Sleepless nights

[Linnaete]

[Disclaimer: My Gaia colleagues, if there is actually in fact another thread about this and I've missed it, then feel free to merge.]

We all love a good night's sleep. It leaves us nicely refreshed in the morning and ready to tackle the day ahead, yet there are nights that are just remembered for being arduous. Why? You just can't sleep. You toss and turn, you constantly attempt to try and find a comfortable position and perhaps in your mind you are frantically asking to yourself why it's 3:30am and you've still not slept a wink yet when you have to be up at 7 over and over again. I think we all (or at the very least - most) of us have experienced sleepless nights.

This had been me last night. It was odd, because I don't think I was overly anxious about anything, nor was I overcome by stress in some shape or form (common characteristics behind insomnia). I was definitely tired, yet my body just refused to sleep. I remember doing nothing but tossing and turning for about four hours or so and then getting up straight from bed at some point to read a short chapter on World Politics - the State's role as a political actor on the international stage in frantic hopes that the passage would be dull enough to put me to sleep at last. It wasn't until 5am that I finally dozed off and I barely lasted a few hours before I woke up, feeling absolutely horrible. I think there had been an instance or two in the past when I did manage to go through an entire night without sleeping a single wink and that's not counting being on a plane.

So as well as discussing your sleepless nights, have you ever had totally sleepless nights when you couldn't even fall asleep? And when you had these sleepless nights, how did you deal with it? Would you retire to bed earlier the following night to "make up" for the previous one?

 

[Rey]

Yes, I do have these kind of nights. Sometimes I try and force myself to sleep early when I have to be up at five-seven in the morning to leave on most days. It really never works, and I always end up sleeping really late, or with no sleep at all. Perhaps something is bothering me in my mind, or I just can not find a comfortable position to sleep in, like you said. I know I always try and do my work overnight, in hopes of it putting me to sleep after awhile. Insomnia really is a pain sometimes. I just stay on the laptop for so long, and I realize it is like 4:30 in the morning. I ask myself "Ohhh what am I going to do, I have to wake up so soon" When I get up in the morning without an ounce of sleep, it really is hard for me to keep my eyes open during lessons in class. How do I get through it? I drink coffee in the morning in hopes of it keeping me up all the time. It does fail sometimes and I end up falling asleep during lessons or even on break. Working on essays when it is past midnight is something I will do if I have to hand it in within the week or so. It pains me, and does not give me much sleep at all. Usually, If I am really tired I will always try and take an early night. Even when I try and force myself to sleep, it just fails most of the time. Oh but believe you me, if I have no sleep, and no method to keep me up, Ill be snoozing all day at school. I would sleep 3 hours, and then wake up and fall asleep much later most of the time. I know that feeling of getting no sleep at all. You just feel terrible and dead. D=

 

[Squid]

I've never not been able to sleep besides one time when I was up vomiting all night but I don't think that counts.

I do have a very broken sleep a lot of nights, I'll sleep, then wake up every hour or two. I'm a light sleeper, any little sound can wake me (yet somehow the earthquake the other night didn't wake me )

But yeah, even when stressed I still manage to fall asleep and sleep for most of the night, I'd die if I just laid awake for an entire night, that would be frustrating.

 

[Kandy-Sugar]

I've had a few nights of terrible sleep.

I'll go to sleep and wake up every couple of hours and check the time and feel horrible knowing that I have to get up in a few hours for work.

Most of the time it's because Steve is still awake playing games and the lights are on and it bothers me all night.

I can't say I've had a night where I've had no sleep at all though.

I never seem to make up for my horrible nights sleep by going to bed early the next night either. I always wake up in the morning dead tired and promise myself that I'll go to bed early the following night, but it never happens. >.<

I always end up staying up late again and the cycle continues.

Aside from those sort of nights, I usually have pretty good sleeps but when I don't I'm so cranky. >.<

 

[Rapture]

Its bizarre, but once maybe 4 or 5 years ago I had about a week's long bout of insomnia and I had to go into the doctor's because I thought I was going to go crazy if I couldn't sleep again

He did not prescribe me sleeping pills or anything...and told me to give it another week and see if it ended up fixing itself...and thankfully it did. The whole thing was really odd though because I wasn't stressed about anything in particular, I wasn't taking any medications that would cause that as a side effect, and there wasn't any particular reason for the sleeplessness. I will admit after the first few nights you kind of lay awake at night thinking "Am I going to be able to sleep tonight?" allllll night and that really does your head in, because you'll never be able to sleep if you can't stop worrying/thinking about it.

So I really feel for those who have permanent insomnia problems because I think I'd go nuts if I had to deal with that day in and out. I love my sleep too much. ...and has anyone ever seen the ridiculous side effects with Lunesta and Ambien...sleep driving...really

 

[Martel]

Excluding those times when I'm ill, during which I'll inevitably end up staying up all night whether I want to or not, I have these periodically, usually when I have an abundance of ideas roaming around in my head. It can be extremely difficult for me to shut my brain off, and in trying to at night I sometimes just continue my thought process. xD

I used to be a very light sleeper, but since shortening the time I sleep, I've been sleeping like one of the dead; I drop straight off, and I wake up as if on cue. I don't wake up in the night as frequently, anyway.

Whenever I have exams coming up though, my sleep takes a definite downturn. My best thinking is done when I'm lying in bed with nothing else to do, so I tend to go over my notes repeatedly in my head and, if I can't remember something, I can spend quite a while trying to remember what it was. In my exams earlier this year I had this problem, and I caught the exam flu going around my friends at the time as well, so at one point sleep was about as obtainable as the moon.

Although it's quite difficult to say for me how many utterly sleepless nights I have, because I'm rarely tired from them all day afterwards, and since I don't have my clock facing me when I sleep - the light gives me a headache and just makes it harder for me to sleep - I don't keep an eye on the time constantly. I imagine I pass out from exhaustion, but it definetely doesn't feel like it a lot of the time.

One thing I don't do is try and make up the time lost though, because that royally screws my head in. I have a sleep schedule from 10:30pm to 6:30am, and trying to sleep before or after those times just makes me feel worse than what I already would be feeling. That completely wrecks my day afterwards. This is the only downside to having a sleep schedule that I've found: I'm locked into it, so even if I'm ill I have to stick to it, when I might want nothing more than to just curl up and die.

 

[Sexy Beast]

I've had countless times where I couldn't sleep, but really wanted to. honestly, I have it more than any person I know..at least in real life. I'm sure there are plenty of people on internet world that have the same problems with sleep as I do. The thing that commonly triggers my sleepless nights is depression, and often just being in a very bad mood. Sometimes my computer would be the cause of that and I often do something crazy..like writing until I can't write no more or something like that. Not like I'm saying what I do in a crazed mood has any negative effects on others, but just that it puts me in an oddly productive mood.

One time when I did have insomnia, I was up maybe like twenty-nine hours or possibly more. Even though I was in a bi-polar state of mind where my body was really tired, my mind was telling it to stop feeling that, and just give into the excessive and quite random energetic mood I was experiencing. this was during my senior of high school(year twelve for you easterners ). It was a very bad time for me, not only was I in my lowest of low, but this was also around the time I would be graduating. So, let's just say it didn't look good for me. It wasn't until I went to see a therapist that did I get the sleep I needed. Who knew that all I needed was just a little venting.

Ever since then, my sleepless nights have more-or-less ceased, but I still have a couple of them here and there. I try to avoid them,b ut what are you gonna do when insomnia comes into contact with stress.

 

[Lirael]

There are occasions when I can't sleep...and I usually end up needing a nap one afternoon over the next week. I can't function on little sleep. :/

On the night itself, if a couple of hours have passed, I tend to listen to some music or perhaps watch or read something for half an hour. This usually works okay...

I don't know how anyone can pull an 'all-nighter.' I've tried twice - before the age of 14 - and ended up falling asleep mid-afternoon the next day. One minute I was watching the beginning of Anastasia, and the next thing I knew, the credits were rolling on the screen...

 

[Bambi]

i have these nights more often than not. Ive never been a good sleeper. to actually get to sleep and have a good nights sleep is a bit of a novelty for me

its got ridiculous recently so ive got some strong knock you the fuck out sleepign tablets

I fucking hate people that can fall asleep as soon as their heads hit the pillow

 

[Jetstream Sam]

I'm having one of those nights now, It's been occurring more often than usual and it's a bitch to say the least. I'm not thinking about anything to keep me up, not worried about anything or anyone, and i'm not pulling a all nighter to finish an assignment for either of my classes i have currently. I have no idea why i get them and when i do there's no telling how long they'll last. Music used to help me sleep but that doesn't work anymore. Sleeping pills don't work on me at all let alone the mighty nyquil, there's no point in asking the doctor because i asked before and they couldn't come up with a reason why it happens either.

 

[SaShman]

I used to have these nights alot. When I was about 18 I couldn't go to sleep before 3am. If I tried going to bed any earlier, I would just lie awake for hours. I found it pretty depressing to be honest, I would often sleep in and just end up wasting the day. Thankfully I don't have these nights too often anymore. I've gotten into a routine of waking up relatively early. So I can usually get to bed at a reasonable time.

 

[Richard B Riddick]

AFAIK, there are two main causes to this.

1. Drinking soda a few hours before sleeping.
2. Lack of exercise.

The moment I stopped drinking soda within say... 6 hours of sleeping is the moment I started to fall asleep easily & wake up feeling well rested.

 

[Sepalcure]

I fall asleep regardless of whether I drink soda within 1-6 hours before my bedtime, but then again I've grown highly intolerant to the adverse effects of caffeine. Occasionally I have those nights where I won't fall asleep; my mind will be racing with erratic thoughts. Usually what I do is I watch the television until I become sleepy or listen to music until I drift off.

 

[Tyler Breeze]

The day after I've had a sleepless night, I unleash the fires of hell on everything in sight. I need sleep or I'll be the meanest person on the planet.

At night I just try to relax and drink water, but that usually doesn't help much. I'm forced to just wait it out til morning.