Keep waking up at 4am! Can't get back to sleep.

[NormaSnorks]

I'm putting this in Menopause because I expect it's hormone-related.

I'm 58. Been on HRT for over 5 years. Everything seemed well-managed. But over the last few months I've started waking up in the early hours (3.30/4.00 am) and sometimes it takes me over an hour before I get back to sleep.
I'm shattered!

When I wake up I get up and go to the loo, but I don't think this is WHY I'm waking up. I use Vagifem which helps on the bladder front.
I don't think it's hot flushes either.

It's just like I sleep really deeply for 4 hours, then ping, I'm wide awake, then tossing and turning.

Any ideas, suggestions?

This may sound weird but one thing I do is make sure I have quite a lot to drink (I mean water, not booze!) not long before bedtime. This tends to wake me up for a loo trip at about 2:30, and that enables me to get back to sleep and sleep through the 4:30 wake-up call.

Magnesium glycinate and no alcohol

what does the Magnesium glycinate do?

Helps you sleep

I second the no alcohol - I track my sleep religiously and even one glass wrecks it.

What magnesium do you recommend? I am paranoid about buying the wrong one after a magnesium/explosive bowels disaster years ago. I keep looking on Amazon and it seems to be mixtures and I'm confused.

I use a podcast called Nothing Much Happens to help with sleep. It works better if you use it consistently rather than just randomly so I go to sleep listening to it every night and if I wake up in the night I put it back on and the vast majority of time I'm back asleep almost immediately. Might be worth a try, but may take a couple of weeks of consistent use to be effective.

I listen to nature sounds and have an electric vaporiser with lights on. I don’t use the vapour function just set it to the colour light I prefer. It’s dim, but somehow soothing. In the past I’ve listened to sleep stories on an app. (Headspace).

I have this- 4.30 every morning. Magnesium helps, but the thing that helps me most is to listen to a fairly dull audiobook that I've listened to before. It needs to be just interesting enough to stop me from thinking about other things, but not interesting enough to get me gripped! Classics work well - lots of long description. The key for me is not to start thinking. I'm usually asleep again within fifteen minutes.

I listen to yoga nidra on Insight Timer. I don't really get this much any more, I do often wake up about 3 am to go to the toilet, but I go straight back to sleep again. I heard a podcast that said some of whether you get back to sleep or not is around what approach you take to it, if you're an insomniac you think oh no it's 3am, I'm never going to get back to sleep again, but people who sleep well but people who sleep well think great it's 3am I've still got another three or four hours sleep. This at least stopped me from going down the spiral of thinking I wasn't going to go back to sleep. I also sometimes think of a category such as clothes, or British animals and work my way through the alphabet, thinking about one for each letter, or name all the American states, or think about all the places that I have been swimming in the UK! This seems to bore me to sleep.

I'm the same recently, so annoying as I need my sleep. Coincides with a ridiculous new time my gym has set for bookings on classes to open 6.30am! So if I wake at 4.30 then I know I've only got another 2 hours before my damn alarm goes off to book a class (trying to get fit, and you don't get on the class if you don't book then)

Atm I'm permanently exhausted 😴

Go to bed earlier. I do the reverse lie in, bed at 9, up at 5.

you may need your oestrogen increasing in HRT if it is a new problem z

Thanks - some useful suggestions!
For those saying they listen to podasts etc does that mean you fall asleep with your earbuds in? Aren't they uncomfortable/get lost in the bed!?

I just listen to my phone on speaker as I sleep alone, but I also have one of those Bluetooth headbands that I can listen on.

As a pp said, Magnesium Glycinate is best for sleep. I agree there are many varieties out there that help different things, but this one is a sleep aid.

I go through phases of this too. The magnesium works for me. In my experience it doesn't stop you waking up but stops the ping! wide awake! feeling and you can just turn over and go back to sleep again.

Ugh, I'm 53 and have been waking at 4:30 without fail for the last 2 months.

I've taken to going to bed earlier and getting up at 5am

Sometimes a little part of your mind can (wrongly) get the idea that waking at a certain time is a good idea. Have you ever HAD to wake at a certain time - for a flight or for work - but didn't have a phone/alarm clock with and then woken anyway at exactly the right time? Same principle. I worked with a woman in her early 30's who's bladder woke her at 4am every day. One session and the problem disappeared!

Me too.. magnesium glycinate, 2 Utrogestan and melatonin. And I still wake up!

I'm much the same except I wake up between 2 and 3 nightly and then I'm awake and thats that. I've tried everything:magnesium, exercise at various times of day, cutting alcohol out, cutting caffeine out, having a small drink before bed, melatonin, anti histamines the drowsy ones, nytol, sleeping pills from America that you can't get here-the lot.

I've just resigned myself now to always being tired and therefore always getting colds etc as I'm run down.
I'm in bed most nights by 9, no bother dropping off to sleep by about 10 (by that time I'm truly exhausted), but wake up no matter what between 2 and 3.

If you drink either tea or coffee in the evenings, then switching to decaf might help.

I listen to a boring audio book with just one Bluetooth ear bud in on the side I’m not lying on.

Better You magnesium sleep spray, This Works pillow spray & a heavy blanket is finally keeping me asleep. I still can't switch off to get to sleep early. But wake up less frequently.

I have the magnesium spray and sleepphones Bluetooth soft headphones. I massively agree with the not too interesting podcast or book. I like News in Slow German - I concentrate a bit but I can't really follow it, so my brain is just occupied enough to drift straight back to sleep. Also series like The Dream about MLMs is just interesting enough but not gripping and you lose nothing by missing loads! Nothing too narrative dependent for me.

Podcast Addict app is good - you can set it to fade out at 20 or 30 mins.

Some nights I need to switch it back on 4 times but I'm straight back to sleep.

I suffer like this too @NormaSnorks. I'm pretty much resigned to it now. I'm retired though, so I worry less about having to get back to sleep, knowing that I don't have to be up at a specific time in the morning.

I have various different approaches, depending on how I feel:

• lie there and hope that I can go back to sleep, which sometimes works
• if it doesn't, then I read my Kindle for a while, till I feel more tired (I have a backlit one, and turn the light right down so that it doesn't disturb DH)
• get up and go downstairs with my book, and have a cup of cocoa
• give in and get up! If it's after 5am and I'm still awake, especially in the summer when it's light, then I might do this

One thing that doesn't make the slightest bit of difference is giving up alcohol! I did Dry January, and there was no change.

I also tried listening to one of those 'really boring' story podcasts, which just made things worse! I kept listening to the woman telling the story and wondering what was going to happen. Just couldn't switch that part of my brain off that won't go to sleep.