AIBU to accept insomnia and give up trying

[Castiron12]

I can’t sleep and I know I won’t sleep until I need to be up at 06:45am for work.

This is longstanding and partly due to me being on-call for advice for work one evening a week and having to work varying shift patterns sometimes earlier starts than others. (I don’t think this will be sustainable for me)
I am such a sensitive sleeper and have always suffered with this, even the thought of an early alarm sets me off and I’m awake all night.
I have tried everything under the sun - if one more person tells me to listen to music or “deep breathe” I may scream!
These days if I can tell it’s going to be a sleepless night due, I just get comfortable with drinks / snacks and either read most of a book or watch several films then spend the next day nackered and a zombie at work. Ironically come around 6:30-7:00am I can sleep fine (just when I need to get up). AIBU for giving up on trying? Sometimes it feels more exhausting laying in silence awake than accepting it.
Thought I’d hop on mumsnet to hopefully chat on some threads to not feel like the only person on the planet!

I fall asleep with no problem. I just wake so early and can’t get back to sleep.
I take phenergan but have also started back on Sertrline. I took it last year (100mg) when my brother was terminally ill and it stopped the over thinking. If I ever woke in the night I would go straight back to sleep as my mind was so calm and quiet.
I’ve just started back on 50mg but will up it to 100 very soon and see if that helps.

I wish I could sleep unmedicated but I think modern life is stressful, and some of us are more sensitive than others. Deep breathing and reading just don’t cut it for me.

YANBU, I found accepting that I am awake sort of helps. One less thing to go round in your brain! I went through a stage of being able to tell you how long it took me to get to sleep, how many times I woke in the night, how early I was wide awake again. Much better now I have an ‘it is what it is’ attitude and stopped the frantic search for a cure.

Shame I don’t like bananas though, I guess I can’t join the club!

Accepting it really does help. The stress of worrying that you can't sleep will keep you awake. I second listening to podcasts or audio books. Sometimes I go to sleep, sometimes I don't but at least I'm not tossing and turning and getting stressed. I use sleep headphones to avoid disturbing DH.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Headphones-Bluetooth-Headband-Wireless-Waterproof-grey/dp/B083Z2DBML/ref=mpssa113?crid=3JL3CMKL9SXFV&keywords=sleep+headphones&qid=1661493287&sprefix=sleep+headphones+%2Caps%2C80&sr=8-3

Eventually dropped off about 4.30.
Woke up at 6.38 to work messages even though I'm off today.
Now remembered it's bin day today and they start about 7.30 ☹️
Let's all hope for a better night tonight.

Biovea Melatonin Gummies. Game changer.

An audiobook but about wildlife or similar. I've listened to the natural navigator (from the library) several times.
I need to be distracted from my thoughts.

I get it, but I have learned to accept it and tell myself I don’t need much sleep anyway, and just resting is good enough

make myself comfy with eye mask, ear plugs, and telling myself I am not going to sleep, but going to rest

if I wake up and can’t go back to sleep, I am not allowed to check the time (to avoid “OH NO! I have only slept 2 hours) but have a snack, read a few pages, then go and rest a bit more

9 out of 10 it works

but I had to train myself, and strictly no screens and no checking the time

i was awake for a bit last night, but no idea how long or how little I slept as no time checking

by watching movies/screens you are just teaching yourself unhelpful habits

There’s another thread running on AIBU on insomnia. Might be worth checking out…
www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/4619565-if-you-have-a-mind-that-goes-on-overdrive-at-night-how-do-you-switch-off-for-sleep

Thank you so much for your helpful responses and those of you who didn’t sleep last night I hope work isn’t too painful today!
fingers crossed for a good sleep tonight. Generally speaking Fridays and Saturdays I sleep slightly better!

Sympathies to everyone not sleeping.

I have phases of terrible sleep. At the moment I tend to be awake between about 1.30-3.30 and then drop off again, but I've had phases of being awake all night.
It's awful and I get very emotional and irrational if I get too tired.

I take these sometimes (pic attached) I know the pharmaceutical route isn't for everyone but they have worked for me when I have really needed a night's sleep.

I am bloody impressed by those people who say they’ve made peace with it. How do you keep calm/upbeat around your kids, at work etc.? I am extremely short-tempered/wired with hyperactivity after long periods of no sleep.

Doesn’t seem to matter too much. I take maximum recommended chewable vit C at 6 pm and fall asleep around 11 pm. I do wake up in the night (menopause) but fall asleep again usually within 10 mins. Without vit C I may not fall asleep again at all. Careful if you have reflux or anything the extra acid may cause problems with - ask your GP.

Sleepio app/program.

This is a really horrible problem and I don't think you should give up. Sleep deprivation has serious long term consequences. I haven't rtft (sorry) but have resolved horrendous sleep issues myself. Meds that have worked for me (some to a greater extent than others) are amitriptyline, zolpidem, zopiclone (gave me bad breath though) and guanfacine. OTC night nurse and antihistamines had a very small effect but even a small effect was welcome when I was living on 2 hours sleep a night. Beg, borrow or steal to see a private consultant if you can't find someone on the NHS but absolutely insist that they take this seriously. If, of course, you're open to meds like these. I apologise if you've stated elsewhere that you aren't. Since they've made it impossible to search a whole thread in one go, I find it so much harder to use the forum.

I read a similar thread in here and tried this

amp.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2016/jul/15/shuffle-thoughts-sleep-oliver-burkeman

it really helped. I am not sure if the link will work so google cognitive shuffling if not. I am wide awake now due to a slight over indulgence in alcohol last night but going to try this shortly.

You have my sympathy, I'm exactly the same with the early waking.
Yesterday was 4am, today 5am. As soon as I wake I'm completely alert and can tell there's no chance of dropping off again, it sucks.

I've been a terrible sleeper for decades. I usually find a combination of an Epsom salts bath, lemon balm supplement, Twinings sleep tea and Alexa sleep sounds helps switch my brain off. Currently at the almost ready to sign contracts stage of a house move and last-minute issues keep cropping up so nothing much is helping atm.

This book worked for me. I used to wake multiple times a night. I now sleep through solidly most nights for 8 hours. You have to trust in the method and do what she says to the letter. It works, honestly!

Effortless Sleep Method: The Incredible New Cure for Insomnia and Chronic Sleep Problems amzn.eu/d/32t5IKP The effortless sleep method

I’m also a terrible sleeper and have bouts of insomnia. I’ll have a bout of about 3 weeks of not sleeping, then for a week I’ll be fine.

I have learnt that the more relaxed and accepting of it I am, the more I’m likely to drop off. On a bad night I find that lying in bed just leads to me counting hours and stressing, every move DH makes gives me the rage, I’ll stew on stuff that’s happened during the day and I’ll just get more and more annoyed with myself.

I now give up and come downstairs, get some decaf coffee or hot chocolate and make myself comfortable on the sofa and put some chill shit on the telly (I have a stash of Father Brown Sky plussed) and I will eventually drop off, even if it’s just a couple of hours.

I also wake easily once asleep and once I’m awake, that’s it, there’s no going back to sleep. If a squirrel farts in the next street at 4am, then that’s me awake for the day.

I’ve got a whole load of shit going on at the moment, so finding it hard to shut my brain off at night. That said, I did manage to sleep by about midnight last night and slept through until 5:45am - yay me!

I've been an insomniac for coming up to 12 years. I have tried every remedy under the sun. I went to a Sleep School in London led by a Dr with a PHD in Sleep Disorders and his view was that lying in bed resting is better than nothing so I tend to do this now - although I know how boring/frustrating it can be! But I do find that if I get up in the night and read/watch TV then I'm more tired the next day than if I'd stayed in bed resting. There were people on the course who'd had insomnia for 40 years + so I do think it's just one of those things that plagues some people. These people that say they have insomnia but take some nytol or have a warm bath and it helps them sleep don't really have insomnia in my opinion. If you have it badly then you'll know that you can do everything possible to sleep and nothing will help. One GP even told me "when you're tired enough, you'll sleep." Not true! It's not much comfort but I found that when I stopped trying to 'cure' it and just accepted it I did turn a bit of a corner. I know how awful it is so sending sympathy.

I can get by ok on 2 hrs sleep a few nights running. This amazes me.
It's kind of obvious to not get upset about lack of sleep, isn't it?
Worry about no sleep can't help.

It's worth trying lots of things, but don't expect any of them to work and shrug at the ones that are completely wrong. I'm often amazed at things recommended by other people because they definitely would keep me awake more, so have to get used to that.

So sorry, it truly is.
i went through a period of anxiety and insomnia, I tried everything.. drinks, supplements, sprays.. Tried listening to sleep podcasts.. made me feel very lonely, I just wanted to be asleep. By about 3 am I would be crying, begging DH to do something, which of course he couldn’t..
Then it would get light and on to another day of trying not to fall asleep if I sat down.😥

I find my method can work, it's probably a version of a cognitive shuffle - think of a large number eg 657 then count backwards each time you exhale to another chosen number eg 250, then each time you count move your thumb/foot/ toe . You are not trying to get to sleep you are counting backwards to 250.
It takes up the brain power you would normally use for ruminating and hopefully you doze off.

That would just keep me awake more.

I'm not ruminating when I can't sleep.

Such helpful tips throughout this thread thank you. I have just spent half an hour scrolling through it and writing each one down of the ones I’ve not tried. Will work my way down the list :) here’s hoping for at least some rest for us all over the weekend