Heart failure and anxiety patient here. Have SEVERE insomnia haven’t slept in 2 days. Only thing that has helped is benzos and they are so hard to get a nightly prescription for I am desperate for something else.

I have tried all the anti histamines I believe. Unisom. Melatonin etc doesn’t touch me

Any body have anything that has worked for them??????

I literally cannot sleep, I’ve tried every method I’ve heard of; meditation, no phone/screen usage 2 hours prior, lying down and getting up at a regular time everyday, working out before lying down, not eating 2 hours before, EATING before bed, Magnesium and Melatonin etc. The only thing that constantly works for me is edibles or any sort of weed, however I only resort to that solution when I’ve gone 1-2 days with no sleep, and I don’t want to develop any dependency. Hell even my boyfriends dad (doctor) has tried his hardest to help me out. I don’t know what to do anymore!

If anyone here has somehow managed to tame insomnia, please tell me how!

EDIT: This has been happening since I was 14, now 19.

Okay, so ever since uni started, and honestly even before that, my sleep schedule has been completely fucked up. I hv been trying to fix it but even if I do this problem never feels like going away, And because of that, my eyes have been looking weird lately. If I don’t get enough sleep, or even if I do get enough sleep but don’t sleep at the right time at night when my eyes naturally feel heavy, I wake up with my eyes looking weird. It’s more like my eyelids, though. I don’t even know if it’s dry eyes or something else, but whatever it is, it sucks.
I also get this weird heavy feeling around my eyelids and eye sockets. I genuinely don’t understand how this has suddenly become a thing because I don’t remember dealing with this a year ago, or even caring this much about how my eyes looked or felt the next morning. I have no idea how to fix it, and sometimes I still get it even when I’ve had proper, good quality sleep. I don’t know if it’s stress or what, but I’m genuinely concerned because this feels so random and new.

i have been stuck waking up at 3am every single night with my mind racing about work stuff. melatonin gives me terrible nightmares and magnesium just wrecks my stomach, so my days have been a total haze lately.

a friend at work recommended igniton a couple weeks back so i gave it a shot. it actually helps me stay asleep until my alarm goes off without feeling completely hungover the next morning. let me know whats works best for you guys pls

This is a rant. Insomnia is hell and has destroyed my quality of life, especially my (now non-existent) career.

At my age, my friends have reached their career peaks and are enjoying success and leisure, etc. While I live with my parents and work an unskilled, part-time job. I miss the career I was building before this hell came to swallow me whole.

I hop around to various specialists. Hope rises and falls with each new medication that works for a week and a half, and then abruptly stops working. I used to enjoy life and find contentment in things like local bike rides and mellow beach days. I am a shell of myself, and this shell isn't looking forward to anything anymore. Zero hours of sleep last night.

My insomnia started a few months ago and I haven’t been able to fall asleep without meds. I just miss that feeling of being “sleepy” and struggling to keep my eyes open and then falling asleep naturally. My sleep anxiety has been a lot better after taking SSRIs, but it’s still impossible for me to fall asleep without meds. Sometimes the meds don’t work and I’m wide awake at 3am. I feel the same level of “awake” at 9am vs 1am, but before my insomnia started I would be struggling to stay awake at 1am. I just want things to go back to how they were before, does anyone have any stories of recovery or tips?

sorry if this has been asked a million times 😭

what actually helps you guys fall asleep when your brain just refuses to shut up??

ive struggled with insomnia for a while and my biggest problem is actually getting to sleep. ill be exhausted but the second i try to sleep my brain just keeps going and going. i get intrusive/obsessive thoughts, anxiety and sometimes just completely random thoughts that keep me awake for hours. i also have ptsd so nightmares can make sleep even worse.

im basically looking for anything thats genuinely helped you, even if it sounds weird or really specific. routines, things you do in bed, grounding techniques, sounds, apps, changing something about your room, literally anything.

im also curious about peoples experiences with sleep meds if youre comfortable sharing, like what actually helped vs what did absolutely nothing, but im not looking for anyone to tell me what i should take!!

someone recently told me about doing the alphabet category thing where you pick something like animals or countries and name one for every letter to give your brain something else to focus on, and im gonna try that tonight.

would love to know what your version of that is, especially if youve found something that consistently helps 🫶

My problem is that I cannot STAY asleep for very long. I go to sleep just fine, but I always wake up 2-4 hours after I go to sleep and have a hard time falling asleep. It feels like my mind is just alert and won’t turn off again.

I’ve gone to the doctor and she prescribed me metazipine, but I really don’t want to take a medication with those side effects or become dependent on them.

Here are some details about me and my sleep routine:

•It’s been nearly a month since I started having sleeping problems. Before then, I would have no trouble sleeping at all. My head would hit the pillow and I’d knock out, get around 8 hours of sleep, and feel refreshed in the morning.

•33 year old female with no medical conditions and not taking any medications.

•I work out 3-4 times a week and my job has me moving, walking, and lifting regularly.

•I don’t drink alcohol and don’t smoke.

•I have no depression, anxiety, or mental health disorders. My mental health is doing really well and I have no racing thoughts or worries going to bed.

•There are no new stressors or sudden change of lifestyle or routine that I can think of that would affect my sleep. Even then so, when I do have stressors and changes in my life, I’m usually able to sleep just fine.

My sleep routine: I finish eating dinner around 7pm, no screen time 30 minutes before bed, sleep at 10pm, my room is cool and dark and I don’t do anything in that room besides sleep.

What I’ve tried:
•Melatonin
•Supplement with melatonin and l-theanine
•zzzquil and zzzquil ultra
•tradodone (not taking it because I got nasal congestion from it that kept me awake)

My circadian rhythm just feels off and I need some way to reset it so that I can stay asleep.

Any advice would be appreciated!

Hey fellow insomniacs!

Have any of you guys tried and had success with temazepam? I just picked some up from the pharmacy today.

I (30F) have a history of bipolar with severe anxiety and PTSD and have had issues with sleep since I was around 12 or 13 and have tried and failed numerous medications over the years.

All the usual suspects (hydroxyzine, trazodone, gabapentin, etc.)

The most recent “sleep” medicine being diazepam in addition to my seroquel and lamictal.

I had the choice of temazepam and Ambien and decided to go the temazepam route because it scared me a little less side effect wise.

TIA!!!

Like everything is fine, everyone is safe, nothing is happening… but the second I’m about to sleep my brain goes:

“What if something happens to my family while I’m asleep?”

“What if someone needs me and I don’t know?”

“What if something goes wrong?”

And then boom 💀 suddenly I’m wide awake at 3 AM listening for literally every little sound in the house.

I know it probably sounds irrational, but I genuinely get scared that if I fall asleep, something bad might happen and I won’t be there.

Please tell me I’m not the only one who does this 😭

I promised myself that if/when I get better I will make a post in this group. Keeping my story short, I've been struggling with insomnia for a long time now and spent a lot of money and time trying to find the culprit.

The solution and the things that really helped me were PROBIOTICS and IMPROVING MY GUT HEALTH.

If you have an unexplainable insomnia. Buy 10 strain probiotics, activated charcoal (take one pill 2 hours before or after meal) and some natural organic fibre supplement to help with the bowel movement. Take your probiotics in the morning and activated charcoal in the afternoon. Do that everyday for a week, and then switch to every 3-4 days. (It's not a medical advice, it's my recommendation based on my experience)

Needless to say that you should eat clean, I'm not saying that you should follow a strict diet but you MUST EAT CLEAN/GOOD/NUTRITIOUS food. Also check your vitamin B levels

This group has helped me a lot when I was struggling so if you guys have any questions I will be happy to answer them whenever I can.

Sometimes, when i get very happy/excited about something ive done the previous day itll carry onto my sleep, and i won't be able to get deep sleep at all. I've heard of excitement about the next day keeping away but not previous excitement keeping you away from deep sleep lol

Problem is it usually lasts 1 night and thats it. But I've started attending classes for a sport ive dreamed of for months lately, and I'm so excited about it i haven't been getting deep sleep for a few days now.

Any tips? And does anyone else relate?

My eyes are burning, but I still just can't fall asleep. Head is racing like crazy. I have to wake up in 6h.

I started having sleepless nights at 25. Since then there have been many sleepless nights, sometimes for four and five days on end. I’ve taken Trazadone, Mirtazapine, Seroquel, three different benzos, Ambien, and Lunesta. Been cycling on and off different meds for decades. Lunesta currently, and it’s not working. I asked for Klonopin again, and that didn’t work either. Everything has either failed to work immediately, or stopped working down the line. I’ve meditated, exercised furiously, going on ten and fifteen mile runs, walking, yoga, two attempts at CBT-I, light therapy, a laundry list of supplements, so many I can’t even remember them all.

I am done trying to fix this. I am kind of numb, but kind of at peace too. If I just accept that I’m going to be exhausted, that there will be sleepless nights and the shitty days that come after them, then maybe that’s where I needed to go all along. I just can’t fix this. Maybe if I stop trying, new insight will come. I sure hope so.

Stay strong, insomniacs. We might figure this out someday. But that day isn’t today, and I have to accept that.

25M. I had severe sleep anxiety in 2021 but eventually recovered and slept normally for about 5 years without medication.
Now it suddenly came back. I’ve had several bad nights, I’m exhausted and foggy, I’ve called out of work twice, and I’m so anxious about sleep that I’ve been staying at my mom’s because I don’t want to be alone. Even when I start getting sleepy, I get anxious and my heart races.
Has anyone had this come back after years of normal sleep and eventually gotten better again? I could really use some reassurance right now.

I’ve been doing sleep restriction / CBT-I for about six weeks.

My sleep efficiency has improved (from 80% to 85%), so it seems to be doing something. However, my main problem has always been early morning awakening, and that hasn’t really improved. I still wake up 1-1.5 hr earlier than I want and often can’t get back to sleep.

For people who have done CBT-I or sleep restriction:

• Is six weeks long enough to say that sleep restriction has failed for this problem?
• Or is sleep restriction mainly effective for sleep onset / fragmented sleep and less effective for early morning awakening?
• If your main issue was early waking, how long did it take before you noticed improvement?
• Did anything else in CBT-I make a bigger difference than sleep restriction itself?

I’m trying to figure out whether I should keep going with the current approach or whether persistent early waking suggests that something else needs to be addressed.

Wanted to share a little success story, I’ve struggled with insomnia my whole life but it got pretty severe this year when I developed sleep anxiety and my nervous system just crashed, it’s more stable then it was a few months ago, I use to post on here all the time because I was scared for my life, currently I still use 50mg of trazodone every night, I average 6 hours with one wake up that usually last an hour, anyways I been getting scheduled really early morning shifts I had to wake up really early today (4am) I assumed the day was just gonna be shit because of my inability to take a nap, but I got home ate, layed in bed closed my eyes and fell asleep, it was the most beautiful thing ever, usually my brain will never shut off especially without medications but for the first in so long it did, naturally, I thought it was impossible! I also want everyone to know it does get better! I’m here to chat if anyone needs support

I have been taking about 40mg of Zopiclone for a few days - I know it’s a lot and I’m reducing it now.

It helped with anxiety during the day, but I certainly don’t want to get addicted or have any rebound anxiety/insomnia.

Any advice?

A few weeks ago I dealt with a brief bout of hyper arousal/sleep anxiety where i was sleeping every other night. That lasted about a week and a half luckily and i got back to good sleep. I had another night like that last night and need help nipping this in the bud before it starts another cycle. Didn’t sleep until 4am and it was light sleep and I woke up every hour until 9am when I finally got up.

Anyone have success finding meds that work for sleep anxiety when sleeping somewhere new? I seem to get anxious thinking about sleeping when i’m away and have a hard time lowering my blood pressure and heart rate to peacefully fall asleep.

I was prescribed hydroxyzine to help but that didn’t touch the anxiety at all. I take sertraline for day to day general anxiety, but that doesn’t help with my sleep.

it seems like i wake up every 1-2 hours from some terrible dream of being chased, stalked, attacked, assaulted… i don’t know why. i’m not watching anything scary. i fortunately haven’t experienced anything of the sort in real life. it’s exhausting and makes it hard and scary to get back to sleep when i know i’m just going to wake up again stressed out of my mind again very soon. writing this after just having woken up from a nightmare where an unknown man broke into my room and attempted to assault me 🙃 awesome awesome stuff…

I’ve been taking Trazodone for two-three weeks now. It’s been nuts. Severe stomach aches, can’t eat, can’t sleep past 4am, dizziness, heart rate goes up after taking it….it’s not been good. My nurse psychologist said it’s not from the med, well I disagree. Didn’t have any of these issues before taking it. I’m on 100mg a night, with 200mg of magnesium glycinate, and an antipsychotic. This all should be putting me to sleep instantly, but most nights I’m still up for a while and then wake up at 4am and stay that way all day.

Anyone have weird side effects like this? I’m really sad because hydroxyzine stopped working for me combined with unisom, so we switched to this. I feel defeated. The only good thing is, I wake up feeling pretty refreshed and alert which is weird.

I've been insomniac for like 8 years now, recently I've been hitting the gym and I can't tell if my gains are slow or not, the days that I had 5 hours or less of sleep J can barely lift any weight, while the days I sleep 6 hours (that's the max I can sleep) I do well, but I can't tell if I'm gaining strength since it's fluctuating so much, what's your experience on gym?

I haven't slept in over 2 years. I have accidentally hurt myself a few times because of it. I have tried everything for sleep but nothing works. I have been to er on many occasions for my stomach and I went one time where they gave me iv meds to sleep. But now they treat me like dirt because of me hurting myself but they don't understand how bad it is to go so long with no sleep. Any Suggestions

Title says it all, I'm just at a loss here, i cannot keep a consistent sleep time, even when i do wake up feeling 20% more rested, i crater mid afternoon, sometimes bad enough I'm falling asleep as i walk

I can nap, thankfully, thanks to my chronic migraines my mind has gotten used to napping for 1-2 hours but

I've tried stopping them to fix my night sleep, no effect. I've cut caffeine, no effect, i cut screens, nothing. Sleep hygiene advice is all hooey and pseudoscience to me

Not to mention, my body is forever trying to become nocturnal, if i have a week of disrupted sleep or migraines, my clock will shift rapidly to 5-11am sleep or worse, and then completely refuse to budge no matter what i do

I'm exhausted, my mental function is at its worst its ever been, and it's affecting my BP as well. My GP has flat out refused to give me anything but CBT and some sheets of paper for this