Insomniacs - how do you get through the work day?

[Thejewellershands]

I sleep very badly, I always have. But sometimes I go through phases where it gets even worse for a few weeks or months. During these phases I will fall asleep for a couple of hours then wake up at about 3am and can't get back to sleep. When I work from home it's ok because I can usually fall back to sleep at about 7am for a couple of hours, but when I have to be up at 6am on my office days I often have to go in on only 3 hours sleep. If its a one off I can push through, but when I've had a few nights of only 3 hours sleep I feel very ill.

I've had to call in sick once before because of this. I couldn't concentrate, the computer screen was giving me headache and making me dizzy and I was just so tired that I couldn't push through, I needed to go home.

The past week has been this same and today I have once again been awake since 3am and it's making me actually feel depressed. I am wondering how I'm going to get through the day today, I already have a banging headache and feel absolute crushing exhaustion.

How can I make these work days bearable when I have to keep going in like this? I don't drink tea or coffee so don't have caffeine to help me. I have thought about taking things like pro plus but I'm worried it will make me feel worse

Do you drink caffeine? You’d be surprised at how badly a cup of coffee at 2pm can affect your sleep.

How much do you take @Mumof2NDers - when I take this, yes I sleep, but am horribly drowsy, actually feel weak and floppy, the next day. I have tried cutting up the tablets but the effects seem to vary.

As mentioned by @Kwazikitten caffeine can affect some people more than others. I am trying no caffeine at the moment (not even chocolate). But if anyone decides to give up caffeine do it gradually over a couple of days or you risk severe withdrawal headaches.
After Xmas I will stop all alcohol too - for a while.

I had pregnancy insomnia both my pregnancies, so couldn't really use medication. I found hypnosis tapes at least stopped my brain going round and round. Yoga nidra was good too, or orgasm!

Other than that I just had to get by on 2-3 hours a night and the exhaustion of pregnancy by eating tons of rice pudding all day - don't recommend that :)

I gave it up 20 years ago. For the first five nights, I was asleep by about 8pm. I didn’t have headaches, thankfully, but I did have a bit of brain fog. I drink decaf now, but on the odd occasion I am given caffeine, my body really knows about it.

I take 15mg. I tend to take it at about 8pm. On the odd occasion I’ve forgotten and taken it later I feel awful the next day. Also in the past when I’ve been on AL I’ve not taken it and felt how you described when I started again. So now I never intentionally miss a night

My go to is promethazine (travel sickness tablets), which are the only thing I've ever found that knock me out.

Mostly I get by by working Flexi hours - shift my day later when I've had a terrible night's sleep (or several).
Would a more flexible option be available to you in your work?

Insomnia!! Isn't it the worst. Like so many on this thread I'm an long term insomniac. I developed acute insomnia a few years ago. I convinced myself I couldn't sleep. I tried everything including sleeping pills.
One night when I was googling sleep problems I found a chap called Martin Reed who promised he could help. It was a free course similar to the NHS one but much shorter and less complicated. In a nutshell I found out that I don't need a lot of sleep, 5 hours is fine for me. So when I went to bed at 1030 it was just too early and I wasn't sleepy. Revelation!
Secondly I did sleep restriction which means deliberately getting less sleep than you need. So go to bed at 1am if you get up at 6am. I was so sleep deprived after 2 weeks my insomnia had fled.
I'm actually happy I am up late now, I'm a big reader so it gives me time to pursue my books. Also when I can't sleep for any reason like international travel or sick pet/partner, I find I can use my insomnia coping skills and I am fine, or less knackered than the next person.
Another thing that has helped is my migraines. They got much worse and they knacker me out totally. Also I developed a bad back, I know I sound like basket case, and I now walk a bit more every day and that helps!
I am so much happier now and I don't think of myself as an insomniac now

I do work that does require concentration and find that there is usually a window from around 4pm when I start to feel better able to focus. Something to do with my circadian rhythm I expect.

The other thing is that unless I am in physical discomfort eg a uti I will nearly always get some sleep, even if it is just a couple of hours, and I know this will usually be enough to get me through somehow, and knowing this helps me, as I will rarely have more than two very bad nights in a row so I know that I will be back on top of it soon. I have been doing this all my life. It has definitely been limiting career wise but I think sometimes you have to make peace with who you are.

wfh is a massive help because I am better able to chose the order of my tasks - especially phone calls. I hate these when I haven’t slept.

the thing that gets me most is what it does to my insides. It is very obvious to me, after a properly sleepless night, that some essential ‘digestion’ step has been missed out.

most of all, I worry about what it’s doing to my brain health, as my mum had vascular dementia, but my blood pressure is at the high end of normal but still normal. About to turn 60.

one of my most frustrating things is that I find it increasingly impossible to sleep when I am away from home. My helicopter hypervigilance really kicks in to think through all the things that could be going wrong. I am a terrible catastrophiser during the night. I am starting to wonder whether I am becoming a touch agoraphobic as I get older.

I'm not an insomniac but my mum was.

She always struggled with poor sleep and menopause made it much worse but she would usually be able to make it through the working day: her way of dealing with it was to nap before dinner for about an hour and then nod off in front of the TV at night and she probably clawed back a couple of hours that way.

She worked from home though: I think it's much harder if you work outside the home.

It’s got so much worse for me recently and I don’t know what to do. We had a death in the family at the start of December and my sleep was affected but since then it’s never improved. I used to be able to fall asleep straight away but then wake up 3 hours later. Whereas now, it’s taking me 3 or 4 hours to fall asleep and then I just wake up again an hour later! I have no idea what is causing me to wake, but then I can’t get back to sleep again after. I’m doing everything right, no screens before bed, no caffeine whatsoever, I’m getting into bed at 10 and reading/listening to ASMR to relax me. I’m SO TIRED by that time as well, that’s what I don’t understand. I’m just so so tired but my body will not sleep! Whyyyyyy??

I have ordered some phenegran and also Nytol as they are different ingredients so hopefully one of them works to reset things. I’m supposed to be going to my mums tonight for NYE but I physically can’t, I’m exhausted it’s making me feel ill. It’s affecting my life now, stopping me from doing things. I hope this improves soon :(