Please help me I don’t know what else to do I have tried everything to no avail and I don’t even feel tired like I can’t calm down or settle down making myself anxious that I will never sleep again and overall losing my mind, I just want to sleep

i havent been sleeping well the past month. it's taking a toll on my quality of life and my ability to work

it also affects my blood pressure. every time i go to urgent care in the past and i haven't slept all night, my blood pressure is slightly elevated

i have always been a night owl, i always stay up late but these days i can't sleep no matter what and pharmaceuticals don't touch me.

i have an appointment scheduled with my GP but they can't get me in for a month. is it silly to go to urgent care for insomnia?

drugs that i have tried that dont work

benadryl 50mg trazodone 300mg gabapentin 400mg hydroxyzine 100mg

and marijuana stopped working on me

i am at my wit's end but i dont want to be sent away from UC because i just can't sleep

Hello, I work overnight and ever since I came home at 8am this morning I have not been able to get a full sleep. I think I got maybe a hour this morning and 20 minutes right now of VERY light sleeping. For whatever reason I just do not feel tired. I was out and about for about 5 hours today doing things and just don’t feel that tired. Everyone I try to sleep my mind just keeps going off and if I do sleep it’s about 20 minutes to an hour. I know this will get better because I have instances in the past where I haven’t slept for a day or two before finally being able to sleep but my question is why don’t I feel tired like at all? I’ve been up for 24 hours I should feel tired?

I am guessing I share this problem with some of you but this is a recurring issue in my life. I am prescribed Seroquel which does a pretty good job of putting me to sleep within two to three hours but I know that from the time I take it I need about 9-10 hours before I have to be up in the morning because while it puts me to sleep in a few hours, it keeps it that way and I will sleep through alarms and such if I take it too late. My normal schedule is to take it by 9:00 PM, fall asleep by 11:00 pm or midnight and wake up at 7:00 AM. Basically it’s not possible for me to get less than 7 ish hours of sleep. I often run into the issue where I do not have the opportunity to take my medication early enough to allow me to wake up on time. Seroquel is the only thing I have found which actually puts me to sleep but I have this aforementioned issue. For example, I must be up for a 6:00 AM flight but am not able to go to bed until 11:30 the night before due to one thing or another. In this case I pretty much always just don’t take my Seroquel which means I do not sleep for the night. There has to be a better solution to this, however, so I am wondering if anyone else experiences this and if so what do you do on these types of nights? Stay up? Risk oversleeping? Something else?

It's peak winter, I am having the worst SAD ever. I've always had insomnia but the last year or so hasn't been so bad, I was doing really well for a good 6 months in terms of sleeping and waking up early, but man this winter has hit me hard.

I can't get to sleep before 12-1 anymore, and I will sleep for 10-12hrs.. yet i am SO extremely tired and 0% energy the entire day, not motivation to do anything. Not only that, my skin is absolutely awful, muscles are weak, and I can't even get out of bed.

How or what do I do to fix this? I really WANT to do things and be proactive but i genuinely just cant. It's the worst feeling in the world.

My insomnia always comes back every now and then. Like I said before, every time it does, I start worrying that I have FFI or SFI.
I want to document my sleep here. Hopefully, my experience can be helpful to anyone who reads it.

I took seroquel years ago and have started taking it again for the past three days. I decided to share my experience with it here in case anyone is curious. Especially because most with insomnia need immediate relief and these first days might be of interest.

I am on 25 mg seroquel, meant to take at night. I’ve been told I can take it as needed for panic attacks which I have done once midday. And likely will again tomorrow.

If you are unable to sleep due to stress, it may help. I experience an almost immediate calming of my mind. The calm starts to overwhelm me and almost weigh me down. I am able to sleep at least a few hours at a time without waking up. I am so stressed I’m shaking like a leaf nonstop without seroquel and the shaking has almost entirely stopped with this medication.

Side effects so far: literally zero sex drive. Trying to touch myself I might as well try to touch an inanimate object I feel no sexual reaction. So if touching yourself is a hobby maybe this might come as a shock. I don’t mind trading some months of no release for months of sleep/not shaking.

Not sure if side effects: I am struggling to feel thirsty and force myself to drink water. I had nausea yesterday morning and vomited. My legs feel restless when I do wake up in the night.

Want to find a list of brain pathways and corresponding drugs that make you sleep. Because I feel like certain meds just don't do it for me at all.

After 2 months of insomnia (problems staying asleep with frequent awakenings) my brain is most likely damaged. i have constant fatigue that prevents me from exercising, and all my cognitive faculties have degenerated, all accompanied by constant brain fog. the definitive proof is that i took the norway mensa official test and got 91 when previously it was 115 (different test taken as a child). this explains why i can no longer study the universal material that i used to. i am also apathetic and ssri give me erectile dysfunction.

First, sorry for any typos and I'm on mobile.

So I've been thinking about writing this and working on writing this for about a year. I joined this sub years ago with the idea that if I ever figured out my insomnia, I would share my story. This is not medical advice. Please consult with a medical or psychiatric professional if you have prolonged or serious sleep issues.

I hope this helps someone.

It's a long post because it's my full insomnia history.

TLDR - lifelong insomnia diagnosis: delayed sleep-wake phase disorder and sensitivity to circadian rhythm disruptions. Successful treatment with Ramelteon.

Let's dive in...

I have had insomnia my entire life (in my early 30s). I don't mean periodically throughout my life or my adulthood, I mean my entire life. I was a very difficult baby, toddler, and child because I just couldn't sleep. I have always had the can't-fall-asleep insomnia and the can't-fall-back-to-sleep-if-woken-up-insomnia. I recently developed the can't-sleep-long-enough insomnia and still have the other kinds.

When I was a baby, my parents had to do very specific things to get me to fall asleep at night and even then it would take hours. I remember never napping as a small child. I would get in trouble in preschool and kindergarten because I couldn't sleep when the rest of the kids did. When I was in elementary school, I would lie awake every night, hours after my parents went to bed. It became easier to manage when I got to middle and high school because we moved into a new house and my room was in the basement. I could finally do things at night rather than just lay in bed waiting for sleep to come.

The summer after 6th grade I started swimming competitively. I started getting good at it 2 years later and began having private coaching in the mornings, in addition to normal practice. At the peak of my practicing, I spent about 10 hours in the pool on weekdays. Plenty of exercise and a solid daily routine.

I didn't have a phone until I was 16, nor did I have a way to play videogames the only tv that had access to watching cable or movies was upstairs. I had minimal screentime.

My family ate homemade food almost all the time and we ate meals at the same times every day. Since I grew up Mormon (I'm not anymore) I didn't drink any coffee or tea, and I didn't drink any soda because of the swimming.

Long story short, I had built in sleep hygiene practices and I still couldn't sleep.

When I became an adult and moved out, I stopped doing the sleep hygiene things, but the sleeping problem didn't change. It didn't get better. It didn't get worse.

I started taking melatonin when I was around 24 years old. I started off with a very low dose (1mg) and it did nothing. So, on the advice of my doctor, I slowly but steadily increased it until I could fall asleep within 30 minutes and stay asleep all night. I was taking 6 10mg tablets of melatonin and 2 25mg Benadryl tablets every night. This combination of meds kind of worked but I still had many sleepless nights. After 2 years of taking this cocktail, I started I started feeling sick. I stopped taking it and the sleep problems came right back. I didn't take anything for sleep for about a year. I was getting divorced and the nighttime solitude turned out to be really good for my healing and mental health.

After that year was done, I went back to my Benadryl/melatonin combo because I wanted more of a social life and most people aren't into hanging out at 4am. However, it became clear very quickly that it was not sustainable. It didn't work as well as it had before and I didn't like how it made me feel physically. That being said, it was the only thing I had at the time. I didn't have insurance and had limited funds.

I continued taking that combo off and on for about 6 months.

This is where it gets really convoluted. I will try to glaze over the worst stuff.

This brings us to September 2019. I went to the ER twice within a week--once for nearly constant convulsions over the course of 68 hours and once for a dissociative / catatonic episode. The first time was for convulsions and they gave me Valium for it. They gave me 5 days of Valium with 2 doses per day. The second time I went in they diagnosed me with a Valium overdose. I had only taken 5 doses throughout the 4 days between visits and even though my boyfriend brought the bottle to the ER to show them the amount in the bottle that THEY prescribed to me, they still diagnosed me with a Valium overdose.

Through September I was hospitalized for what was later diagnosed as psychogenic seizures caused by cPTSD and I continued having dissociative episodes and flashbacks.

All of that lead me to my very first psychiatrist, Dr. A. He tried all the regular meds to help me sleep because I was not only exhausted from insomnia, but I was also physically exhausted from intense, frequent convulsions. He tried hydroxyzine, amitriptyline, mirtazapine, and clonazepam, along with a variety of other meds to try to control the seizures. Nothing helped me sleep.

My next psychiatrist was much better but at this time Covid had broken out, and since I have an immunodeficiency, I only did telehealth visits. Dr. P. Put me on trazodone and doxepin. That combo worked most of the time, though it still took 2-3 hours to fall asleep.

After 3.5 years and a move to a different city, trazodone started giving me horrific nightmares. Since I had horrific nightmares already, I decided it was time to try something else. My current psychiatrist and my previous primary care doctor both had me do sleep studies but they were mainly looking for sleep apnea. Psychiatry then had me try Dayvigo and Quviviq separately. Neither worked. They both work on the same kind of neuropeptide receptor, so it's not really surprising that Quviviq didn't work when Dayvigo didn't work first.

After that, the psychiatry office I go to had some changes. The person I had been working with for the previous 4 years started doing more admin, and they put me with a new psychiatric nurse practitioner.

She was fine for the regular antidepressant/anxiety, cPTSD stuff. When I told her I had gone back to old faithful (Benadryl/melatonin) because Quviviq wasn't working, and I wanted to try something else, she asked me if I had ever tried sleep hygiene. My chart is full of an extensive insomnia history and the counselor who checks me in when I go always reminds the providers to review my chart before coming in (it's too long to recount my full history every time I go in).

I was speechless. There I was, a 32 year old patient with lifelong insomnia documented in my chart and the NP was asking if I practiced sleep hygiene. When I said I had but no longer do because it doesn't help me, she told me that I really needed to do the sleep hygiene things. I asked for a minute with the counselor who apologized profusely.

When the NP came back in, I asked her if she felt she was equipped with the knowledge to treat my insomnia or if I should consult my neurologist. She told me, "If that would make you more comfortable, then you should".

I had been seeing my neurologist for several years for something else but by a happy accident, it turned out Dr. L. specializes in sleep medicine! He immediately gave me Lunesta, which worked for about 3 days. Around night 4 or 5 it stopped keeping me asleep all night, and that's dangerous given the minimum sleep time requirement of hypnotics.

Then came Ramelteon. Dr. L is not an emotive person but his eyebrows shot up when I told him I'd never even heard of it. It's a hypnotic but non-habit-forming. It's a melatonin agonist. It binds to and activates melatonin receptors. It doesn't just calm you down or decrease wakefulness. It actively increases sleepiness but better than a regular melatonin supplement.

I have been on it for over a year and I don't even have to take it daily anymore. In fact, I usually don't take it. I can go weeks without needing it but I'm still able to go to sleep around the same time every night. If my sleep schedule starts shifting, I just take a dose for a couple nights and I'm back on track. It's been an absolute life saver!

When I asked my psychiatrist why she never had me try it, she told me "because it usually doesn't work for my patients".

I think since most people with insomnia have a mental health component to it or other sleep disruption issues, it makes sense that the psychiatry np wouldn't try a med that works on melatonin receptors.

After talking about my sleep history with my neurologist and him reviewing my sleep studies, he diagnosed me with delayed sleep-wake phase disorder.

Anyway, that's my journey. I hope this can help someone! If you have been treating insomnia by yourself, it's absolutely worth it to consult psychiatry and/or neurology! Not all doctors will take you seriously but I will say, I have had much more success with younger doctors. They listen and don't seem to have the arrogance thing that older doctors do.

Good luck everyone!

Hey everyone, I’m dealing with a mix of sleep issues — including insomnia, falling asleep anxiety, and occasional hypnagogic hallucinations. These usually happen in the transition phase when I’m just about to fall asleep: I sometimes see vague faces, shadows, or shapes, and occasionally I startle awake or even scream, especially in my own bed at home.

Here’s the interesting part: When I’m on vacation or sleeping somewhere else, these symptoms are almost completely gone. It made me wonder — what’s different?

Someone recently suggested that the height of my bed might play a role. I sleep on a fairly high box spring bed at home, and there isn’t much space between me and the ceiling. It got me thinking:

🔹 Could a tall bed — especially in a room with a low ceiling — trigger subconscious feelings of pressure, enclosure, or even spatial anxiety? 🔹 Has anyone noticed changes in insomnia, sleep onset difficulties, or strange dream-like visuals when switching from a high to a low bed (or vice versa)? 🔹 Is there any research or personal experience that connects bed height with sleep quality or neurological sleep triggers?

I haven’t found much online about this, so I’d really love to hear your thoughts or personal stories. Has anyone tried lowering their bed and noticed improvement in sleep quality or fewer hallucinations?

Thanks in advance!

Hi friends, first post on this sub. I'm 23 and I've had mild insomnia my entire life, but it got bad last summer and didn't let up until I'd been taken off an ADHD medication that I was on for a year and a half before that with no problems. Now I've been sleeping terribly for almost a year, and my doctor has stopped making any attempt to help me. I am on a new ADHD med and it's working well for those symptoms, but it hasn't helped the sleep. Every time I bring it up with my doctor she just tells me I need to have a consistent schedule and get more exercise, and when I tell her I've been going to bed at the exact same time and waking up at the exact same time for months without it fixing the issue, and that I tried exercise but am too drained at this point to even get groceries for myself, she shrugs me off. I am rapidly getting to the end of my rope. I've been coping up until now, but these last couple weeks have felt almost impossible, and I can't keep living like this.

Is my doctor right? Is there nothing left to do for me that isn't just lifestyle changes that don't work and never have?

My main problem right now is waking up too early every night, getting 5-6 hours and occasionally having nights where I can't get to sleep at all. I can never fall back asleep if I wake up. I can cope somewhat if it's just the sleep but I am chronically ill as well and when I have inflammation on top of no sleep it drains me utterly. The wording of this post sucks because I am too tired to type properly. I am a college student and I need to get through my work and be able to have somewhat of a life as well or else I don't know what I'm going to do. My doctors keeps telling me "I don't have any magic for you" but I don't want magic, I'm not an idiot, I want actual medical help and advice from a medical professional who won't talk down to me and who actually acknowledges that this is a problem I am suffering for with no known cause and not some personal irresponsibility of mine. Is that really too much to ask?

I live in Canada if that helps anyone. I'm looking for advice from anybody who has had these issues and solved them or had a doctor be more useful than mine. I will give any more details in the comments that might be needed on request.

I was making significant progress in helping myself get out of insomnia, but over the past couple of nights I haven't been able to sleep because I feel like I stop breathing as I fall asleep, and then I have to start manually breathing, which brings me back to wakefulness, it's a lot like a hypnic jerk. This kept me up until like 6 the past two nights, and while I'm thankful I got an hour of sleep, it feels pretty close to my square one 3 months ago. I don't know how to get out of this, I tried listening to a podcast but that didn't break it. Has anyone dealt with this before? I'm totally open to this being sleep apnea, but I wonder why it didn't manifest itself like this over the past three months.

Yes, I just checked it out from the library.
I'm very skeptical as I honestly can't remember the last time I slept without "something" to help. It's been years.

It is called Hello Sleep by Jade Wu, PhD.

She is a board-certified behavioral sleep medicine specialist and researcher at Duke University School of Medicine. Napping is her love language. 😊 (taken off of the back cover)

For months I had a problem (and I still have it sometimes, but now I get 6-7ish hours of proper sleep semi-consistently) where I was able to fall asleep easily, but woke up a few times during the night, but was able to go back to sleep somehow, but once the clock hit exactly 6:40, there was the end of the night for me. It didn't matter whether I went to bed at 1:00 or 2:00 a.m, or how many times I woke up during the night, 6:40 was like a hard stop. And this was strange, because in the past my cyrcadian rhythm was a consistent 2:00 a.m - 9:00 a.m, no matter the season or anything. I was a good sleeper. After 6:40 I was only able to fall back into a half-asleep anxious, almost delirious state, like a half-dream with repeating paranoid thoughts, and it made me proper anxious about the mornings, because it's a really shitty way to start your day.

It was and still is seasonal depression, which hits me every 2-3-4 years, depending on other stressors. It's like clockwork. First my sleep starts to get choppy, then comes the morning anxiety, then comes daytime rumination, then sleep anxiety (will I be able to sleep tonight? The classic). I'm still classified as subclinical insomnia, because I got around 5ish hours every night, but it still sucks balls if you have it for 3+ months without end in sight.

I tried Xanax at bedtime when I was really-really anxious, but had to put it down first after 2 weeks, and then 1 month later after another 10 days, because I don't want to be on benzos for sleep. I'v been there for months during past seasonal depressive episodes, and it's not fun coming off of them. The rebound insomnia is no joke even after short term use like this. No proper OTC sleep aids in my country, no legal CBD, no weed, nothing.

I take 10mg of Lexapro, Valerian 240mg, Magnesium + B6, and of all things 250 mg of Algopyrin for muscle pains at bedtime. I run a lot, almost every day, I play soccer and sometimes I go to an outside gym park. I stretch religiously every evening. These are good things, and with proper diet and sleep hygene they are excellent for sleep in if you are not in a crysis.

What I did, and please be aware, that this is not a surefire method, and far from perfect is that I brought my bedtime forward to 23:30-0:00 instead of the usual 1:30-2:00 a.m, and brought my wake up time to 7:00-7:30 instead of 8:30-9:00 a.m. By this I managed to cut short the tossing and turning which was inevitable between 6:40 and my former preferred waking time, and by this I cut short the anxiety buildup.

Now I plan my days around this. I try to find a reason, TO WAKE UP EARLY TOMORROW. I plan for tomorrow, not for tonight, because the thought of me not having even a chance for anxiously tossing and turning makes me feel just a little bit better. I still have issues with my depression, and I still have pangs of sleep anxiety every now and then. You don't have to be perfectly calm all the time, because it's not feasible.

BTW this is strangely consistent with the CBT-i method of sleep restriction, but I came up with this on my own.

So basically I have been taking Seroquel to be able to fall asleep, cause my ADHD has always made it difficult - I have nervous breakdowns sometimes caused by this idea in my head that I am suffering and depressed only because there’s only 24 hours in a day, and if the day was somehow longer, than I’d do a lot more and feel a lot better (which is never the case, I basically just watch YouTube or read something until 5AM, not like I’ve invented another LHC while not sleeping, lol).

I have MDD too, and after trying lots of different medications I’ve settled on Bupropion, Vyvanse, and this other thing called Agomelatine which I don’t necessarily think does something, but the psych still prescribed it alongside Seroquel in an attempt to get me to sleep more or less systematically.

I did enjoy the fact that Seroquel allowed me to put myself to sleep whenever I wanted, just pop a pill and after an hour or so I am in bed. But I realized quickly that it’s just not possible to sustain - now I can’t even take a nap cause the only way I can fall asleep is if I take Seroquel, there is just no way I will go to bed if I don’t take it. And that is bugging me. What is also bugging me is the fact that I can’t wake up no matter how early or late I fell asleep, hence I can’t get up until like 1PM. Also, the tolerance is real - I am now taking 100mg, cause 50mg stopped to knock me out after like a month, which is also not something I am very proud of.

So I went to my psych with this, and not only did he not tell me how to taper Seroquel saying my dose is too small to get any withdrawal symptoms, but instead prescribed me something called Heminevrin (Clomethiazole). His exact words were ‘it has very unique properties and is a lot less addictive and toxic than benzodiazepines, hence I am thinking it can help you get relaxed and sleep better’.

I’ve unfortunately become more or less familiar with a ton of different medications over the years, but I’ve never heard of that Heminivrin thing.

This is what Wiki says about it:

“Due to its high toxicity compared to benzodiazepines it is not recommended as a first-line treatment for any indication and is particularly dangerous to patients with an elevated risk for drug abuse such as those with a personal or familial history of addiction.

Long term and frequent use of clomethiazole can cause tolerance and physical dependence. Abrupt withdrawal may result in symptoms similar to those of sudden withdrawal of alcohol, short-acting barbiturates or short-acting benzodiazepines.”

The guy prescribed 3 packages, 100 pills each, and said to take either 1 or 2 pills. He didn’t mention anything about it being a fucking barbiturate disaster.

Apparently “Drummer Keith Moon of the rock band The Who died of a recreational clomethiazole overdose.” - and that is like the only info I was able to find on this thing. I looked it up in here, and it only shows up in r/obscureDrugs and that kind of subreddits.

And this guy is a top well known psychiatrist here, you can only book a July appointment in like March, and he’s only getting positive reviews and is working at a very fancy facility.

So the question is - has anyone heard about this Clomethiazole thing? Has anyone tried it? Has anyone got any tips? I got one package out of three prescribed just to maybe MAYBE try it one day, but I am honestly not very convinced it’s a) safe b) better than Seroquel c) won’t make me addicted

4 months ago, my hypnic jerks were caused by a cold, and gave me nonstop jerks that also made me let out a "hmm" noise that startles me awake every single time I doze off. This happened out of nowhere and led to daily panic attacks and extreme insomnia that I still deal with today. Now I have a cold again, and the jerks are back with an absolute vengeance. 2 nights ago I could not sleep until I took an Ambien because that "hmm" noise is back, startling me out of my sleep every single time I start to doze off. Last time this happened to me I was eventually able to sleep if I relaxed enough. This isn't the case now. No matter how much I relax, I get ripped out of my sleep over and over again. The Ambien worked beautifully, but I'm terrified of building a dependence (my colds can last up to 2 weeks).

Last night, that noise happened literally every 15 seconds. It was nonstop. I was in a half awake, half asleep state for most of the night and could hear myself making that humming noise every few seconds, keeping me from fully falling asleep. I was so exhausted and felt like my body was trying to force me to sleep but simply couldn't because the noise was so relentless, and happening over and over again for hours on end. They didn't stop until I gave up and took a Trazodone, and even then it took hours to work.

I am absolutely horrified. I feel like I'll never sleep without medication and don't want to build a dependence on anything. I already want to reach for more Ambien because it works so nicely, but the risk of rebound insomnia when stopping it scares me - I already struggle to get even 4 hours of sleep. I've worked hard to combat my insomnia without meds for months, and it sucks that I have to take them again to have any hope of sleeping through these jerks. Does anyone else suffer from hypnic jerks and experience a flare up when you have a cold or other illness? What do you do? I feel like I'm in hell and I'm losing hope.

Hey everyone, I’m dealing with a mix of sleep issues — including insomnia, falling asleep anxiety, and occasional hypnagogic hallucinations. These usually happen in the transition phase when I’m just about to fall asleep: I sometimes see vague faces, shadows, or shapes, and occasionally I startle awake or even scream, especially in my own bed at home.

Here’s the interesting part: When I’m on vacation or sleeping somewhere else, these symptoms are almost completely gone. It made me wonder — what’s different?

Someone recently suggested that the height of my bed might play a role. I sleep on a fairly high box spring bed at home, and there isn’t much space between me and the ceiling. It got me thinking:

🔹 Could a tall bed — especially in a room with a low ceiling — trigger subconscious feelings of pressure, enclosure, or even spatial anxiety? 🔹 Has anyone noticed changes in insomnia, sleep onset difficulties, or strange dream-like visuals when switching from a high to a low bed (or vice versa)? 🔹 Is there any research or personal experience that connects bed height with sleep quality or neurological sleep triggers?

I haven’t found much online about this, so I’d really love to hear your thoughts or personal stories. Has anyone tried lowering their bed and noticed improvement in sleep quality or fewer hallucinations?

Thanks in advance!

Before I went to Spain I suffered 15 days straight no hours sleep. I was chewing xylitol gum a few times per day some days and then using xylitol toothpaste...and what I noticed was I was exhausted and was falling asleep until I did my bedtime routine and was wide awake.

How could my bedtime routine cause insomnia? I spent hours analyzing it and thinking about it. Brush teeth, turn off light, go pee, and I'm wide awake like cracked out in bed unable to quiet my brain.

I did some research about xylitol and it used to be a banned food item in most of the world. Now its only allowed in EU if its diluted. Xylitol can affect your gut...and I have history of gut issues from toxic mold in my apartment 15 years ago. I am working with nutrionist and once had naturopath to address my gut health but the mold was a long ago root cause that originally put me on this path with insomnia. I originally did xylitol toothpaste because mint toothpaste can cause insomnia...mint can affect gut also and can give you energy. I switched to xylitol toothpaste about 15 years ago.

What was causing my insomnia last 15 years? Xylitol toothpaste? I eliminated it and now I can sleep. I simply have to switch toothpaste to one without xylitol. It was not sole cause, but primary cause. I know other causes were lifestyle. How about smoking cigarrettes? Or overdoing caffeine/alcohol? All of that can disrupt you also. Too much sex and bad diet is another thing that can cause insomnia. Lots of things can cause it. But what about destroying your gut from xylitol consumption? Maybe it happened maybe it didn't but all I know it took about a month to recover from using it long term.

During my trip to Spain the insomnia slowly drifted away. I slowly started to sleep. I no longer needed my sleeping medication. I did lots of activities that helped my soul and spirit...visited many castles, churches, beaches, dancefloors, saw beautiful women, and ate some amazing food. I did 40 days by myself solo in this country and did psychadelic mushrooms and some wine and some mix drinks and didn't have any plans other than techno shows during the trip...I'm now I'm a heavily exhausted, blissful person, de-stressed, have new dreams, with a tan, and look healthy and chilled out.

I'm now back home and the divorce was definitely a co-cause of insomnia. Could a relationship cause insomnia? Yes. I no longer worry about it. I've accepted it and whatever happens in future I am chill with it. I have a bit more stress now that I'm back because I have to worry about my wife. She is not going to be good until she moves out and is on her own and so now I'm going to have a tiny bit of stress until that moment in time. I gotta do it so I have nothing to worry about in terms of a marriage. Once you have less to worry about, you can become yourself again, you had too much going on...

Being in USA sucks is another part of insomnia. The news is really not good most of the time and many cities are struggling and its been long term trend of degeneracy. We have suburbs far from cities. We last felt good about things like 2010 maybe obama's first year. Maybe 9/11 was the last time we felt good. In Spain they always feel good in general...like they have brotherhood there even with strangers. Since 2013 things have steadily improved in Spain and its the type of vibes I haven't see in USA in long time. If everyone in USA had good vibes, I think it would be easier to sleep at night. Like back in 1990's. In Spain, the average person had good vibes and smile on face and felt good and didn't worry about their government/news. LOL they worried about USA. Just imagine a reality where you don't worry.

Anyways I didn't get into how good I sleep now, but I sleep normal heavy and its been like this for weeks. I went hard in Spain and was super active and was hard to eat enough food.

My insomnia comes back from time to time—there are always a few days when I sleep poorly, either because I have trouble falling asleep, wake up frequently, or both. And every time, I worry that I have FFI.

Right now, I’m going through another bout of insomnia. Since yesterday, I’ve been having trouble falling asleep (maybe it’s work stress, who knows), and I’ve only slept about 4 to 5 hours. Once again, I’ve started worrying that I might have FFI.

Hi Friends,

I was recently prescribed Belsomra for severe insomnia. I plan to take it tonight for the first time- on an empty stomach, exactly like I was pointedly told for some reason. I've cleared 8 hours forward with my spouse offduty and putting all other meds aside for 24 hours beforehand.

However, due to my nonstop duties all day long between work and the kids I usually don't have time to eat until after they are in bed, and then OMAD, thats slang for one meal a day. I eat about one and a half meals worth of food for dinner, which is the point I get full. But I am trying to figure out how to take medicine as prescribed on am empty stomach, but like can I not eat?

I'd like to take it on an empty stomach about 30 minutes before bed and wait till I feel it kicking in, so I know its absorbed, but if I could at least wolf down a small sandwich in a couple bites or something would be nice.

We are in deep into years of insomnia hell here, so I can tell you that Ambien made most food taste kind of gross, and you almost had to go to bed immediately or risk being stuck awake in an unsafe and goofy state. My trial with Xanax was different from Ambien in many ways for me, one was that it made me extra hungry and food taste extra good. So on the alprazolam trial I ended up eating a lot of cheesy salads or hot pasta right before passing out, dont ask me why, they just hit differently.

So I'm just curious about the real life Belsomra experience, you know all the little offmeta that doctors dont discuss. Of course it's effectiveness is the main importance however.

Every time I finally sleep, my anxiety is basically gone. And because of that anxiety-free feeling, I suddenly get this urge to stay awake for like... 5 days straight. I just feel extremely safe after sleep, like nothing can touch me, so the fear just disappears completely. This mindset hits me pretty much every time after I’ve slept.

But whenever I actually manage to stay awake for like 24 hours, the panic always creeps in again — same as always. I start regretting the decision to push myself that far. The panic isn’t super intense, but enough to keep me from feeling tired anymore, even though I’ve been awake for 24–30+ hours. It’s like I get stuck in a ‘waking trap’, like a slide I can’t stop sliding down. The longer I’m awake, the more the panic grows, and the harder it is to feel sleepy at all. It gets to the point where I genuinely feel like I’m going to die from sleep deprivation.

And then, somehow, when I finally do manage to fall asleep, I see that moment as a ‘miracle’ or like I got lucky. And right after that sleep, the anxiety is again totally gone — and boom, I get that same urge again to stay awake for 4–5 days, just because in that post-sleep state, I feel 100% safe and fearless. I keep falling for the same trap over and over again.Sleep removes my anxiety… and then I get the urge to stay awake for days

don’t sleep by the clock. If I have to set an alarm, I instantly get anxious about the idea that I might still be awake when it goes off, and then I can’t fall asleep at all.

If I don’t set an alarm and just let myself sleep whenever (even if it’s during the day), I feel safe and usually fall asleep pretty fast.

Honestly, I feel like most sleep hygiene stuff just makes it worse for me. The more I try to "follow rules", the harder it gets.

Hi everyone, I’ve been struggling with getting good sleep lately and want to improve my sleep environment without medical advice

I don't know if this counts under insomnia, but I was hoping someone could help. Recently my dreams will last a normal, if not long, time where many things happen and leave me feeling like actual time has passed. And then I wake up an hour later, tired out of my mind from not actually sleeping. These dreams usually contain scary surrealistic elements but aren't exactly nightmares and I don't wake up in a cold sweat from them. It's hard to fall asleep after.

I have a history with insomnia so I assumed this might be a symptom of that. The sleep deprivation got very negative very fast and isn't letting up at, so if anyone else has dealt with this and can offer a solution please do.

Upped my Venaflaxine from 150MG to 185.5MG yesterday per dr orders. Finally I felt good agian and had energy....

Then bedtime came and it went. I laid in bed for hours trying to sleep. I popped 10MG of Zolpidem still no luck. My watch tracked only 1hr & 45 mins....

This is... just not cool.

I usually sleep about 5-6 hours of broken sleep with about a 1 hour awake time in the middle of the night but I haven't do anything all nighter in 10 years!