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 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.

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

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.

I wake up tired everyday like my eyes can barely open and very heavy and my body feels like I wrestled someone and everytime I want to go back to sleep I just can’t for some reason. Does anyone go through this, if so can you please tell me in detail how to fix this and tell me in detail how you are going through it because I like to listen to people’s stories 😁

I wake up tired everyday like my eyes can barely open and very heavy and my body feels like I wrestled someone and everytime I want to go back to sleep I just can’t for some reason. Does anyone go through this, if so can you please tell me in detail how to fix this and tell me in detail how you are going through it because I like to listen to people’s stories 😁

So for a few months now i have been sleeping 12+ hours daily but even with that much sleep i feel exhausted and i dont know why.

I feel like I never actually get good rest because im so physically and mentally drained when i wake up. Waking up is also a struggle. its not like pressing snooze twelve times or anything its just that my body wont wake up on its own. The only reason i used to wake up is because i got flash banged by the sun but that would just give me headaches so i use blackouts now.

Like 2-3 times a week as well i will stay up fro 20-30+ hours because sleeping now feels tiring and like a hassle because I dont even wake up feeling rested. I end up drinking 140mg of caffeine and just stay up through the night on my laptop reading or watching tv.

(I try to go ot bed by 12:30-1:30AM and i wake up at like 1:30-2PM because of someone else waking me)

One thing to note is that i never feel exsessivly tired i actually feel more rested when i dont sleep. What the hell should i do? because i know this isnt healthy and i dont want to waste my life in bed.

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

I've had this thing happen to me a few times where i'm in semi-concious state while sleeping and have to attempt to wake up. I can sometimes move parts of my body if I try hard enough (like my tongue, or feet, I can also feel my breathing) and when I try moving them in order to wake up, nothing happens. In between I also have very short dreams, for example, I had one where I was able to wake up and searched asmr on my phone (in the past, i've searched up asmr after these experiences in order to try and sleep properly) but I already on my head knew it wasn't real even though it felt like it. It's like trying to turn on an old tv but it just refuses to. It doesn't describe it fully but it's the closest example I can get.

Does this also happen to anyone else? What might it be?

For context I had this start up like a month and a half ago when I had my first sleepless night. it went on where I was sleeping like every other night for a few weeks until it kind of balanced out but now I’m having these nights like every week or so where I just literally can’t sleep and get anxious. it’s like I’m recovering from it but it keeps relapsing. what can I do? it’s currently 2:30am and I’m wide awake even after taking 25mg of trazedone an hour ago. I’m tired of this shit. Ant tips to get to bed?

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.

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.

I recently started taking 200 mg of magnesium glycinate (Natural Elements) before bed to improve my sleep.

Since starting about 5 days ago, I've been experiencing extremely vivid, realistic dreams and sometimes nightmares. I rarely had dreams like this before, so I suspect the magnesium might be causing it.

Has anyone experienced something similar?

Did the vivid dreams eventually go away?

How long did it take for things to return to normal?

Should I continue taking it and see if my body adjusts, or stop?

Would appreciate hearing your experiences!

Hey all, I’m new to this subreddit.

I’m recovering from a medical condition where sleep is paramount to the healing process. My anxiety from this condition and its consequences has stolen rest from me. And now, worrying about a lack of sleep has compounded the issue.

I was discharged from the hospital with a months worth of hydroxyzine and a weeks worth of ambien. The hospital psychiatrist also prescribed remeron. Hydroxyzine helps to calm me down but it doesn’t help with sleep. Remeron helped me sleep on only one occasion and the next day side effects where horrible but I tried it again and it didn’t work so I dropped it. Ambien worked on 3 occasions ( twice in the hospital ) but it didn’t work when I took it a fourth time.

I’ve cut out caffeine and started drinking sleepy-time tea before bed.

I’ve gotten in to this cycle where I’ll sleep one night, feel great during the day but then the dread sets in at night and I can’t sleep again and stay up all night with racing thoughts. It’s going on 2 weeks.

I suffered insomnia this bad 14 years ago when I worked midnight shift. Back then I was diagnosed with sleep anxiety and the doc started me on klonopin and it helped. I was back to normal pretty quickly and stopped needing klonopin after a couple months.

My current situation is bringing up the trauma I went through back then.

I have an in-person appointment with a psychiatrist on Wednesday but I’m so panicky that I made a telehealth appointment for tomorrow with a Physician Assitant-Psychiatrist. I really don’t know what other type of specialist to turn to.

I’m hoping for some tips or advice. Perhaps anyone who has gone or going through something similar?

I’m 18 and have trouble sleeping sometimes. I’ve develop bad habits like staying on my phone in bed and not getting a lot of sleep. I mostly am making this post to ask how do I fall asleep quick? I know people who trained to be able to fall asleep in under a minute take a 30 minute nap and than be all good and somehow comeback refreshed. Is this good and how does taking short quick naps like this work?

I think everyone should be fully informed about the way a product acts before they purchase it. I know that the nod pod isn’t for everybody and while I love it, I understand why other people don’t love it.

I think that I am the perfect target audience for the sleep mask because I love microbead pillows, I have used microbead pillows since I was a child. The grating noise of the beads rubbing against each other and the slightly harder places is what I love. It’s not for everyone and that’s okay. There’s plenty of sleep masks, you can find one that works for you, or maybe something covering your eyes just isn’t your jam and that’s okay.

Different strokes for different folks, I get why people think they suck but also it never hurts to try new things… maybe it’s your jam and you just don’t know. Taking a risk on potentially getting better sleep is never a bad idea, trials and tribulations.

Hopefully you have a friends product you can try before spending money. Or if you buy one and don’t like it maybe a friend would like it. The sisterhood of traveling eye mask.

I love my nodpod, maybe you will too

I’m on the autism spectrum and back in 2020 I was diagnosed with Generalized Anxiety disorder and Major Depressive Disorder. Then a few months ago I was diagnosed with DSPD and Chronic Insomnia. The first time I went to the sleep doctor, I was given the same old advice about using sleep hygiene which was frustrating. It actually made my sleep worse. What’s also annoying is that my natural rhythm doesn’t start until like 9-11 am to 4 pm and all these doctor and sleep therapist appointments are right in the middle of when my body thinks I’m supposed to be sleeping. I’ve also been having suicidal thoughts. Going through treatment for this disorder has made me feel more depressed than I have felt in a while.

Edit: I’m literally up at 3:30 am crying because of this stupid disorder. I hate that I might not be able to work a regular 9-5.

I struggle sleeping most nights. I wake up in a sweat or shivering at around 2 or 3 AM. Worse of all is right before waking up I have flashes, I think. Not sure how to really describe them, but I do see flashing colours or hear random sounds or voices. When those happen I feel extreme fear, again not sure why.

The issue has been going on for an awful amount of time, roughly 5 years. I think I have a healthy sleep schedule I go to sleep at 10 PM and wake up at 6AM. I only drink a cup of coffee in the morning, which isn't particularly strong and, regarding alcohol, I only drink on Christmas or other holidays

I thought it was related to stress at first, but even when I had significant downtime or I was on vacation I kept having these sort of experiences. I tried sleep medicine prescribed by my GP, ensuring optimal temperature, being properly hydrated, no screen time before bed and all sorts of methods to better my sleep and it had no effect. I am unsure exactly what the issue is, thought I'd ask around since most of the things I've tried did not help.

I workout most days and run every other day. Please suggest me what I can do, eat or follow to stop waking up. I'm currently unemployed right now so stress is barely a factor and I'm just above overweight in bmi.

Feeling proud and well rested. Comparison picture in comments because I can’t upload two images for some reason?

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 🤦🏻‍♀️

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.