Why can’t I stay asleep..?!

Same problem here, normally wake at about 4:30, but made it to 4:50 this morning.

Sorry I can't help mattbee!

Same here I'm afraid, although the time varies a bit with me.
Always knackered. Always fall asleep instantly, in front of films etc, but can't stay asleep 😐

I go through periods of similar patterns. Once I'm awake I start to think about stuff and just don't seem to be able to switch off again.
I have tried the thing of once I wake up, can I be bothered to go downstairs and and make a cup of tea, if not I can normally drift off back to sleep as I tell myself I'm obviously still too tired.

Before finally getting a suction cup blackout curtain this summer, early sunrise used to be an issue for me on days off work, now going into winter it's the lack of desire to set the alarm on days off close to work days alarm of 0515. Today I randomly woke at 0530, other days I could wake as late as ~0730, which then makes the work day 0515 alarm feel like hell... Especially when I can try to sleep anything from 2130-0000!

It's so hard to function when you feel like a zombie, seems to have affected me more this summer, it's probably the biggest factor for me doing so few 2+ hour outdoor rides. Still yet to visit a few of my favourite local hills this year, not been to South Harting since '20.

1700 is my deadline for last coffee of the day, probably should try to make it closer to ~1530.

At least there's the world champ mens road race to watch live this morning https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/live/cycling/59964314

No caffeine consumed in the evening/night

I find any caffeine consumed during the day affects my sleep. Because I love coffee my best compromise is a full fat coffee just before breakfast then that's it for the day. Decaf coffee and tea for the rest of the day.

Makes a huge difference to me

I'll sometimes do a couple of 3am mornings before getting my average 7 hours on the 3rd night.
It might be that 930pm is too early for your natural cycle. Average is 7-9 hours sleep, so work back from the time that you need to be up and out of bed
Blue light messes with your body and a book is better than a screen, but reading by LED or fluorescent light is also a problem.
The closer the blue light source the worse it is, so avoid phones and tablets after dark. TV doesn't seem to be such a problem for most people, although it is another source

yes, i get this from time to time, always seems to be an issue with switching off so is predicted by a busy or difficult time at work and the brain keeping running on standby creating mental to-do lists and action plans. Or home life, worrying about kids at school problems or whatever. Have not slept well now for 10 days - daughter went off to freshers week yesterday so week before was worrying about it, how will the move go, will she like her corridor mates, will Mum dissolve in tears (will I!), how will her brother cope - she's his venting post and also his truth talker in a way he doesn't listen to Mum and Dad.

And I've had about 4 hours tonight because having dropped off she was then planning with the flatmates (who all seem OK from the amount I was permitted to interact with them) on going to a club in the nearby town. For a superstar DJ, where there will be locals, and probably goodness knows what else. Until 4am.  I only used to doze when she was going out at home, so I'd know when she got home and knew if the worst came to the worst I could hop in the car and get her in 10 mins.

Anyway, burden laid down - I need something to occupy my mind that needs to make it work enough that other processes have to stop, but obviously not interesting enough to be stimulating. I either count upwards in prime numbers, and see how far I can get. Good night, 50's or 60's, bad night well into the hundreds. Or, imagine a well ridden route or trail and keep count of the left and right turns as you go.

On a bad night it won't stop me waking again, so getting sleep in bursts but being able to get off again. The other thing I have to resist is when I wake, looking to see what time it is. It's OK if the answer's half five, hopefully I can get off again and get through to getting up time or if not get up anyway. If it's 12:48, as it was last night......well, as I said, I just dozed off and woke and dozed off and woke until I gave up around half five, and now watching the worlds.

(she got in at 4am, according to Life360. So at least she's back safe)

same. tend to go to bed roughly 10.30. nearly always awake 4.30 ish. sometimes with a 12.30 wake as well. usually I can't go back to sleep after the 4.30 wake. After an hour if trying I'm usually up at 5.30

been like this now for years. Doc says it is anxiety. tried CBT. all the focus was on falling asleep, which like you is not a problem, it's staying asleep.

I used the headspace app for a while sort of guided meditation. I may try that again actually. it didn't seem to help, but tbf I only used it at the start of the night not on the 4.30 wake.

my partner has the same trouble, and I also think we keep each other awake. sometimes I'm almost about to doze off and she turns or sighs or something because she is awake too. boom wide awake again. I'm sure I'm doing the same to her. may try separate rooms

is your sleep the same when you are away from home? mine is still not great but noticeably better.

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2022/sep/24/want-to-get-a-good-nights-sleep-first-of-all-stop-trying

how relevant, just flicking through web pages and this was published yesterday evening

I’d wake up at that time and then feel stressed that I wasn’t asleep…which lead to me not being able to go back to sleep as I was stressed.
The big thing that helped me was stopping trying to go back to sleep and started to just try and rest. I basically say to myself that even if I can’t sleep, an extra hour or 3 lying down resting will be better than nothing, but if I don’t sleep then so be it.
Took the pressure of trying to sleep and meant I’d feel my fresher in the day.

Too hot?

CBD is supposed to help you sleep. I think there’s a brand in Tesco called Love Hemp

old man syndrome i reckon. i have it too.

a nice afternoon nap sorts me out. so no worries.

old man syndrome i reckon.

We do sleep less as we get older, not because we need less sleep but because we lack the brain chemistry to facilitate it. Why we Sleep by Matthew Walker is an interesting book on the subject. Andrew Huberman podcast is worth listening to as well, he often covers sleep, circadian rhythms and how to improve them.

When I’m working away I sleep until my alarm mostly but it is set for 5:30-6am!
I sleep much better in our caravan, which has single beds. Still tend to wake but find it much easier to get back to sleep and stay asleep, often until 7-7:30.
At home it doesn’t seem to matter if wife is in bed or not, but I also recognise the idea that we keep waking each other at times with little snores, grunts, tossing and turning. That’s generally why I give up on being in bed and go downstairs as that way at least it’s only me being disturbed.
I read that Guardian article too, after posting this thread!

Is it the total amount of sleep or waking up at 4?

old man syndrome i reckon

I almost always need to visit the bathroom during the night these days and sometimes I get back to sleep afterwards, sometimes not - not in the case of the last two nights, so up before 6 on both occasions. It’s predictable too, almost exactly 5 h after I go to sleep. Usually I get up and find something useful to do and have a nap later (if it’s the weekend).

I used to get this all the time but hassle ever now. The things that helped me were:

1. A SAD lamp. I use this throughout the day and it works a treat in terms of hormone triggering. (You obviously know to avoid light at nighttime, you may just need a stronger source of light during the day - I know that sounds counterintuitive to helping you sleep, but if you don't get the strong response during the day, you won't get the strong counter response at night).

2. Binaural beats / sleep hypnosis. You can find loads of these on YouTube music. Audible has some really good sleep hypnosis / meditations too. The Sleep Cove podcast is also good. If you're listening to binaural beats you'll need to use headphones or get wrong work. I find that I almost always have a fantastic sleep after listening to one knee of these.

Neither of these are guaranteed to work, and they won't work all the time but they have made the world of difference to me. I used to wake up by 4am all the time but I now can't remember the last time I did.

I’ve tried a lot of things but it’s always a bathroom visit at 4:30am, then dozing until 7 - maybe I sleep maybe I don’t - with unenforced afternoon naps on the weekends. I just assumed it was age.

Always awake early, a combination of a menopausal wife radiating more energy than the sun  and me requiring an old mannie pee at stupid o'clock.

Random thoughts from me:

Wear an eye mask (deluxe 3d one)
Ear plugs if noise bugs you
Never check the time when you wake up, just tell yourself its still night, try to keep one eye shut when going for a wee and not engaging your brain
If you’ve got up and gone downstairs you’re not going to go back to sleep, you’ve committed to that being morning
Find subjects to think about that help you go back to sleep, eg if you start thinking about work as soon as you wake at 4am then you wont sleep, but intensively trying to remember the dream you were just having might work
Cut out caffeine 100%
Cut out alcohol 100%
Don’t eat late
Lose weight? (If required)
See your doc - something underlying? No idea.
Do yoga

Two hints that have helped me.

1. Mouth taping. Sounds like quackery but it has worked for me. Buy some silicone micro pore tape and use a 1cm length to tape your lips together. This makes you breathe through your nose, which has loads of benefits but include reducing the need to urinate. I used to wake every night to have a wee but sleep through now. Sounds ridiculous but it really works for me.

2. Earplugs. I found that odd noises from central heating, dogs scratching, wife snoring etc would wake me up. No longer.

TBH in bed at 9.30 seems a tad early, I wonder if you’d be better reading outside of bed and using bed for sleeping.

The getting up early for a wiz is interesting as I used to do this but after a bit of practice in holding it in,now don’t.

I have a feeling that it’s a habit that you can get into as ‘that’s what old people do’, before your time.

I can’t suggest what a friend recommends you should do to get back to sleep but it does seem to work 🙂

9:30 to 4:00 is 6.5 hrs. That's more than I've lived on for over 30 years 😂. Having said that, it doesn't affect my moods, I don't feel tired and don't nap during the day. I guess you could just learn to get used to it. It certainly might be worth holding off going to bed until much later, then see if you sleep through.

OTOH maybe you've reverted to a natural sleep pattern that requires two sleeps. If you look this up you'll find that was normal behaviour for a long time, before the widespread adoption of artificial light. Have your first sleep, When you wake up, don't immediately try to get back to sleep. Read, listen to music, have sex etc The theory is that you'll then drop off again.

I don't find I sleep for any longer by going to bed any earlier. I wake up when I do through a habit of waking just before the alarm or after 6-7 hours - whichever comes first.

My role is also active and the need for sleep can fluctuate, particularly if I add in an evening ride. I am also fine with a post lunch nap to maintain a safe working environment.

Going to bed at half 9 doesn't even let you know that they've found a million down the sofa on Grand Designs or that Kevin has sired two kids during the build.

Much the same as the OP here but a very light sleeper. Fall asleep very fast but don't stay asleep. The slightest sound wakes me up. But, I do get deep sleep between 6am and 9am. Doesn't matter what time I go to bed. It's always the same. Work is a killer as I have to be up for 7am so don't get much sleep.

Tried all sorts of things to get better quality sleep but nothing worked. Now I've resorted to going part time at work to get a couple more days of deep sleep.

I can’t say I recommend it, but the only way I can sleep past 3 or 4am is taking a travel sickness tablet called Avomine the night before. I’ve tried everything I can think of, and nothing else works for me. I’ve been taking one avomine tablet at bedtime for years now. Even now, If I forget to take it, I will be awake from about 4am onwards.

It’s such a total pain. But after a few months of inadequate sleep, my ability to cope with life’s normal stresses and strains becomes compromised. So the alternative to the drugs (for me) is just not workable.

My story sounds incredibly similar to many others - I drop off to sleep quite easily. Just can’t stay asleep. Also, I find it incredibly difficult to nap during the day. I just lie there (during the day) and never seem to fall asleep.

Gosh some people really go to bed very early, I'm the other extreme. i rarely go to bed before 11:30 as i am just a night person - maybe a hangover from the 90's raves. Alarm is set up 7:45 as i work from home and tend to finish maybe around 6. I can drink tea right up until late and sleep but not alcohol.

Having kids a bit later in life I just blamed the random waking and needing the toilet on them when they were babies/toddlers setting a precedent. It's rare that I wake early morning and am unable to sleep, I find it easier to sleep when I'm supposed to be getting up! The problem (and not that often) is waking up just as about to doze off, or waking up an hour after going to bed. If I really can't sleep I'll go downstairs and do the type of yoga where gravity assists and I'm not putting any physical effort in at all, just noticing where I'm tensing my body and/or trying to resist gravity. I've found this sort of yoga has made it far easier to avoid tensing my body up while laying in bed trying to sleep.

If you wake up with a dry mouth definitely consider the tape to help breath through nose.
You can get blue light cancelling glasses too.

It's a minefield!

Read, listen to music, have sex etc

My wife sleeps the sleep of the dead. Am I obliged to wake her before option 3?

I often wake up 2.30-3ish I just get up do myself something to eat with a cup of tea and then go back to bed and then usually fall back to sleep.

I have to ban proper coffee, tea, cola and even chocolate after 2pm, they all seem to get me.

Any alcohol also disrupts sleep, but I risk a pint to once or twice a week.

Are either you or your wife snoring? That seems to be an issue Chez Morecash at the moment.

Any underlying niggling worries you need to work through - work, health or anything?

I've been going to sleep wearing a Manta sleep mask for 6 months now, and all my broken sleep troubles have vanished. It took me about a week to get used to wearing it, but now I wouldn't be without it.
(27 year old daughter tried it, she thought was horrible, like some kind of sensory deprivation torture 🤣)

TBH in bed at 9.30 seems a tad early,

I like to be in bed by 9 and would consider 9.30 a bit late! I do normally read for an hour and then listen to French radio for half an hour - before switching that off at 11.

My partner suffers intermittently with insomnia, you mention going downstairs, I asked my partner to stop this (I can sleep though a storm), as it just reinforces her struggle to go back to sleep. Stay in bed as per Lunge's post, don't stress about it, read/watch TV with headphones, but stay in bed. One definite thing was that help my partner, was not look at the time when she woke, if the alarm hasn't gone off, just ignore it.

I thought you all went off to beddy-byes about 1am, as thats about the time the posts/replies stop on the forum

Blimey those manta masks are pricey! I’m tempted, as a (cheap Amazon) mask wearer for the last 5 years or so, my body associates sleeps with a mask almost drop off instantly….

We live on a relatively busy road. One massive benefit is you can roughly tell the time by the noise from the road. Listen carefully, if you can hear any road noise it’s probably 6am or later, no noise it’s probably before 6am do not look at the time. Sadly we occasionally get bellends with silly loud exhausts smashing down a 30mph road like it’s a race track in the middle of the night, that always wakes me up pissed off. They really should ban exhausts above a certain volume. Shaking peoples windows out is unnecessary

Seems fairly obvious to me that some of you lot don't understand what a bed is for! Why on earth do you feel the need to read or watch tv in bed??? Just do that in your living room and reserve the bedroom for sleeping...

I won't go to bed before 11pm (usually it's nearer 11:30/Midnight) as otherwise I fall asleep quickly but wake up within an hour and I'm wide awake for hours.

If I start feeling really tired, I'll have a very short power-nap (10mins max) in the late afternoon to ensure the evening can be productive and I'm not fighting the urge to go to bed early.

Granted, I don't need to start work super early, work from home and I don't have kids!

Read, listen to music, have sex etc

My wife sleeps the sleep of the dead. Am I obliged to wake her before option 3?

Would she be missing much?

The idea of sleeping 10 till 6 seems to come from industrialisation and shift working. Much history suggests that people would break their night's sleep for a read or whatever. I find exercise and fresh air bring more knocked out sleep but I still wake up. Booze or weed don't really help but making the two-backed beast can be very good. You eventually drift off again but you need to train yourself out of the ear worms, work worries etc.

No caffeine consumed in the evening/night and although my alcohol intake had crept up to an average of 3 pints/beers a day I have knocked that on the head for the last 3 weeks

You've done the right thing with tge booze and caffeine but 3 weeks is not long enough to re-establish your sleep pattern- think in terms of 3 months, at least.

Booze is best thought of as a cocktail of different drugs- both uppers and downers. The downers work faster, so they'll get you to sleep just fine, but they'll wear off after about 4 hrs leaving at the mercy of the uppers, at which point you'll have little or no chance of getting back to sleep.

Our sleeping patterns are also very habitual- once you've established a pattern with the booze, the pattern is there to stay even when the booze isn't.

Give it time, it will come back to you if you lay off the booze and ideally the caffeine, and if it doesn't then it's time to start looking at other external factors- the most obvious one being stress/anxiety/general unhappiness. Sound minds sleep well!

Try this.
Breath in deeply, whilst saying ' sleeeeep' count to 4 slowly.
Then exhale fully, whilst saying ' sleeeeeep'. Count to 2. Breathe in again.
You should be able to ether fall asleep, or back to sleep very quickly.

Im the same as ton.

No matter what time i go to bed im usually awake at 5.30. Even if i go to bed at 2 am its unlikely I sleep byond 6.30.

Its only since turning 50 I'm like this

Well, last night was a little better- didn’t have any caffeine after my morning coffee, stuck with decaf tea for the rest of day.
Still in bed by half 9 but as usual I read for around an hour before turning the light off. Don’t think it took me long to drop off as usual.
I put some white noise on the Echo, this may have helped a bit when I woke at 03:40 and went to the loo as when I got back into bed I didn’t hear the Mrs which is one of the triggers for me not getting back to sleep. I drifted off a bit and had some more sleep in short stints but was still up at half 5.
So around 5 hours of decent sleep followed by 90 min or so of ‘naps’.
Wife is on nights tonight and tomorrow for the first time in absolutely ages so it will be interesting to see whether I sleep any better with her absent from the bed.
It is interesting to read in between the various bits of advice (thanks guys) that there are also plenty of people whose sleep pattern is similar to mine.

First month on blood pressure meds and it has improved my sleeping a lot.

I still wake up at 3 sometimes but I’ve been reading books on sports physiology on my Kindle and barely manage a page before I’m sleeping again.

Although I can’t relate directly to the thread, I have found taking a magnesium complex supplement has done wonders for the quality of my sleep. Top quality magnesium isn’t cheap but it’s definitely value for money IMO

The idea of sleeping 10 till 6 seems to come from industrialisation and shift working. Much history suggests that people would break their night’s sleep for a read or whatever.

Yes, there have even been research papers published on the phenomenon.
Breaking sleep in the middle of the night was normal until fairly recently.

Interesting little article on the Beeb to start off.

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20220107-the-lost-medieval-habit-of-biphasic-sleep

I suffer quite badly with insomnia, have done for 30 years, so i've done a fair bit of reading on it.
Hasn't helped, i still have to survive on 3 or 4 hours a night at best...

I wake up several times most nights, seems to have started around my 50th birthday. Sometimes it is work and stress/worry so that’s easy to identify, but lately I just seem to wake up. I usually go to bed about 10-10:30 and will almost always wake at about 4am for a wee - I think this is habit as I could go through if I tried but tend to think I might as well go since I’m awake. Occasionally I need to clear my mind to get back to sleep but generally I’m OK.

If I’ve had a hard day of exercise, or 2-3 consecutive days, I tend to wake more through the night. This is generally mild hunger as a result of not refuelling properly and starts about 2am (or earlier if I’ve gone to bed earlier) and I’ll wake every hour or so unless I do something about it. I used to get up and eat cereal, which isn’t ideal, but now I’ll just have a few sips of water without getting up. This usually helps me feel full and get back to sleep quite quickly. Note, I usually don’t actually feel hungry (no hunger pangs) but it must be that as eating or drinking fixes it.

Trouble here as well.Neighbours have just started a new behaviour of banging around at 6.30am.No thought for anybody else.

Usually go to bed at around 9:30pm and read for up to an hour, before dropping off fairly quickly most nights.........
..........or around 6 months now though, no matter what I do I wake at circa 4am and rarely get much sleep after that.

If your intention is to sleep to a certain time then just don't go to bed until however many hours before then get up at that time every day (weekends etc. included).

I don’t find I sleep for any longer by going to bed any earlier. I wake up when I do through a habit of waking just before the alarm or after 6-7 hours – whichever comes first.

My role is also active and the need for sleep can fluctuate, particularly if I add in an evening ride. I am also fine with a post lunch nap to maintain a safe working environment.

^^^This^^^

Haven't read all the replies in detail as some are quite lengthy but it seems most are saying the same, and I did have a very quick scan through that Gaurdian linky.

I'm the same as most, at 53yrs I never seem to sleep for very long, but when I do it's usually good quality with loads of weird dreams. Usually go to bed around 11-11:30 and am up around 7am to start work at 8. I usually wake up two or three times in the night, not really sleeping more than a couple or three hours at a time. I've probably slept through the night once or twice in the last year.
What I do is put my phone over the clock so that I can't see what time it is when I wake up. I don't need to care what time it is because my alarm hasn't gone off so it's not time to get up. It takes a bit of will power not to check the clock but I've got used to it now. Sometimes I can lay awake for what seems like an hour or maybe two before dropping off again but I just don't care about it. It's dark, it's quiet and peaceful, lay there and enjoy it. Yes the mind starts to wander into thoughts of the day or the next day but I find the best thing to do is to stay in bed and do my best to just relax and enjoy the down time, even if I'm not asleep there's no need to get up.
An hours lie down/snooze during the day can sometimes help as well if I've been riding, circuit training or just been rather active for a few days.

Another point with waking in the night. People think they have been awake for much longer periods and sleep less than observational studies show iirc. Ie looking at the clock at 2am and again at 4am and believing you have been awake for 2 hours is possibly incorrect. You were awake for a couple of minutes at 2 and again at 4 more likely.

When Julie was unwell I was able to get up to tend to her needs in the night without ever fully waking fortunately thus never becoming sleep deprived

Also fretting about lack of sleep makes it worse.

Anyway im off for a nap🤣