Can't sleep

[aislingcai]

I don't fall asleep before midnight. Ever. Usually I lay there for hours, thinking. I try to clear my mind but I can't. I try to focus on my breathing, but I can do that for hours, it bores me, and it doesn't make me fall asleep. I try to consciously relax my body from the toes up. I do yoga. I don't drink caffeine before bed. I sleep in total darkness and silence. I've tried everything non-drug. The one thing that makes me sleep is binaural beats, where I use sound to induce certain levels of brain activity... but this makes me feel like a space cadet during the day so I try not to do it unless I have no plans. Not to mention that its really hard to fall asleep with ear buds in.

I make sure I don't know what time it is when I'm trying to fall asleep... then, right before I'm asleep (I'm always aware of this), I check my clock. It is ALWAYS past midnight, usually between 1 and 3 am. I wake up at 5 am on weekdays. On the weekends I sleep as much as possible, sometimes 16 hours... but I still don't fall asleep before midnight. The exception would be when I'm fatigued due to illness.

I also have to resort to sleeping when I get home from school when I don't sleep at all during the night. I never have any problem sleeping during the day, and when I do, light and sound don't keep me awake like they do at night. In the summer when I don't have school, I go to bed around 4 or 5 am and get up around 2 or 4 pm, if I'm allowed. I'm constantly tired and have permanent circles under my eyes. When I'm at school, I go from being hyper to exhausted to hyper all day, and if I have free time in class I relax and then I either fall asleep or I have little spaces of time where I'm not aware of anything and I have no memory of anything (not for long though... less than 5 minutes) I'm a sophomore in high school. This no sleeping thing has been going on since middle school. It doesn't bother me much, but it would be nice to get tired at 9 or 10 pm so that I could sleep. I can't take medications to force me to sleep because I won't get up in the morning. I get migraines a lot, I think from being sleep deprived. I'm not anxious. Could this have anything to do with my circadian rhythm? It seems like its reversed or late or something... I also eat at funny times. Is that possible? I also have weird dreams where I think I just woke up and I look at the clock and its either early or late, and then I really wake up and its a different time. In the mornings, I will get up and open two doors to get to my alarm clock and hit snooze and go back to bed every five minutes for up to an hour before I wake up, and not know that I was doing this. My mother tells me I was turning it off when she wakes me, but I don't remember. I only remember lucid dreaming right before I woke up. What should I do? I want to be able to sleep and wake up when I'm supposed to.

[MJIthewriter]

I went through jr. high, high school, and nearly two semesters of college like that... I don't know what it is, but I couldn't fall asleep before midnight as a general rule. I still deal with the same thing...  When I was in school/college there would be a few times I would crash early, let's say 6pm, but then I'd wake up like 3am...and not fall asleep until after 10am.

I'm hypothesizing that some people may be nocturnal. If you think of it on an evolutionary standpoint, wouldn't it be helpful for a community to have some night sentries to spot night time predators...  I think I'll stop there, lol.  It still makes it sucky to try to live in an environment that requires activity during the morning and day.  For that reason, I try the best I can to schedule any meetings, etc in the afternoon.

[MJIthewriter]

PS I can relate to lucid dreams about waking up... I also get dreams where I'm writing or talking to somone about the previous dream. O_O  It seems the more lucid dreams I have, the more drugged up I feel upon waking...and the more sluggish I am.

[Abhijeet Deshmukh, MD]

Hello.

It is possible that your sleep wake cycle has shifted forward. The aim should be to bring it backwards a little, may be by a few hours. It seems you worry about things a lot. You may not have anxiety disorder, but just the worrying part. Your conscious efforts at sleep are keeping you from falling asleep, at least to some extent.

Have you done a sleep study ? it is important to know how you sleep. When you hit the snooze button for about an hour, you obviously need sleep. Do you get up refreshed after a long sleep ? Could you be suffering from sleep apnea ?

Please consult a sleep specialist in your area and get a sleep study.

Regards

[Suri123]

Hi, hope you are doing well. How about your plans to visit your doctor. you need to get an evaluation rather than continue your symptoms. It is good to see so many views posted. keep updating your thoughts. Take care.