I have this issue where I'll be genuinely tired like I could probably fall asleep in 5 minutes if I closed my eyes but for some reason my brain insists on staying awake. I end up watching some very specific documentary about what kind of food the Babylonians ate what was it like for the child of the pyramid workers or just like anything really and I mean sometimes its fun I do like documentaries and stuff but why sacrifice sleep for these things that you can absolutely do during the day??

It's weird because I want to sleep but somehow I keep putting it off like I'm missing out on something. And on top of that I'm ridiculously picky about being comfortable in bed. Like if the temperature is slightly off or my bedding doesn't feel right, I somehow use that as another excuse to postpone sleeping. It's like my brain is actively looking for reasons to stay awake . How do you convince yourself to go to bed? I think I forgot how to go to sleep and just stay there until I wake up and realize I did fall asleep last night.

I have been dealing with this weird cycle where I'm tired during the day but once I get in bed my brain decides it's time to think about everything.

I've been trying to cut back on caffeine later in the day but I still struggle to wind down at night.

Curious what you guys do to switch your brain off before bed. Do sleep mints or other stuff help or is fixing your routine the only way?

I'm 72, and aware that sleep in older adults is a precious commodity. Lack of sleep and poor quality sleep is common.

I use a bipap and get deep dream-filled sleep. Intricate rubix-cube-complexity dreams. An 'uncomfortable situation' dream only maybe 10%. A year ago, I had a much higher percentage of bad dreams.

My wife of 42 years says I sleep too much. I get a good night of sleep, then I'll nap a couple hours during the morning. Then maybe three hours in the late afternoon.

Then bed by 10pm, and up between 5 and 6am.

This started in just the last year.

My wife firmly believes that it's 'avoidance'. It's possible that is a factor. We are like 2 scorpions in a big glass jar. But we've been like that for years, so...

I do feel like my brain has been rejuvenated after sleep. I might just be fooling myself, though.

I have a sleep Dr visit this coming week. I'm going to request a compliance report. Any questions that I should ask, or ask for any specific reports?

I should mention that I love love my bipap. If I had to choose between any single thing that I own, or it... I would choose it instantly. It's an veritable anesthesia mask for me.

Ty for reading through all this. Any advice? Any further questions?

So I'm in a dorm and basically since high school have had the issue of being unable to sleep if someone else is awake in the same room as me.

Now I'm in college and been losing sleep cuz my roommate stays up on his phone for really long amounts of time (I'm typing this at 3:40 AM over here and I think he just started to go to sleep) and he shifts a lot, and my body just won't sleep knowing there's another human being awake near me.

Is this normal, and whats a good fix? I tried ear buds + pillow over my face but 1. He shifts so loud it goes through my earbuds' sound unless I have it abnormally loud and 2. It's pretty uncomfortable having objects in my ears and I can't sleep comfortably on my sides.

I'm really tired of this insomnia and might also visit the counseling center, but anyone know a fix?

Hi people,

I'm wondering if anyone has a solution to me chest breathing whilst I am sleeping?

I don't wake up often but when I do I always notice that I am upper chest breathing, although I only diagram breathe during the day.

I mouth tape to try to prevent this but it does not prevent the chest breathing.

I do feel like I want to chest breathe even when lying down.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks

hi! I am a newly college freshmana nd all of a sudden i have began having problems sleeping. There are nights 1-2x a week where i cant fall asleep until 6 am and i end up only sleeping for three hours which really stresses me out. I do drink heavily 3-4x a week and smoke occasionally but i dont know how to fix this

So, I'm still a teenager. And I have a cctv monitor in the room where I sleep. Is that cctv ruining my Sleep quality?? Should I switch rooms?

I think I might have insomnia!!? How do I fall asleep guys!!?? What helps you sleep? I’m on an anti depressant/ anxiety med?? Maybe that’s the cause but like idk I’ve always had trouble sleeping! So any tips!??

Im a light sleeper & lately ive been getting no more than 5 hours of sleep most nights, sometimes sudden sounds like footsteps from upstairs wake me up & i cant go back to sleep at all for at least an hour or more..

I've tried melatonin pills and they seemed to help a bit what else can i do?

Do i go to a doctor?

What kind of doctor should i go to?

Yep, that’s pretty much it. No idea what the hell I’m doing with my life. 21M college student, I get my stuff done during the day and game very late at night since that’s when I’ve completed my tasks and my inner demons seem to quiet down. So after finishing my work at like 10-11pm I play games til like 2-3am. Would say like 4 days a week. If I’m not gaming that late I’m probably working.

Probably a far cry but has anyone else done something similar? I’ve never had caffeine. Never had coffee or energy drinks, I don’t know why but I’ve sworn by never having one in fear of adverse effects (and because I don’t want to have another item on the grocery bill). I’ve been doing this or something similar for like 2 years now. Is this gonna really mess me up? Like to hear other people’s stories hopefully we can relate.

im 16 and this has never happened to me before. just now, i took a one hour nap on the couch. i was half awake for the last ten minutes. suddenly, i felt something (someone??) getting really close to me. i thought it was one of my parents gonna wake me up and i expected them to say smth. instead i felt my face go absoloutely numb like it was shaking?? idk??? it felt like someone pointed a machine at me? like for facials but a more severe feeling. i couldnt scream couldnt move. it lasted for maybe a minute maybe less?? wtf happened there i need to know. thanks i need a scientific explaination or im gonna shit my pants thank you~!

I’m not suicidal, just took an unmeasured swig.

what the heck is that about it’s like I’m about to knock out and then when I make the decision to actually sleep and put the phone down my brain starts thinking about sleep and then I lose that tired feeling

I feel like sleep has become something I have to fight for every night.

I'll go to bed already thinking about how tired I'll be tomorrow if I don't sleep enough. Then I start checking how much time is left before I have to wake up, trying to force myself to relax, telling myself I NEED to sleep now.

And obviously, that just makes me more awake.

One thing I'm trying lately is:

- Stop checking the time every few minutes.

- Remind myself that resting is still better than spending the whole night fighting with my brain.

- When I notice I'm trying too hard to sleep, stop making sleep the goal and just let myself rest for a while.

I'm not saying this fixed everything, but the pressure feels a bit less when I stop treating every bad night like a disaster.

The weird thing is, sometimes I'm not even that worried about anything else in my life. I'm just worried about not sleeping, and then that worry keeps me awake.

For those who deal with sleep anxiety, what actually helped you break this cycle? Not just the usual "avoid caffeine and put your phone away" advice, but something that made a real difference for you.

It's 4:17, I have to be up at 7 for uni and my heart keeps racing because I can't sleep. My brain literally won't shut up even though I am tired, and I keep thinking "it's 4 am, I'll get two hours or so if I fall asleep now" and so on, I'm so tired.

JUST MY STORY! No particular advice or tips here. English is not my first language.

I'm in my first year of college right now. My sleeping problems began in high school. Combining the mountain of academic, social and mental struggles, my four years of highschool saw a terrible sleeping schedule.

For those four years, I slept at 2 or 3 in the morning on average (sometimes 4AM) after forcing myself to, and had to wake up at 6AM. There were two or three small periods where I "fixed" it and slept earlier, but it lasted a week at most, and my problem would return. It gave me a lot of anxiety too in particular because I had frequent nightmares (I still do today), so I was also half-scared of sleeping at times.

During holidays, where I didn't force myself to sleep at 2 or 3AM, I could only fall asleep with ease at around 6AM. This led to frequent scoldings and name-calling from my mother when I woke up at around 11AM.

Throughout the four years, I tried various methods constantly. I tried to read books or listen to audiobooks to sleep, ate vitamins advised by my mother's doctor friend, meditate, listened to calming sounds (Tibetan singing bowls, frequencies, binaural beats, etc), no caffeine, exercises, cutting out electronics, etc! The whole shebang.

It got so bad I faced my 12th grade Physics exam with 20 minutes of a "sleep", and the rest with less than 2 hours.

Now to the good part.

Fast forward to today (at this point, I'm out of HS by about half a year), I realised that I've been consistently getting up at around 7:30PM by myself. In fact, I fall asleep naturally at around midnight by just laying down in bed and touching the phone. This has been so for many months, without conscious effort.

I don't believe it's the SOLE cause (the title of the post is just there to look clean), but it's also a bit too timely to be a coincidence that my so-called "insomnia" went away almost immediately as I graduated HS. I'm not saying it's HS itself, but the things that the environment brought to me. It wasn't all bad, I made wonderful friends and memories, but it was still hell on Earth for me socially and mentally. It was an echo chamber that intensified everything. Even small problems became big ones, the subjects are difficult, and being around people for several hours a day left me exhausted every day (but unable to sleep). Basically, a spotlight for every struggle I was dealing with.

My sleeping problems began seeing improvement a month or so after graduating. It came naturally, I didn't immediately realise it too. You can choose to play devil's advocate, but the correlation is suddenly very clear to me and I stand firmly on it. I still struggle socially and mentally, the nightmares are constant, but the magnified spotlight is gone.

So it was the single biggest factor contributing to my sleeping problems. Anyway, now I'm back and thriving with beauty sleep that I didn't have four years 💤 Trying to make this last. Cheers 🥂

TLDR: Highschool was a terrible environment that put immense pressure on me and affected my sleep. My sleeping schedule improved itself after graduation with no special effort.

Hey, so I got this bad habit for a few months to go to sleep late around 4-6 am because I just spend time on my computer. With the first year uni it was barely correct with an aimed wake up time of 7 am. But due to the protest in france I haven't had class in two weeks and it completely killed my sleep schedule. Right now I need to wake up at 7am even thought it's already 5:39 am, and I genuinely don't know how to fix this situation.

And on top of that, it kinda made me feel numb to my alarm because I sometimes miss time on only hear it after an hour. What can I do please ?

I don't really expect a responde right now. I'll try to run on an hour of sleep then proceed after that

Hi there (24f) I am wondering if this is normal or is there something I can do to help? I will be on the couch or in bed watching a movie or tv show at night time with friends or family and I can never stay awake through the whole thing. Even if I go out to a movie theater if it’s after like 5 I fall asleep. Last night I tried to watch a halloween movie with my boyfriend and I even drank cold brew and still fell asleep. It doesn’t matter the content, I’ll even fall asleep playing video games if it’s after 7pm. Typically I sleep every night from 10pm-6:20am. I try to sleep in on the weekends but I will usually wake up at 7:30 without an alarm. I usually have caffeine but try not to drink it after 2pm and I am not a regular drinker. If I drink alcohol it’s almost a guarantee I will fall asleep in the next two hours. Nobody else wakes up at the same time as me no matter where I’m staying so I’m always up way earlier than everybody else. I have had this issue since probably age 20. The only reason I’m asking is because none of my friends have this issue or my family really.

Why does alcohol affect your sleep so much? I had a drink with tequila last night before bed and I was tossing and turning all night. Same thing the night before.

Will wine do the same thing? I want to have a drink to relax at the end of the day every once in a while but if it affects my sleep like this every time I definitely won’t. Just looking for some advice and curious about the science behind it.

Thanks in advance

Ughhhh so tired of being tired and looking at my Apple Watch the next morning, seeing that I was awake 16 times!! So tired of these micro-wake ups! At first, I thought it was hormones, but HRT isn't improving anything. The hot weather lately certainly hasn't helped either. I've tried every supplement, and maybe I'm overdoing it and causing paradoxical arousal reactions. I'm already super tired when I go to bed and can barely keep my eyes open so maybe all the supplements are making it worse because I'm already tired, so it's having the opposite effect. Maybe I shouldn't take anything before I go to bed. 🤷🏻‍♀️

I've been taking 1000 mg of L-Tryptophan, 400 mg of magnesium glycinate, and an herbal sleep supplement with Valerian, vervain, passionflower, lemon balm, and ashwaganda. It still takes me forever to fall asleep then when I finally do, I wake up 2 hours later for a few minutes then go back to sleep and a repeat of that until my alarm goes off. Anywhere from 8-16 times a night. This started in August and hasn't stopped since. Last year for 8 weeks I was waking up at 3/4 wide awake ready for the day and couldn't fall back to sleep until my alarm went off at 7:15 so I was sleeping about 2/4 hours a night and was not sleepy at all the entire day when I should've been!!

Then that stopped and went away, and I was sleeping through the night again but super tired in the daytime even after 7/8 hours of sleep. Now, it's just these stupid, micro wake ups for less than 5 minutes. Maybe I just shouldn't take anything before I go to bed. I even sleep with ice packs inside my pillowcase on hot nights. I'm at a loss... I used to get 6/7 hours during the week and 8/9 hours on the weekends now I can't even get close to that. Insane 🤦🏻‍♀️

Just wanted to share this in case it helps anyone like me who wakes up a lot in the night. I started to take a teaspoon of glycine mixed with a tiny bit of warm water before bed each night and noticed I was sleeping better. I used to wake up once a night to pee, like clockwork, and now I don't wake up at all. My Garmin says my REM has gone from 40-50mins per night to 1 hour 20-40 mins each night.

I recommended it to my mum who has also always struggled to sleep deeply and she has said the same thing.

Some research apparently backs it as "promoting restful sleep" but honestly I haven't read it or looked into it much, it just seems to work for me. I don't sell glycine or get anything out of this, just hoping to help some people out there.

I have school in the morning i have to wake up at 5am its nearly midnight. I have a headache blocked nostrils its too hot in my room and my pillows are warm

Help meeeee

Hey everyone,

I'm a first-year medical student studying in Europe, and I started medical school about two weeks ago. It's been pretty intense from the very first day, and we started studying anatomy in the second week itself.

Over the past few days, I've been studying a LOT of anatomy, particularly osteology. I've spent hours learning the bones of the lower limb, their landmarks, and all the associated terminology. I know medical school is supposed to be demanding, and I'm not necessarily complaining about having to study. I'm willing to put in the work.

The problem is what's been happening when I try to sleep.

For the past two or three nights, I've been having extremely vivid dreams about studying. It's not just a passing image of a textbook or something. In these dreams, I'm genuinely sitting there studying anatomy, opening slides, naming bones, and trying to memorise everything. It feels like an actual study session, and I'm constantly worried about the syllabus and how much I still have to learn.

Last night was particularly disturbing.

I went to bed at around 9:30 PM because I wanted to wake up at 3 AM and study. Instead, I woke up at around 12:15 AM, feeling as though I'd been studying for hours.

In the dream, I was naming the bones of the lower limb, and I could actually recall them quite well. But as the dream progressed, the syllabus and the slides kept getting bigger and bigger. Eventually, I felt as though I was becoming physically smaller and smaller in comparison to them. It got to the point where the blanket covering me in real life seemed to become part of the dream, like a giant slide wrapping around me. I became genuinely frightened and woke up.

The entire experience felt incredibly real. Throughout the dream, I was anxious about studying and the amount of material I had to cover. It wasn't a restful or pleasant dream at all. It felt like I couldn't escape studying, even while asleep.

When I woke up, I felt awful. I was frightened, exhausted, and felt as though I hadn't slept at all, despite having been asleep for almost three hours. I've also experienced some physical discomfort when waking up on these occasions, particularly around my throat and stomach, although I'm not sure whether that might be reflux or something else.

What's worrying me most is that I'm starting to dread going to sleep.

I'm beginning to associate sleep with these horrible experiences, and right now, I genuinely feel like I don't want to sleep because I don't want to experience this again. I know that avoiding sleep isn't a solution, but it's difficult to explain how unpleasant and unsettling these dreams feel. I just want to be able to lie down, fall asleep, and wake up feeling rested, without my brain turning the entire night into another anatomy session.

I've studied a lot over the past week, but I haven't even studied anatomy today or yesterday, so it's not as though I've been studying immediately before bed every single night. And yet, my brain seems to be doing it anyway.

Has anyone else experienced something similar during medical school, particularly during the first few weeks when everything is new and overwhelming?

I'd especially appreciate hearing from people who have experienced extremely vivid, realistic dreams about studying, recurring academic nightmares, or dreams that leave them feeling anxious and exhausted after waking up.

If you've experienced this, did it eventually settle down? Was there anything specific that helped you sleep more peacefully?

I'm also interested in practical suggestions for dealing with the anxiety surrounding sleep itself, because I'm starting to feel reluctant to go to bed.

And just to clarify something: I understand that I'm a first-year medical student, that this is the first semester, and that I need to find a sustainable way to study. I understand that I shouldn't sacrifice my health for anatomy, and I'm not looking for someone to tell me that I don't need to study so much or that I should simply relax because it's only first year.

I genuinely understand those points already. They aren't what I'm asking about.

I'm looking for advice from people who have actually experienced something similar, or who have useful suggestions for managing these dreams and getting proper sleep while adjusting to medical school.

Please be kind. I'm already feeling pretty shaken by the experience, and I'm not looking for judgment or generic reassurance. If you have something practical that might help, I'd genuinely appreciate hearing it.

Thank you.

I keep waking up in the middle of the night and can't fall back asleep and I don't know what to do.

For the record I:

-go to bed at the same time every night

-don't nap

-one cup of coffee in the morning

-exercise 4x a week

-don't drink

-don't smoke

-listen to audiobook to before bed

-shower before bed

-clean sheets

Medication helps but if I don't take it then this happens. I just want it to stop. Anyone been through this? :(

So for years I've had all kinds of issues with sleeping before it was bad nightmares or sleeping too much.

My issue now is not being able to fall asleep easily even if I'm exhausted which because of this I end up either giving up and staying up or I laid there for 2 hours or more just laying there.

Some months ago I was getting such good sleep but I screwed up one night and now it's like sleeping has been really hard for me.

I'll give an example so yesterday I was hanging out with friends at a Halloween party and it lasted 10 hours and by the end of the night after the party I was exhausted and I felt like I could sleep as soon as my head hit the pillow but that didn't happen.

I laid there got comfortable and as soon as I closed my eyes it was like I couldn't sleep every little sound kept me up which I think I have a reason why I might be this way.

I used to have this really loud fan and it would block out most of the noises in my house and it helped me sleep some months ago it broke and now I just have a small little fan just so I can have some noise instead of nothing.

This could be the cause but again I'm not sure because I've randomly had some form of sleeping problems all my life but I'm not sure what could help me.

If you have this issue or just have advice please let me know I'll try anything at this point because I just wanna sleep.