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Complete inability to sleep
glithert
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
I can't sleep. It comes and goes. I just finished my first semester of college and I got shit grades because it came back halfway through.
Typically, I'll wake up at 7 or 8 on a schoolday. I figure I should feel tired and go to sleep around 11-midnight. But I don't. I won't start to feel tired until 3 or 4 in the morning. But I obviously can't stay up that late, so I go to bed at 12 anyway. Then, I lay awake in bed for 3 or 4 hours. Every single night. Even if I'm tired, I'll just lay there, tired, not sleeping until I pass out from exhaustion or something. It's incredibly frustrating, and sooner or later I'll get so little sleep that I'll end up sleeping through my alarm clock and waking up at 2 in the afternoon.
Every time I bring this up with my parents, doctor etc. The answer I get is more or less, "Maybe you'd fall asleep at night if you didn't sleep in so late, you big goof! :P"
So... What should I do?
Typically, I'll wake up at 7 or 8 on a schoolday. I figure I should feel tired and go to sleep around 11-midnight. But I don't. I won't start to feel tired until 3 or 4 in the morning. But I obviously can't stay up that late, so I go to bed at 12 anyway. Then, I lay awake in bed for 3 or 4 hours. Every single night. Even if I'm tired, I'll just lay there, tired, not sleeping until I pass out from exhaustion or something. It's incredibly frustrating, and sooner or later I'll get so little sleep that I'll end up sleeping through my alarm clock and waking up at 2 in the afternoon.
Every time I bring this up with my parents, doctor etc. The answer I get is more or less, "Maybe you'd fall asleep at night if you didn't sleep in so late, you big goof! :P"
So... What should I do?
glithert on
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3DS: 1607-3034-6970
being physically fatigued helps.
I recommend 3-4 hours before you plan on going to bed.
basically the jist is you need to train your mind that the bed is only for sleeping or sex. basically go to bed when you are tired if you take a while to fall asleep, get up, leave the room(area if only a single room) when you are tired again go back to your bed. repeat this.
eventually you will get over it and train yourself to go to sleep when you lay down.
that was the only technique i remembered but there were more extreme ones.
This.
I saw a doctor who gave me ambien, and before he prescribed me the medicine he talked about proper sleep hygiene.
The bed is only for sleeping/or sex. Don't lay on the bed to play video games, read, or watch tv/movies whatever. You start associating your bed with other things than sleep so when your body is laying on it, it takes awhile for it to get the hint.
If you sleep at 3-4, get up at 7-8. You'll have a shitty day, but oversleeping and not getting up until 2pm does nothing but reinforces the habit and keeps the cycle going. That day you get less sleep, try to stay as active as possible and try to stay awake until your target sleep time. Then don't oversleep and make sure to get up at the appropriate time.
The other thing you need to do is make it a habit to get up regardless if you're still tired when you're alarm clock goes off. Setting multiple alarms/hitting sleep several times only tells you that you can sleep a bit longer and cause you to miss the next sleep alarm. The time the first alarm goes off, get up and start your day. It sucks, it's difficult, but it's the only way to ensure both sanity and maintaining a proper sleep schedule and hygiene.
I have the same problem as you coupled with restless leg syndrome, where at night I need to keep moving my legs between cold spots on my bed (I enjoy the sensation of being cold and warming up under covers).
I also find it helps to avoid looking at the time if at all possible, especially if you have something going on the next day (I even go so far as to hide the clock on the taskbar of my computer), so you aren't constantly counting down how much sleep you have 'left', as in: "I have a class at 10am and it's 3am now, so I only have 7 hours of sleep left...now it's 4am and I only have 6 hours left..." It makes it so, so, so much worse. Honestly, you can sit through a class with 2 hours of sleep, so worrying about it will just make you anxious, which will make you stay awake longer.