I keep waking at 3-4 am and not able to sleep any more !

[haloe]

I'm so frustrated !

I do go to bed early some nights. Which may be how this started- I mean like 9 pm.

But even when I go to bed at 11 pm- I still wake up at 3 am and I'm so awake. So ultimately I'm just do tired during the day.

I've been having a very stressful time recently, maybe that's why.

Has anyone had this ? What can I do ?

It’s stress, it’s a spike in cortisol that’s waking you up.

I get this. The one thing that helps me is listening to radio 4 podcasts. Same ones that I'm vaguely interested in! I fall asleep to them at bedtime and when I wake at 3am which I do every night, then again an hour or so later sometimes, I put a similar calm talking podcast on. Works so well. It means I'm not lying there worrying about being awake and tired. It occupied my brain and let's me drift of to sleep quickly.

Maybe stress or peri.
Maybe try to stay up till midnight to push your body clock back a bit?
Or consider HRT if you’re in that age bracket?

Same here. I do think it helps to drift off again. I would say if you definitely don’t want to get involved in a storyline to listen to the shipping forecast but Black Books rather ruined that for me forever. That Peter Serafinowicz has a lot to answer for! 😆

This is me

44 years old with 2 primary aged children. Have a stressful job and currently planning our wedding which is happening later on this year.

My sleep has always been bad but at the moment it is atrocious. I've been up since 230am today, 3am yesterday, 3am the day before - you get the jist.

Honestly I feel broken. I'm about to go up to bed now with the 9 year old

Some nights I go to bed with the 4 year old! 🤣
Am considering going to the GP to get HRT as am convinced am peri

It's so rubbish

Insomnia has always been my body's go-to stress symptom, ever since school. (Now 50s.)

Try not to worry about it - even if you can't sleep, lying quietly in bed means you're getting some rest.

Avoid caffeine and alcohol I'm the evenings.

A bath before bed can help. (And orgasms.) But also magnesium, especially if it's peri.

I get this if I drink caffeine after lunch time. Avoid caffeine after midday and I'm usually fine

So many people seem to experience this. 4am to 6am is meant to be the best time to meditate, at the junction between day and night. I wonder if the universe is nudging us in a spiritual direction? I used to experience this on pilgrimage in India

I'm another one who's become more affected by caffeine as I've got older, mostly fine getting off to sleep, but wake later and can't get back to sleep.

First I had to cut caffeine out after 2pm, then 11am and now I can only drink it at breakfast time. Peri-menopause kicked in too, but HRT has sorted that out.

Yep it's insomnia! Isn't it delightful. I had so little sleep when I was at my worst that I had hallucinations. I have the ability to stay awake for very long periods when I'm stressed and therefore agitated. And worrying that I couldn't sleep stressed me a lot. Sleep anxiety is a real thing.
I pushed back on mine by using sleep restriction. Which sounds nuts. I stayed up until midnight and set alarm for 6. I was still waking at 4 but the difference was I had a plan and I was excited to try it. (It is a real technique). When I did this for 2 nights I slept through until 6. I found it so hard to stay awake for the two weeks but I did it and I had totally altered my mindset, I was so keen to be able to turn the light out.
It does return whenever I get too stressed but once you have kicked it's butt once you know you can do it again!

Also awake at 3am this morning and go through patches of this super early waking. Am 49

Another one for magnesium. My friend was sent to some sleep expert who has put her on a sleep routine of only being in bed 12-6am and nothing more, so no early nights. It has helped but it’s no fun having to sit up every evening.

OP this is me and I have two bits of advice.

The first is to stop checking the time when you wake up. You are training your brain to continually wake up at that time, which is why you find it bang! 3:12am like clockwork.

The second is not to fight it but adapt your life to work around it. I have long since accepted that this is something I must live with, just as if I had any other issue. If you had high blood pressure, you would adapt your diet to ensure you didn’t eat too much salt etc. You have sleep difficulties, so you go to bed early when you can, find opportunities for rest in the day when you are able and stop berating yourself for feeling tired. This has the duel benefit of making the day easier when you are feeling rough, and taking the pressure off yourself so you ultimately sleep better anyway.