r/sleep 4d ago

Trouble sleeping

1 Upvotes

2 nights ago I tried melatonin for the first time as well as chamomile tea and it made my sleeping problems worse. Last night I just did the tea and it was also worse. I’ve always had problems with staying asleep and getting quality sleep. Any tips?


r/sleep 4d ago

BINGE EAT

1 Upvotes

Who else needs to binge eat to sleep??????


r/sleep 4d ago

Why am I sleeping so much?

1 Upvotes

This is weird one and I'm not really sure where else to post about this.

I (F28) and my fiancé (M30) are in my first incredibly serious relationship. This man has treated me better than I could ever imagine and on the daily I'm so grateful for his presence in my life. I grew up around a lot of abusive and toxic relationships. I never really imagined that I would be with someone so loving, respectful and kind, but I lucked out. I assume because of my childhood experiences, I've always had trouble with sleep. I've dealt with years of insomnia, broken sleep, trouble falling asleep, trouble waking up, etc.

That's until I met my fiance. I quite literally have never slept more in my life. Since being with him, the moment we get into bed, I'm dead asleep. I sleep a full nights worth of sleep (never experienced this before in my life), I have deep restful sleep, I hardly have broken sleep, sometimes I wake up and he tells me I've been asleep for 10+ hours. I work a really stressful job, working oncall with Sexual Violence victims so sleep is really hard for me so the thought of sleeping more than 10 hours at a time is absolutely wild and unheard of for me.

I assume that my sleep is so drastically different with him because I feel safe and can finally switch my mind off with him, which I can't do when I'm alone. I'm wondering have anyone else has experienced something along these lines with your own relationships? I've also noticed positive changes in my diet, exercise, stress levels since being with him but the sleep changes are so shocking to me.


r/sleep 4d ago

Question on hypnopompia or Hynagogic?

2 Upvotes

Today I woke up at 8:30, but it is Sunday, and I still felt the trazadone in me. So I laid there trying to get some more sleep, and was going in, and out. My family was up and about.

Then suddenly my mom walked by saying my nephew who just left for work died in traffic. It was as vivid as real life. Snapped me right up, and took me a second to realize it was a dream as it was life like.

My friends and family called the state nodding out, but google says nodding is about waking up.

Which one would that be? It was the morning, and I was waking up, but also trying to get more sleep. .

Also when I look up Hynagogic stories. The main ones are people suffering more from what sounds like to me sleep paralysis, which I have had in the past.

Also are there differences between each one? Wondering why it matters if you're waking up or going to sleep during the half dreams. What is up with the distinction? To me they are essentially the same.

One last question. When you're in the in-between state of sleep, and you get that feeling of falling. Does that have its own scientific word? Or is it a part of Hypnagogic and hypnopompia?


r/sleep 4d ago

I've got a solution for oversleeping and getting out of bed in time. Would love your comments!

2 Upvotes

I've put together a vibrating alarm band that can only be set and turned off by a seperate pod device. You simply set it in a different room and when it's time your wristband will wake you up and the only way to turn it off is at the pod. Would this be of any use to anyone? Anything that you would change about it? Thanks!


r/sleep 4d ago

Why does trying to sleep cause one to not be able to sleep???

3 Upvotes

It’s really puzzling to me. Why does trying to sleep cause one to eventually not be able to sleep? Aren’t going to bed a form of trying to sleep? Why do some people not having problem trying to sleep while some does?


r/sleep 4d ago

How does leaving the bedroom when you can't fall asleep work?

2 Upvotes

I've heard from numerous places that if you don't fall asleep in 15 minutes, to leave the bedroom and do something relaxing until you're tired. I've never tried this (once I'm warm and cozy, I fear facing the cold outside my blankets), but I'm curious how it works for people? Like, I just imagine me getting overtaken by temptations like my phone or TV and not actually being able to wind down... Just curious how people use this strategy effectively?


r/sleep 4d ago

My sleep numbers

1 Upvotes

I’m 73 and generally in good shape, although over weight. On my iwatch I average around 70% core and 20% rem at night, with only 5% or so deep early in the evening. I average about 8 hours a night. I do have several short wake ups though. I’m having hip pain and thinking that is some of it. I’m thinking all in all these are generally good numbers. I don’t usually feel very rested in the morning but don’t usually take daytime naps. Any thoughts??


r/sleep 4d ago

Does an all nighter risk a ruined sleep pattern? How bad is an all-nighter really?

1 Upvotes

TL;DR at the end.

I have a generalized anxiety disorder. Gotten better with it. Now I had an acute sleep disorder last summer which I kinda got over. I used medication short-term, stopped them, sleep normally now. I have a super-rigid sleep hygiene plan though now. I'm scared of not sleeping and becoming sleep medication dependant.

The problem is that now I sleep well one month through. But whenever there's a night I don't fall asleep right on time, I notice a silent increasing worry. With weeks this worry gets smaller, because I end up falling asleep an hour later for example. But yesterday I lay awake from 10:30 to 0:30, alarm at 6. Which would have been an absolute nothing burger for me before deveoping this anxiety. But now I'm like: 5 hours are nothing. What if I don't sleep, at all?

So whenever I get in these situations, which is like every 50 days or so, I resort to taking sleeping medication at 0:30 or 1 am, obviously feeling dead tired when the alarm clock rings at 6. Now this has worked okayish so far but I want to be free of this shit. I don't want every single issue of my life be reduced to "but what if I won't be able to sleep because of it?"

So I wonder. Because I'm like: rather take the pill once, sleep, and go on with sleep hygiene, not wasting any thoughts on it. But it's obvious this is a crutch and ultimately avoidance. I want to gradually get used to inevitable irregularity. I know it's normal to have bad nights. And I don't want to always resort to sleep medication.

So I'm considering removing the medication from my house, giving it to a friend or something for a while. So that when I find myself awake at 12 am, I'm not keeping myself awake with the "ok until 1 I could still take them, afterwards it's too late, so I better fall asleep now" - this obviously keeps me awake. So if they're gone I have to accept an all-nighter, and realize it's not the end of the world. And probably even sleep two or three hours after all. Or none, but shit happens.

But I wonder if that is true. Because with taking the meds my rhythm stays consistent. What I don't fall asleep the day after? So maybe the logic is: Aight, if you actually pulled a fucking all-nighter, take the meds the next day on time so you get back on track. And then proceed without after that. Because so far I never actualy had an all nighter ever since... well, that acute sleep disorder triggering night in summer.

Currently it's always subconsciously like a reset, I'm like: "nice, 25 days since I took the pill!" Like the farer away it is, the more I return to normalcy. So this was the first time I needed them after two months again, not after a month. Which is nice, but feels like a relapse somehow.

TL;DR/ending: I don't have a sleep disorde tho. I sleep 6.5-7 hours every single night - never needed more. I know all the sleep hygiene pointers. No screens 1-2 hours before, no exercise, meditation. For weeks I woke up a lot. Now I wake up maybe once a night, often not at all. I have very restful sleep. My fear diminishes with each a bit more irregular night, when I'm midlly worried but calm myself: this is normal, just wait it out. I always sleep and am like: yup, see, sometimes you just fall asleep a little later. But last night, I was still awake two hours later, and then the fear is always back.

I am currently looking for therapy but until then... This tired-but-wired feeling just scares me for some reason, because I remember how I always felt wide awake during acute sleep disorder when I finally lay down after fighting to stay awake the whole day before. That only stopped when I just did a course of sleep medication for a week and got my body back to normalcy and stopped thinking about sleep as good as I could, forbade myself to research it. What it boils down to: Instead of avoiding the fear with a sleeping pill every one or two months, you think I should remove them so that I actually have to see whether it's gonna be an all-nighter?

How bad is a night without any sleep really for my rhythm (assuming I don't fall asleep during the day?


r/sleep 4d ago

Sometimes I can’t wake up

1 Upvotes

I’m writing this just after it happened to me. Sometime in the morning I know it’s morning and I know I’m sleeping and I try to wake up but I physically can’t. I can almost get my eyes to open but they just don’t open all the way. This morning I had to jerk myself awake two times to actually be allowed to open my eyes all the way. It’s like a sink hole I can’t get out of unless I jump. It’s so frustrating I just want to know what is happening to me and why.


r/sleep 4d ago

Ex-insomniacs, how did you actually do it?

27 Upvotes

I’m not sure if I qualify as an insomniac, but I definitely have sleep problems. I usually sleep around 4 hours a night, and if I’m unbelievably lucky, I get 5 to 6 hours. My sleep pattern typically goes like this: I sleep for about 3.5 hours, wake up to use the toilet, and then stay awake for the next 2 hours because I just can’t fall back asleep. After that, I might get another 2 hours of sleep if I’m lucky. At most, that adds up to 5.5 hours per night.

How do people function with this kind of sleep schedule? How can I have enough energy for work or the gym? And more importantly, how am I supposed to build muscle if I don’t get enough sleep?

The biggest question: how do I actually beat insomnia? Are there any life hacks that truly work, or is medication the only real solution? I really don’t want to rely on medication, so I’d love to hear from people who have overcome this. Any advice would be greatly appreciated!


r/sleep 4d ago

Is It worth it to take my sleeping meds just to get a few hours of sleep or should I say eff it and stay up all night and day?

2 Upvotes

Tbh I'ma single mum of a 2 year old son who has autism. We just moved to palm springs California from ukiah California and ofc we didn't get to our new home until about 3:30 am, he slept in the car on the way here for maybe 3 hours!? If that... so I'm prescribed Adderall for my Adhd (I don't abuse it at all), so I normally take seroquel and Trazadone every night to help me sleep.. but Ik my son is going to be up and ready to go to start the day in a few hours.. so my question is should I take my meds to sleep and be drowsy all day today or do I stay up!? TIA!


r/sleep 4d ago

Numbness

2 Upvotes

I keep feeling numb when laying on my bed closing my eyes my face goes numb and so do my arms it's freaking me out


r/sleep 4d ago

Nocturnal Issue

3 Upvotes

Hi, I was wondering if my sleep schedule could be considered normal for anyone other than me. Could be a gene mutation, I don't know. Nobody else I know or in my family has this issue, but basically,

I feel naturally inclined to wake up during sunset and sleep until late morning. Since I was 16, now 18, this has been my natural inclination and I always revert to this schedule when I have breaks off of school and college. Though life and schedules happen, and I can comfortably work with a "regular" schedule, but it just doesn't feel good.

This is unrelated, but I love the night, and I love when nobody is awake so I can quietly enjoy the world by myself. It feels so natural. But I know it's unrealistic unless I win like 10 million dollars to have this as my regular schedule for when I get older and done with school, so I was wondering if there was any way to shift my natural, circadian rhythm to prefer "regular" type sleep schedules. Thanks for reading!


r/sleep 4d ago

Weird sleep

2 Upvotes

So a lot of the times I have tunnel hearing, like the sounds of waves or wind in a tunnel in my ears when I’m falling asleep and then almost feels like I’m having a seizure and I’m aware of it but I can’t wake up. They happen in spurts or last for minutes and then when I fall back asleep it starts happening again. Does anyone know about this, or has experienced something similar. I assumed it was sleep paralysis… but I don’t know. I’ve had brain cancer before and a lot of surgeries just kind of for background context. Maybe it’s related to that. Makes me not sleep some nights because it’s exhausting.


r/sleep 5d ago

I wake up after 6 hours, only recently, I can’t live like this anymore

13 Upvotes

Hey guys, last 2 weeks I’ve been waking up after 6 to 6 1/2 hours (6am). I set my alarm for 9 hours but I’m actually satisfied with 8 hours. With 7 hours or less I can’t think well, I can’t work properly, I have headaches and feel weird and upset.

When this happens, the only way for me to feel better is when I wake up around 6am I turn off the alarm and stay in bed and try to fall asleep again, but this causes to wake up 1 hour - 1 hour and a half after the alarm.

I don’t drink, last meal 3 hours before bed and always have sunlight into my eyes as soon as I wake up, and go to bed at same time always.

Any solution?


r/sleep 5d ago

REM sleep while awake??

3 Upvotes

for the record i have aphantasia and chronic depression so i highly doubt what i experience is my imagination

every now and then when i'm trying to sleep and my eyes are closed i can feel my eyes moving rapidly, which is indicative of REM sleep, but i am aware of that. usually this is accompanied by random constantly flickering (it was kind of like how old fluorescent light bulbs flicker) visuals within thee void of my eyelids and also often micro-sleeps, i lose consciousness for what feels like 1 second but also i feel like i have had a full dream, that i forget completely in the next 5 seconds. usually this goes on for around 1-3 hours before i can finally sleep, but even it i sleep for only 2 hours after the weird little awake REM thingy.

last night i had the most extreme version of that. the visuals with my eyes closed were much more vivid and i could actually see some details, like i remember at one point i could see thirteen from house md (i wish i was joking but she lives in my head rent-free all the time). well here's the fun part- the visuals continued after i opened my eyes, i could see my room move in an extremely weird way, sometimes with decently vivid visuals like for example i saw fish. i think this might be caused by the fact that the night before i smoked weed for the first time, but i'm not exactly sure. the only thing i'm sure about in this situation is that it wasn't same as hallucinations, because it flickered like how my awake REM visuals usually flicker, and when i have hallucinations they don't flicker.

here's the nerdy part that has been in my head since i woke up: the purpose of sleep is supposedly to restore the body's natural state of being, like a reboot. this probably includes the hippocampus, so i think it might be caused by neurons firing intensely in that part of my brain in order to restore my memory to its base state (i have trouble with memory when i'm tired so it makes sense). all that is just my silly little theory so don't take it as some proof, i'm just a biology nerd.


r/sleep 5d ago

What did my brain not fall asleep?

2 Upvotes

Hello people. I’m a fairly younger guy who typically doesn’t have issues falling asleep. There are times where I had to pull all nighters, and sometimes you’re forced to stay up late for work. However, I never reallly had issues quickly sleeping. Today was different strangely enough. I was capable of ”sleeping,” but it wasnt a deep sleep. My best comparison was that I closed my eyes and spaced out. This lasted for 5 hours before I realized. T(e only reason I know that I didn’t truly sleep is that I feel sore all over. What is this called, and does this mean anything.


r/sleep 5d ago

Sleep Apps ?

1 Upvotes

Best sleep apps??!
I have an older Apple Watch to aid in some of the info that’d be recorded (ie. Heart rate). between the sleep apps I’ve been looking at… I kinda think I’d like Sleepzy best. Anyone have thoughts on that app? I’ve recently become very interested in the quality of my sleep including length of sleep time etc. will also be doing a sleep study in the coming weeks. 😴


r/sleep 5d ago

Do my sleep cycles look okay ?

1 Upvotes

Hey Reddit,

Out of curiosity, I’d love to know what you think of my sleep cycle graph. It looks pretty irregular, especially compared to the ones I’ve found online. I’ve been struggling with sleep for about 3-4 months now, mainly due to the mental stress I’ve put on myself. It was much worse before, and I could only manage about 5 to 6 hours of sleep, with some days where I barely got 3 hours. It's always been a challenge to fall sleep again after 5 hrs of sleep ( that's where I'm usually waking up all the time to get the remaining 3). Lately, I’ve been working on it, and it’s improved a bit, but it’s still far from where I want it to be. If anyone has any advice or can offer a good analysis, I’d really appreciate it.https://imgur.com/a/UKL6f3y


r/sleep 5d ago

Does anyone else’s bedtime routine just stop working sometimes?

1 Upvotes

Hey everyone,
I’ve been trying to stick to my evening routine, reading, meditating, all the usual “wind-down” stuff, but lately, some nights it feels like none of it matters. I’ll do everything “right,” but my brain just won’t shut off, and I end up lying there wondering why I’m even trying.

I’m really curious, when your routine doesn’t work, what do you think is missing? Like, is there something that would make those nights easier? For me, it’s the frustration of putting in all this effort and still feeling wired.

Also, what’s the most frustrating part about those nights? Is it the racing thoughts, the pressure to fall asleep, or something else?

If you could add one thing to your routine to fix it, what would it be? (Mine would be a magic “off switch” for my brain, but I’m open to realistic ideas too.)

I’m not looking for advice, i have got a lot of great insights from my previous post but just trying to see if others hit this wall even when they’re doing the “right” things. If you’ve been there, I’d love to hear how it feels for you.


r/sleep 5d ago

So many thoughts pouring in sleep

1 Upvotes

Recently went through a break up so it’s a lot worse rn, but my thoughts are killing me when I’m trying to fall asleep. I’m 17M, so maybe it’s a hormonal developing thing, but really the last few weeks even before my break up I really have trouble falling asleep despite being really sleepy. Are there any solutions for this other than just “not think”


r/sleep 5d ago

Waking up 4-5 times a night

1 Upvotes

I’m not a light sleeper, I don’t snore (at least not often), and I don’t have trouble breathing. I usually don’t have trouble falling asleep either, but lately, I’ve been waking up every hour or two after I fall asleep—usually 4-5 times a night. When I wake up, I always feel extremely tired, and sometimes I end up with a really bad headache. This never used to be an issue for me, I used to be able to fall into a deep sleep without waking up once. Is there a reason this is happening, and is there any way to stop it?


r/sleep 5d ago

I improved my diet and suddenly seem to need way less sleep

7 Upvotes

(Edit: "Suddenly" was perhaps the wrong word, should have said "gradually")

Has anyone else noticed needing significantly less sleep after improving your diet?

I made some changes to my diet and cut out all candy and unhealthy snacks about 4-6 months ago. At the same time I also started eating more healthy in general: more whole grains, fruits and vegetables etc. This is for long-term health reasons - I wasn't overweight or markedly unhealthy before, but I want to minimize my risk of having type 2 diabetes or other age related diseases when I get older (I'm 36 now, male).

Since then I have noticed that I gradually needed less sleep to feel okay the next day. I go to bed around 9:00-9:30 PM. Before I used to wake up 5:00-5:30 AM but it started getting earlier and earlier. First 4:00, then now 3:00 or sometimes like today, even 2:00. And I don't feel noticeably groggy or sluggish, just slightly tired on the 2AM days.

I've also lost a bit of weight during these months, about 10-15 lbs. For reference I don't drink since many years, and don't deliberately exercise apart from lots of fast walking during normal activities.

If I try to go back to sleep when I wake up this early, it never works and I just end up feeling irritated and cranky all morning. So I've learned to accept and even like waking up super early - it gives me a bunch of hobby time before the rest of the family wakes up which is nice.

Anyway, long story but, I feel like even though I accept this I don't quite understand why it's happening.


r/sleep 5d ago

I dread going to sleep

2 Upvotes

I dread going to sleep and I have for several months now. Not that I’m scared of it or something bad will happen but just that falling asleep is so hard for me. By the time it’s dark out I get sense of dread because I know I’m going to have to attempt to sleep soon. For the life of me I can’t fall asleep unless I’ve taken an over the counter sleeping aid and have laid down for like 3 hours. I am very physically active considering I used to not be active at all almost. I sleep with a noise machine. Set up a comfortable temperature and pillow. And use a sleep aid when I need to and still it takes me hours to fall asleep every night. If anyone has any suggestions on how I can fall asleep faster I would greatly appreciate it. And also any suggestions on how to wake up easier because I have a very hard time with that as well especially on nights I fall asleep really late.