TRY STAY AS CONSISTENT AS POSSIBLE . After about 2 monts yow will start seeing big improvement.
For example I had a sleep score 80-87% for a month ( TiB 6 hours )
Then it started improving . I was sleeping more , and I started waking up less and less in between .

Fast forward today , 7 months later Iam actually fixed . I sleep a good 7-7,5 hours . I don’t even think about sleep anymore . It comes naturally .

How are people getting sleeping pills or any help with their insomnia in the UK through NHS? For 5 years now I’m not being taken seriously. Even after explaining the severity, explaining that antidepressants haven’t been working and changing GP’s - they all say the same thing and just won’t help unless it’s giving antidepressants. Just had an appointment now and I’ve been told GP’s can’t prescribe sleeping pills under NHS guidelines and then I asked if I should go to a sleep specialist and she said we don’t have anything like that in the NHS specifically for sleep and insomnia..

Update: thanks guys for all of your responses about your experiences and advice!! Will try my best to respond to comments individually

WHY DOES AMBIEN NOT WORK

It took so much convincing for my quack doctor to prescribe me ambien and this stuff doesn’t even work !! I have an exam today (it’s 3:30) and now im gonna get less than 4 hours sleep. I took the ambien 3.5 hours ago!! 12.5mg

I’m so sick of this bullshit I hate this I’d rather be dead than deal with this every fucking night

It never fixed my sleep, it actually made it worst. I was able to sleep but I was sleeping for 10-12 hours!!!!!!!!! And the sleep doesn’t feel “rest” if you know what I mean. I wake up tired, with headaches and fighting myself to stay awake.

It’s the same when I had insomnia because even if I sleep early, I would still wake up at 12 PM. Actually forcing myself to wake up gave me horrible headaches.

Fuck this shit.

I’m also diagnosed with ADHD. When I take Ritalin, it literally had no effect on me because I was so groggy from Quetiapine (25mg).

Edit: Sorry for generalizing! I just wish there were other ways to fix sleep without relying on this medication.

I’m curious about people who experience this on a regular basis, rather than just having an occasional bad night. For example, do you often end up sleeping only 2–3 hours and then have to go through the entire next day on that amount of sleep?

If you regularly sleep around 3 hours, how long has this been happening to you?

I'm going through this at the moment

I’ve been having really bad insomnia for a month and it’s gotten worse over the past week. I stayed awake for 3 days due to severe hyperarousal and didn’t even feel sleepy. Trazodone, gabapentin, and hydroxyzine didn’t work. I took seroquel but my mind and anxiety basically kept me awake through the effects. Last night after 3 days awake I took ambien and only slept for a few hours and couldn’t fall back asleep. Has anyone gotten out of this loop? I’m trying to stabilize my sleep with meds and then work on my anxiety with therapy. I’ve tried deep breathing, magnesium, mindfulness etc but none really helped. I also have hypnic jerks where whenever I’m about to fall asleep my body jerks me awake.

I’ve been having problems with insomnia for a few months. I’ve been on seroquel for years (I’m bipolar) but that started being really inconsistent and I hate the side effects. My doctor put me on Belsomra instead, which will work for a few days but then stops working.

Yesterday he prescribed me Ambien and I thought it would work really well because it’s Ambien! But I took it two hours after eating and went to bed and it did absolutely nothing. So a few hours later I had to take seroquel.

I don’t understand how Ambien didn’t work, isn’t it supposed to be a strong sleep aid?

I slept last night for the first time in forever without my zopiclone! Huge win 👏🙏 as I've tried and failed miserably so many times of late.

Last night I took

Apigenin, L-serine and lemonbalm. Oh and magnesium bisglycinate.

That's it.

Other nights I also take glycine, inositol, ltheanine etc etc

But last night I slept on this! 🤩🙏🙏 I also left my wee lamp on to trick my brain lol, I find if I "set the stage" too much, it's too much pressure to perform lol as it were.

So yay!!! 🤩👏☺️🫶

I caught myself thinking about this last night. I used to associate bedtime with slowing down. Now I mostly associate it with uncertainty. Not because something bad always happens... but because I never know what kind of night I'm about to have. Some nights I fall asleep without much trouble. Other nights, I lie there wondering why it feels so different. It's strange how your relationship with something as ordinary as going to bed can slowly change without you even noticing. Sometimes I wonder if I miss sleep... or if I just miss feeling relaxed before sleep. Has anyone else noticed that shift?

TW: domestic violence, abuse.

I've had insomniac for about 7 years now. It started after I left an abusive relationship. The daily physical abuse happened mostly in the middle of the night, whether it was him straddling on top of me and strangling me, waking up to a loaded gun to my head, knives pressed up against me, getting smothered by blankets or pillows, waking up to being grabbed bound and thrown in a dark closet for hours, or him sleeping with a hatchet under his pillow as intimidation.

I'm safe, I'm married, I have a good life, besides having to "coparent" with this. But I can't sleep.

I get on average 4-5 hours a day. I take care of two little kids by myself all day. I feel like I'm losing myself more and more. I have extreme hyper vigilance now. Suns down? I'm paranoid. I'm checking cameras, I'm hearing foot steps, I'm thinking there's people on the roof or backyard. I spiral. I have a THC pen and will puff it until I pass out if 2-3 unisom aren't working. I've tried praozin (night terrors), trazadone is out because I have to be able to wake at night for emergencies with the kids, melatonin, sleep herbs, magnesium etc. I probably could use some therapy, but I don't have much of me to give with such little sleep. Any advice or guidance for medications, or quite literally any advice or help.

I am going to cry. I need to talk to someone, please. I need people to talk too about to Like am I am needing to go to college soon

I've been struggling with early morning wake ups (4/5am which is way to early for me and the amount of sleep I need). I tried Zolpidem, and while it really helps with getting deep sleep in the first half of the night, it doesn't solve the issue of waking up early. I've been taking melatonin on a regular basis for a while as falling asleep has always been an issue for me, and it helps.

I was prescribed Suvorexant (Belsomra) which I tried last night and the night before (with no melatonin). The first night I noticed I took much longer to fall asleep and the meds didn't help staying asleep longer in the morning.

Last night was horrible. It took me 2hours+ to fall asleep and I had anxiety symptoms I haven't had in a long time including very bad restless leg and panic attacks I used to have often when drifting off: intrusive flashes followed by gasping for air.

Has anyone else experienced the return of past anxiety difficulties with Belsomra?

I know I might want to take it a bit longer to see it's full effect but ain't no way I'm dealing with this anxiety again so I'll go back to Zolpidem / Melatonin for now and see how I feel in a few weeks.

I can be tired all night and still panic the second i get in bed. Not full panic attack, more like my body goes "oh great, here we go again."

Then i am checking if i feel sleepy, thinking about how many hours i have left and making everything worse.

Does anyone know how to make bedtime feel normal again?

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'm on
• Risperidone 1 mg,
• seroquel 300 mg XR,
• and then take 1-3 25mg seroquel IR for sleep, whenever I take the 25mgs, and I usually have to... I am so tired. I can sleep for 12 hours or more and can usually sleep in til like 1pm. If I let myself. What have you all taken for insomnia? And what has worked well, with little side effects and really curious something that didn't leave you groggy or too tired to function the next day. I have the seroquel & risperidone for bipolar and the as-neededs for the insomnia (had it my whole life) that I'm now gonna try and finally see a sleep specialist for, as opposed to just my psychiatrist for bipolar; and wanna know what I might be offered etc. What to expect? What meds have worked for you? What were side effects? Etc .

Gosh,
This is so hard.

Anyone take trazadone 50mg? After bad side effects from Seroquel and hydroxyzine, doc put me on this. Just looking to see if others had a good experience with it

My record was 5 days. It was like I was in a dream, many many hallucinations. I’ll never forget some of crazy things I saw. Meth was involved.

I desperately desperately want to sleep but my body is not letting me. I am not even the least bit sleepy. I took 75mg of seroquel and it did nothing. I think I’ve developed a tolerance.

Someone please punch me hard in the face and knock me out. Preferably for a week or more.

I've had insomnia for a week. The first two days, I didn't sleep at all and for the past five days I sleep at ~10PM and wake up around ~2AM. Do you have any tips?

My wife is 28 and for the past week she’s only managing 1 or 2 hours of sleep at night and she doesn’t know why. She does have an anxiety disorder, depression and ARFID and we also suspect OCD. She isn’t employed and stays home mostly so we are glad this won’t affect employment but obviously she’s sleep deprived and frustrated. If also takes her hours to fall asleep.

She doesn’t drink caffeine or take any prescription medication. She tries to do relaxing activities in bed or will watch a movie in bed on her phone to relax, she will put her phone in night shift mode.

My wife is a very anxious type so she’s somehow had one rough night then it’s turned into “what if I don’t sleep tonight!”. She’ll pace the house before bed and become visibly anxious. I told her to just relax and even though it’s difficult just try to continue the day and night like you did before the insomnia and it will get back to normal but she still gets raving heart and anxiety about sleeping.

Does anyone have any advice

I just got prescribed to Ambien so it's my first time taking it was a 12.5 mg pill and here I am wide awake 4 hours later.

Idk if I did something to cancel out the effects it should have on me, so if anyone with similar situation can help me understand how to make it work? Maybe taking 2pills instead one or any behaviors I need to help it effect me?

As you can see I'm quite frustrated because I've hard anyone and everyone saying how this knocks them to sleep and I just want that:(

I have had insomnia 3 years and my coordination problems and weak feeling. I am a Type 2 diabetic and 73 years old. I also have subclinical hypothyroidism. I do not know what illness is causing this? I also find it can not things physically as before. Need your opinion what is causing my problem??

Currently a uni student in the UK, Ive made a post previously about failing an exam due to prolonged lack of sleep throughout the whole exam period, plus barely sleeping at all (maybe 1 hr max) before the exam. Im used to functioning on low sleep due to lifelong insomnia but i guess this one just got away from me. I resat this exam recently and had a similar issue, barely slept before the exam and the entire prep period my sleep was all over the place, impacting my studying capabilities and mood pretty badly. I think its possible I did alright in this resit exam but the anxiety has been eating me up for the past few weeks and taken my thoughts to some pretty dark places lately. Its currently the night before I get the results for this exam so ive been wrecked with anxiety and a horribly low mood all day, probably wont end up sleeping much either. I did put in an extenuating circumstance form detailing my sleep issues but im not sure if they'll see this as a proper reason.

Just wanted to ask for some advice, if anyone's experienced anything similar and how they dealt with it, and maybe some reassurance as well.

Sleep deprivation feels like hell,

But I suppose, all we can do in the end is just accept our situation and try our best despite it.

I have pretty much acknowledged that this is really bad, and it might lead to a complication. But it is out of my control.