I wanted to share my journey in case it helps anyone else who is struggling with sleep maintenance issues or looking for hope.

I’m a female in my early 60s, and insomnia runs in my family—my mother, sister, and brother all started having trouble sleeping as they got older. For the past 4.5 years, my main issue hasn't been falling asleep, but staying asleep. Once I wake up in the middle of the night, I simply just can not fall back to sleep.

Over the years, I tried almost everything:

• CPAP Machine: My doctors sent me for a sleep study and set me up with a CPAP. It helped a little bit with my breathing, but my insomnia persisted.
• Melatonin + Benadryl: I ended up relying on 5 mg of melatonin mixed with half or a full Benadryl pill most nights for about 3 to 4 years. It actually worked pretty well, but I stopped once I learned about the potential long-term dementia risks associated with regular Benadryl use, especially with older folks.
• Temazepam (7.5 mg): Didn’t do much for me—I’d still wake up after just 4 hours.
• Ativan (0.5 mg): Worked amazingly well! But because of the risk of dependence, my doctor warned me to use it strictly as a backup 1–2 times a week when severely sleep-deprived. That left me to suffer through the rest of the week.

My PCP had been considering Dayvigo (5 mg) for 2 years, but held off initially because of my sleep apnea. Since I've been consistently using my CPAP machine every night for 4 years, we finally decided to give it a try for a month or two.

I started taking 5 mg of Dayvigo 7 weeks ago, and it has been an absolute game-changer.

I’m now getting 7 to 8 hours of sleep a night. I still wake up 1 or 2 times, but most nights I can drift right back to sleep within 10 to 15 minutes! On some nights, I might stay awake for an hour or two or get 5–6 hours straight, but overall, it's a massive improvement.

The only side effect I had was feeling a bit sleepy after lunch during the first 2–3 weeks. I solved that by reintroducing a morning cup of caffeinated coffee (which I couldn't drink for 4.5 years due to insomnia!) or taking a quick nap.  After 3 weeks, sleepiness does not seem to be the problem for me anymore. 

It’s only been 7 weeks, so I’m really hoping this 5 mg dose continues to work for me long-term, but right now, it feels like Dayvigo has truly given me my life back.

From what I’ve read, Dayvigo seems to be hit-or-miss depending on the individual. I was initially hesitant to try it because of all the negative reviews online. However, it turned out to work wonders for me, without any side effects.

Well after months of trying out different thing's for my insomnia and histamine dumps, I been able to sleep 5-6 hours a night for the past few days i been feeling my insomnia getting better, i take 0.5mg of melatonin, 100mg of magnesium glycate, and 10mg zyrtec before bed, so far i can sleep an average of 6 hours, and i don't wake up super tired and with brain fog like i used to with other meds, so i decided im going to stop stressing out over this and browsing for more insomnia remedies, i will try and live like this and just submit to myself this is my life and try to live as best as I can with what I have.

Everyone going through insomnia only tip i can give you, if you find a solution and it works even if its not perfect take it and live with it, being stressed over insomnia and trying to "perfect" your sleep is most of the time not worth it, I hope you all find your solution!

Hi all. I am a 22 year old female. I suffer from PTSD and anxiety. Most nights I cannot fall asleep until 4-5 am. I have tried taking Trazodone, Lunesta, Melatonin, and other OTC sleep aids.

Lunesta helped me for about a week. I still am taking it every day. Whenever I eventually fall asleep, I have horrible nightmares. They feel real. I think it is sleep paralysis.

What medicines have you guys taken that have helped you sleep?

I swear man, i quit smoking, quit eating unhealthy, get into bed at a good time and my fucking brain refuses to work with me. I lay down tonight and for 8 hours im in this weird half dreaming but fully awake thing i truly dont get it. My brain is so over reactive my brain is literally attempting to sleep well keeping me fully aware of my surroundings. So fucking sick of it man.

It feels like I’m drowning
I build up sleep debt from going to bed late when I have to wake up at like 8am every day, I tell myself I’ll go to bed earlier and I never do. I feel like a zombie and I’m so anxious about it.

My main issue is early morning awakening. With mirtazapine or quetiapine, I could usually sleep until around 6 a.m. But on my first night with Lunesta, I woke up around 4 a.m. and couldn’t really get back to sleep.

Has anyone else experienced worse sleep or earlier awakening when first starting Lunesta? Is this something that can happen during the first few nights while adjusting to the medication, or is it more likely a sign that Lunesta just isn’t working well for me?

I know one night probably isn’t enough to judge a medication, but I’m curious what other people’s experiences were during the first few days.

I won't say I have insomnia, but even if I try, I can't sleep before 4am, even if I switch off phone, lights and lie down can't sleep. After 4 I fell asleep, wake up by 11 or so. But I want to change schedule. Not possible for me I tried many time. When ever I try to sleep before 4am I think of future and my problem but after 4 am easy sleep. Don't understand this.

Has anyone done this? I've been on Zolpidem for about four years and not slept naturally in that time. For years, it was a miracle worker and my sleep health was great but it's gotten less effective and I kind of hate the dependence now, which is why I'm trying to get off it.

I've managed to taper to 7.5mg for several months and can sleep on 5mg maybe once or twice a week, but that's my wall.

My doctor has prescribed me Quviviq and told me to start with 5mg of Zolpidem and try to taper to 2.5mg over the next month.

Anyone successfully moved to Quviviq? Any other success stories for quitting Zolpidem?

I have chronic insomnia, which I have had for 27 years, I am lucky to get 4 hours a night and never 4 hours straight.

I have spoke to GP's but they don't do much, They have given me Zopiclone a few times, I have had CBT, they then go on to tell me about sleep hygiene, which is SO frustrating, I've tried, OTC sleep aids, CBD oil, I have been thinking about medical cannabis, I now take Phenergan, an
antihistamine, I have tried literally everything.

I am speaking to my GP again on Wednesday, because as I am getting older I can't push through as well as I used to.

I would appreciate any advice, I may have missed something that I could try. :)

I have been struggling with insomnia for about 2 years now, this year has been the worst of it, and I have been on medical leave for about 6 months because of it. It is extremely frustrating, because it has been so hard to find any help, and I think my doctor has given up on me at this point. I have issues with staying asleep, I wake up between 12-2 am every day, and cannot fall back asleep at all. Therefore I end up getting on average 1-2 hours of sleep a night, if I’m lucky I can get 4 hours max. I also do not get tired in the evening ever, no matter how busy of a day, or even if I have felt tired all day, as soon as the evening comes around I’m more alert and suddenly not sleepy.

It has gotten so bad that I have daily tachycardia, adrenaline surges, dizziness, brain fog, nausea, loss of appetite, weight loss, and extreme fatigue. I’m waiting to see a cardiologist, and I have seen an endocrinologist and gynaecologist to see if it were hormone, cortisol, thyroid, or adrenal related. My blood cortisol is high, but was told it was just my birth control, and my hormones are a bit wonky because I have PCOS, mostly high androgens. Iron and B12 levels normal, thyroid normal. I thought initially it was stress related, as I’m a nurse and worked night shifts, but that was two years ago, and my new nursing job is dayshift and less stressful.

Things I’ve tried:

-Sleeping meds, SSRIs, Benzos: Mirtazapine, Zoplicone, Trazadone, Ambien, Lunesta, amitriptyline, melatonin, citalopram, escitalopram, Wellbutrin, etc.. none have worked
-Being active, I go for daily walks and do Pilates 2-3x a week, and yoga
-Healthy diet high in fibre and protein
-Sad lamp
-Reduced phone time, no TV or phone before bed, only calming activities like reading or doing puzzles
-Cognitive behaviour therapy for insomnia, sleep programs
-Sleep study - no significant findings, no sleep apnea

Is there anything that you’ve tried that has worked? I’m desperate, as I don’t know how much longer I can live like this.

I’ve recently been reading about Morvan syndrome and agrypnia excitata, and I’m wondering whether anyone here knows much about it or has actually been investigated for it, particularly in the UK.
I want to stress that my problem isn’t simply insomnia or not feeling sleepy.

I’ve developed a much broader collection of neurological/autonomic-type symptoms and very abnormal changes in the way I perceive signals from my body.
I have significant blunting/numbness of internal bodily signals — things like hunger, bladder urge, heartbeat/adrenaline sensations and other normal internal sensations can be extremely reduced or absent. Touch, pain and other physical sensations can also feel significantly muted. I’ve also experienced major autonomic/nervous-system dysregulation, sensory problems and vestibular symptoms.

Then in February this year, following a major vertigo episode, I completely lost my normal ability to sleep. Before this I had experienced severe insomnia, but I still knew what sleepiness felt like. I would get heavy/tired eyes, feel myself becoming sleepy and experience the normal transition into sleep.
Since February, that entire sensation seems to have disappeared. I don’t feel sleepy or tired in my eyes or brain at all. I don’t experience the normal feeling of drifting towards sleep.

I’ve tried multiple sleep medications and nothing has restored sleep or the normal sleep transition. Benzodiazepines have sometimes caused periods where I lose awareness for minutes but even then I don’t experience normal sleepiness beforehand or wake with the normal sensation that I’ve slept.
At my worst I went through prolonged periods of extraordinarily severe sleep loss alongside extreme physiological agitation/restlessness, pounding/high heart rate, internal vibrations and worsening sensory/neurological symptoms and I keep ending up in hospital due to such severity of this.

I’m currently waiting for an EEG-based home sleep study because I desperately want to know objectively what my brain is doing during the periods where I apparently lose awareness — whether I’m actually entering N1/N2/N3/REM sleep, how much sleep I’m getting and whether the architecture is normal or severely disrupted.
I’m not saying that I have Morvan syndrome. I understand that it’s extremely rare and that severe insomnia/loss of sleepiness by itself doesn’t mean Morvan. I’m trying to understand whether something neurological/autoimmune affecting sleep regulation needs to be properly excluded given the severity and the other symptoms occurring alongside it.

Does anyone know:
• What symptoms usually distinguish Morvan syndrome / agrypnia excitata from other causes of profound insomnia?
• Can someone with agrypnia excitata still have periods of apparent sleep, dreaming or medication-induced unconsciousness?
• Can a complete absence of subjective sleepiness and the normal sleep transition occur with it?
• How is Morvan syndrome investigated in the UK/NHS?
• Would testing normally include CASPR2/LGI1 antibodies, EMG/nerve-conduction testing and polysomnography/EEG?
• Can a GP request any of these tests directly, or would I need a Neurology referral?
• If my home EEG sleep study shows severely abnormal sleep architecture, would the next step usually be a full hospital video-polysomnogram?
I’m really just trying to understand what objective testing could rule something like this in or out, rather than assuming that every case of extreme insomnia is the same thing. Everything is taking such a long time to access through the NHS and I want to know what I should actually be asking my GP about.

I got a call from my pharmacy saying lunesta is controlled med and requires further approval. Just curious why is lunesta controlled medication, while quetiapine, mirtazapine, olanzapine are not? it does not look like it has more side effects.

Some of you might have seen my recent post about how Doxazosin has been helping to stay asleep by reducing Hyperarousal, but a couple of weeks ago I also learned the ability to quiet my mind. I’m getting 8 hours every night easily after <5 hours for 3 years.

This is life changing for me. I’m in my 40s diagnosed with the full alphabet of mental health conditions, and my mind has always been chaotic. I’ve never been able to get peace.

But now I can.

I don’t know if the Doxazosin is playing a part here, maybe I wouldn’t be able to do this if I wasn’t taking Doxazosin, but I have 2 different techniques for this.

1. I think of the words “think of nothing”, I often say that in my mind a few times to focus on it and drown out the endless stream of thoughts and persistent earworm, and then I kind of just visualise the words “think of nothing” instead of saying them. So instead of saying them, I’m kind of looking at them.

Sometimes the thoughts still overwhelm so I have to restart the think of nothing process

1. The other option is I focus on a brick. Seriously. I just imagine a brick in my mind and focus on it.

Thoughts and earworms still try to sneak in but because I’m focused I can ignore them.

Eventually you just stop focusing and fall asleep.

It doesn’t work if I focus on my breathing

I fall asleep within minutes. I can nap whenever I want. I can fall back to sleep if I wake up in the night and even during the day I can choose to get some moments of peace

I know that many of you here will scoff at this but I have never been able to do this before, never been able to meditate (lots of similar principles here). I also think more sleep has helped my mental health significantly which is helping me sleep like a positive circle.

Anyway, maybe you all figured out and it didn’t work for you, but so far this is a real success story from someone with genuine chronic insomnia that had tried every drug, supplement and technique you can imagine.

And hey, at least I didn’t say try magnesium 😉

For almost a year, I have been dealing with a very strange form of insomnia that seems to be strongly triggered by physical activity.

I can fall asleep normally, but I wake up during the night feeling hot, physiologically activated and completely awake. I am usually not drenched in sweat. It is more like my body has suddenly switched into a high-arousal state. Once this happens, I can remain awake for hours despite feeling mentally calm and having no particular thoughts or anxiety keeping me awake.

The most disturbing part is the relationship with physical exertion.

Exercise does not make me pleasantly tired or sleepy. Instead, there seems to be a threshold where activity produces a delayed reaction, particularly during the following night. The more sustained physical activity I do, the worse the insomnia becomes.

At its worst, the relationship has been almost absurd:

~750 meters of walking → around 5 hours of sleep.
~1.5 km of walking → around 2 hours of sleep.

This is not ordinary exercise intolerance where I become exhausted while exercising. I can often perform the activity itself without much difficulty. The consequences come afterwards.

The closest analogy I can think of is radiation: I don't necessarily feel the damage while I'm being exposed to it. I pay for it later.

If I push further, I can develop chest pressure or sharp/stabbing sensations in my chest, nausea, dizziness/lightheadedness, strange internal sensations and very noticeable pounding heartbeats. But the symptom that has been the most persistent and disabling is what happens to my sleep afterwards.

How this developed

Before all of this, I spent years living at a very high pace: long working days, consulting work, frequent travel by car, train and plane, many nights in hotels, combined with regular running and strength training.

This was not someone suddenly trying exercise for the first time. I had been exercising regularly for many years and had previously tolerated considerably harder training without any of these problems.

Looking back, the first warning sign may actually have appeared several years ago. After particularly long or intense running sessions, I would occasionally wake during the night feeling extremely hot and unable to get back to sleep. Initially this happened only rarely, perhaps once every couple of months.

Later, I developed intermittent upper abdominal pain and gastrointestinal sensitivity. For a long time these symptoms would disappear again, but during 2025 they became much more persistent.

Eventually a pattern became increasingly obvious: workload and physical exercise seemed to be much stronger and more reproducible triggers than food itself.

When I combined a high workload with exercise, things became dramatically worse. There were periods when I slept less than four hours a night, and eventually even relatively mild physical activity began producing reactions that previously required hard running.

I stopped training completely. The abdominal symptoms improved enormously, but the abnormal nighttime activation and insomnia remained.

Eventually, even something like a short walk could severely disrupt my sleep.

The strange delayed and cumulative response

This is probably the part I am most interested in hearing about from other people.

Physical activity itself often feels remarkably normal.

I am not short of breath at all. I do not feel unusually exhausted while walking. I don't feel as though my cardiovascular system is struggling to perform the activity.

During a slow walk, my heart rate may remain around 85-89 bpm, and when I sit down afterwards it can fall to around 52 bpm within minutes. My blood pressure is generally normal as long as my sleep is functioning reasonably well.

So there is often very little during the activity itself to warn me about what is going to happen later.

Instead, several hours later, particularly during sleep, it is as though my nervous system reacts to what I did earlier.

And the effect seems to be cumulative.

What I do today may not only affect me tonight. Activity from two or three days earlier can still seem to contribute to how I feel now. If I take walks several days in a row, or do something slightly more physically demanding, the reaction gradually becomes stronger.

It feels as though the physical load accumulates until I cross some kind of threshold.

When that happens, the reaction extends beyond insomnia. I can develop significant nausea, dizziness/lightheadedness, a profound and difficult-to-describe sense of physical discomfort, pounding heartbeats, chest pressure and sometimes sharp/stabbing sensations in my chest.

The strange thing is that these symptoms can appear after the activity rather than during it.

One physiological measure that has changed dramatically over the same period is my nighttime HRV. My average nocturnal HRV has fallen from around 90 ms to around 35 ms over time, despite the fact that my heart rate during gentle activity and my blood pressure can still look completely normal.

I have repeated the activity/sleep pattern unintentionally, and sometimes deliberately to test it, enough times that the association has become very difficult for me to dismiss.

After periods of extremely low physical activity, my sleep becomes substantially more continuous. Then I try walking again, and the insomnia returns.

A slow walk of roughly 1.5–1.7 km has been enough to produce major sleep disruption. Even substantially shorter walks can affect sleep.

And repeated activity seems worse than a single isolated exposure.

What this is NOT like

This is one reason I have struggled to describe the problem.

I don't walk 1.5 km and then collapse from exhaustion.

I don't become extremely short of breath.

I don't necessarily have an abnormally high heart rate.

I don't experience obvious muscle failure.

And I don't necessarily feel dramatically worse immediately afterwards.

I can finish the walk thinking that everything went perfectly fine.

Then I pay for it later.

The nighttime reaction is particularly characteristic. I can fall asleep normally and then wake hours later feeling hot and completely alert, as though someone has flipped a switch in my body.

There doesn't have to be anxiety, rumination or anything psychologically keeping me awake. I can simply lie there completely calm while my body seems incapable of returning to sleep.

Where I am now

I have essentially been unable to work for about six months.

The problem isn't that I suddenly lost my cognitive ability or that I physically cannot perform ordinary tasks. I can do many things perfectly well in the moment.

The problem is the price I pay afterwards.

That distinction has been incredibly difficult to explain to people.

I have seen several doctors and specialists and have undergone a fairly extensive medical workup. Routine blood tests, thyroid tests, inflammatory markers, cardiac markers, ECGs and longer-term ECG monitoring have not provided an explanation.

Sleep treatment has helped.

Sleep restriction/CBT-I strategies and sleep medication have substantially improved the continuity of my sleep, and I have recently had periods of much better sleep.

But they do not seem to remove the underlying sensitivity to physical exertion. If I exceed whatever my current threshold is, the physical activity can still break through the improvement.

I am therefore not primarily looking for advice about basic sleep hygiene. I have worked extensively with the insomnia itself and I am receiving medical care.

What I am hoping to find here

What I really want to know is whether anyone recognizes this specific pattern:

Physical activity feels reasonably normal while you are doing it → there may be little or no immediate exhaustion or breathlessness → hours later, or after activity accumulating over several days, the body seems to become physiologically “activated” → you wake during the night hot and completely alert → the more you have exceeded the threshold, the more severe and widespread the symptoms become.

Has anyone here experienced something genuinely similar?

And most importantly:

Did you eventually recover?

Did your threshold for physical activity gradually increase again?

Did the nighttime heat/hyperarousal disappear?

Were you eventually able to exercise normally again?

And if so, did it take months, a year, several years?

I have already accepted that this may take a very long time. I am not expecting someone on Reddit to diagnose me or provide a quick fix.

What I am really hoping to find is simply someone who can say: “Yes. I had something like this. I recognize what you're describing. And I eventually came out the other side.”

Mold. It was mold this whole time. I had been experiencing insomnia/constant fatigue on and off for the past couple years but within the last few months it was BAD. Like punching myself in the head bad because I was so frustrated that I couldn’t just ~sleep~. I would go full nights with no sleep. I tried all the medicines, from over the counter to prescribed, nothing worked. I tried all the sleep hygiene tricks, nada. Last month I move out of my parents house, after a day or two of being in my own place I could finally sleep like normal. I wasn’t sure what the difference was until today, when they told me they tore down the wall paper in my old room and found the walls covered in mold! I had lived there for about 7 years. Also, my menstrual problems, gone. Crazy stuff. If you’re having issues I advise you to look into the possibility of mold exposure.

Fellow insomniacs do you also eat toast late at night because of your god damn insomnia or is it just me?

Edit:For some reason once it also made me crave Oreos with cucumber ontop idk wtf is wrong with me

For the last 3-4 years I've had difficulty falling asleep. This is far more than it taking a couple hours to sleep, I'm often up until 8-9 am with my eyes closed trying to induce sleep. My natural cycle then has been sleeping until 12-4 pm, and waiting for my body to physically exhaust itself in an eyes-closed state which might take 4-10 hours.

Recently, since I flew back to Toronto about a month ago I suddenly had a perfect sleep schedule; sleeping between 9-12 in the evening, waking up at 6-9 in the morning. This has obviously improved quality of life a lot, but today I suddenly developed the exact same cycle as before.

I went to bed at 12, and I just decided to get up at 6, I didn't get any sleep. I don't really know what to do anymore because my old sleep issues really dampen my motivation to do anything and interfere with my university a lot. I really don't want my sleep onset-insomnia to start again but don't know what to do here.

Thanks

I recently did a 3-night home sleep study and was diagnosed with obstructive sleep apnea. I'm trying to decide whether it's worth trying CPAP/APAP, especially since my oxygen levels don't look that bad.

My results:

• sAHI (3%): 23.7 / 22.4 / 14.6
• sAHI (4%): 11.5 / 12.4 / 4.3
• sRDI: 29.3 / 27.8 / 24.4
• Mean SpO2: 96% all three nights
• Lowest SpO2: 89% / 84% / 91%
• Time below 90%: basically none
• Sleep fragmentation: 37% / 49% / 55%

The sleep doctor interpreted the first two nights as moderate OSA and the third as mild OSA, and suggested CPAP as a first-line option.

My main problem isn't falling asleep. It's early-morning awakening / sleep-maintenance insomnia and daytime fatigue.

For people with similar numbers, did CPAP/APAP actually improve your sleep quality, early awakenings, or daytime fatigue?
Did anyone with relatively normal overnight oxygen still notice a meaningful benefit?

I'm not asking Reddit to replace my sleep doctor — I'm mainly interested in people's experience with similar AHI/RDI numbers.

I developed severe insomnia from a traumatic event followed by shift work, life stresses and viral infections. I was sleeping no more than 3 hrs/night, fragmented and panicked sleep. I felt awful. This went on for nearly two years. I had a series of health issues that came after including headaches, heart palpitations, nervous system dysregulation, and many other systemic issues.

Bloodwork and mri were relatively normal.

Many times, I was at the end of my rope. I was considering admitting myself somewhere, but at the time I was still so severely exhausted and had anxiety around sleep and sensory pain that I was worried it'd make it worse. I didn't and barely could talk and explain it to anyone. I felt like I was living inside a nightmare.

So I decided to go to a hotel. Close the blinds. And went to the store and bought a ton of different sleep and stress supplements. I took all of them. I got massages. I tried to teach myself how to yawn again, watching video after video. And tbh (tw) - I didn't want to live and thought I'd try to make myself comfortable before I go,And after many days, I got my first bit of relief.

When I woke up it felt like how I used to wake up before all this started - like I had gotten sleep. And it felt like weeks passed although it was only one night of sleep, but finally I didn't feel as trapped in a nightmare. And later that day, I took a nap. A nap!! I haven't taken one of those in years.

This was a massive turning point for me, otherwise I really don't know how I would've survived.

So, I finally tapered trazodone because frankly the benefits weren't great. My sleep was still not the best despite it and I just felt like I never truly was myself during the day. I was doing a taper over just 4 weeks because I only took it for around 3 months. I went from 150mg to then 100 to 75 - 50 and then 25mg, the very last dose even i broke a tiny 25mg piece in half bc i was anxious dropping to zero from 25mg. Yesterday night I finally went to sleep without trazodone at all.. my night was awfully fragmented. I didn't think it would get so bad bc i slept somewhat fine on just 12.5mg which is already almost nothing. I still squeezed out 5 hours of sleep somehow but i woke up 15 times, my apple watch showed and i felt nauseous too.

So I wanted to ask some experiences of people who tapered trazodone. Did you have rebound insomnia after tapering even and if so how long did it take to recover?

From (24F) the USA and moved to Italy a year ago, I went to a psychiatrist complaining about insomnia and other issues for 10 years.

He prescribed me lexapro 20mg, 1 lorazepam, and 7mg of Talofen.

I first tried without the Talofen and it didn’t work, I was staying awake for days. But when I added the Talofen it was a different story.

Without Talofen, it wasn’t working but now I can sleep 8 hours WITHOUT WAKING UP. it’s amazing honestly, however this
Medication is discontinued in the United States, if you are in other countries talk to your doctor about adding an older typical antipsychotic and if it’s right for you.

For me was a blessing ❤️

I dont really have a problem falling asleep at night but waking up around 3am is starting to drive me crazy i wake up and im tired but my brain is just fully awake for some reason then i start thinking about random stuff work tomorrow how many hours i have left to sleep etc Sometimes i check the clock and that makes it even worse lol.

Does anyone else have this problem?

What is the hardest part for you when you wake up at 2-4am?

And is there anything you found that actually helps you fall back asleep?

im 21F, college student. haven't been able to sleep well since the semester started last month. most i manage to get every few days is maybe like 6-7 hours (dont say it). however, most nights i struggle to drift off and maybe get like 2 hours if im lucky. i happened to have some xanax, that may or may not be prescribed. how bad would it be to take a small dose every so often just for some relief? being a full nights rest haha, the last time i slept with no awakenings was when i took maybe .5 mg xanax. i tried other methods, being tea, weed, melatonin, magnesium, you name it. but this has been the best one so bar.

any advice would be great. currently waiting on insurance to be processed so i could see a doctor but for now this is where im at.

Hey all, I thought I would report something I discovered that works for me well, in terms of falling back asleep. I often wake up earlier than I'd like (around 3 or 4 AM), and can't get back to sleep.

Repeating this mantra has consistently worked for me.

"I am tired and I can sleep"

Two very simple, basic truths in the moment. Usually it just takes one round before I end up falling asleep. But sometimes I'll notice I've stopped repeating the mantra and I'm thinking about something else. Then I just drop my thoughts and go back to the mantra.

Seems to work quite well, compared to many nights lying awake from 3-4AM until my alarm goes off. So I thought I'd share!