What Do You Do When You Can't Sleep?

[Moonface]

So last night I had the wonderful joy of falling asleep at 11:45pm, and waking up somewhere around 2am, approximately two hours before my alarm that wakes me up to go to work today at 4:15am. Better still, I could not fall back to sleep to even attempt to get any more rest before my shift. With almost two hours to kill in the middle of the night and no way of getting back to sleep in a reasonable timeframe, I opted to get up and play God of War Ragnarök until I had to leave for work.

It's not the first time I've woken up in the middle of a night and been unable to fall back to sleep, and most times it happens I always end up doing the same thing: going downstairs and playing a game until I either fall asleep or I just stay awake and proceed with my day in whatever form it may be.

I have similar poor luck sometimes with falling asleep initially too, where I can go to bed and continue to be awake for up to an hour or more because despite feeling tired, I can't relax enough to actually fall asleep. The smart thing I should do for those cases is take a Xanax, but I never do because I'm an idiot so instead will try to read mindless drivel on my phone in the hopes I'll fall asleep to it eventually, since most of the time when I go to bed that's what I do anyway except in those cases I fall asleep within minutes.

So what do you do when you can't sleep? Or are you blessed with always dropping dead as soon as you hit the mattress and waking up at a reasonable time?

[ShiraNoMai]

I'm pretty blessed most times myself honestly. It was more common when I was way more in my head/anxious about things that I'd have issues falling asleep, but it's become a pretty rare occurrence these days. I'm more likely to get woken up/disrupted sleep than actually getting to sleep, whether it be Mars (which is 90% of the cases), a weird/bad dream, or some other loud/disruptive thing that occurs during the night.

I always make the mistake of deciding to go back to sleep when I'm only an hour or so away from my alarm going off. Biggest regret every time but I fall into it because sleep is so nice and I can't resist the temptation.

[Moonface]

I always make the mistake of deciding to go back to sleep when I'm only an hour or so away from my alarm going off. Biggest regret every time but I fall into it because sleep is so nice and I can't resist the temptation.

Going back to sleep isn't too bad for me so long as three things don't happen:

1. I have to be up soon enough that I end up feeling more tired from going back to sleep compared to having just stayed up.
   
2. If I physically get up out of bed in the night I'm guaranteed screwed into being tired when I wake up.
   
3. I don't fall back to sleep and end up sleeping longer than I would have had I not woken in the first place, as it will likely cause a migraine. This also happens mind you if I sleep too long even without waking up, but waking up in the night will make this far more likely to happen.
   

I find that most times what wakes me in the night is a really bad dream. I've noticed they've been a little frequent lately and that's as bad as just being too awake to sleep properly because I end up getting paranoid that the dream will come back as soon as I fall to sleep if I'm tired enough that whatever stress the dream gave me can't win in keeping me awake. Best solution I've found to that is just going back to sleep and praying I don't get another dream bad enough to wake me up.

[Kyng]

I've been facing this problem a lot recently... whether it's due to physical or mental issues, or my bed being worn out and in need of replacing >_< .

Usually, I try to clear my head of thoughts, and imagine as calm and peaceful a location as I can. Sometimes works, but not always!

[Mr EliteL]

I just continue to lay in bed and hope to eventually fall asleep. Did have some nights somewhat recently where I only get like 1-2 hour sleep because I struggled to shut my mind off, but yeah I just did the same and laid there until I needed to get up for work. Got like small bursts of unconsciousness then but didn't feel like proper sleep.
On days where I don't have a reason to get up it has happened too where I couldn't get to sleep, mainly because I may not been active within the day, but do get some time eventually. I don't try and look at the clock unless I know my mind's been awake for too long.

When I have been to work in the day it tends to be easier to get to sleep, but I do wish I could just immediately fall asleep once I get comfy.
Cue me not being able to fall asleep quick enough tonight.

[Moonface]

I've been facing this problem a lot recently... whether it's due to physical or mental issues, or my bed being worn out and in need of replacing >_< .

Usually, I try to clear my head of thoughts, and imagine as calm and peaceful a location as I can. Sometimes works, but not always!

Not that I've tried this for sleeping, but something that always helps me (and something most therapists suggest) to relax and clear my head a little is taking a short walk (like, not even more than five minutes) since exercise helps to elevate ones mood, so maybe if you're looking for a way to wind down before getting into bed perhaps that can be something to consider and hopefully it'll help when you try to go to sleep afterwards.

I don't try and look at the clock unless I know my mind's been awake for too long.

Ugh, I detest whenever I have a night that turns into clock watching, either from struggling to get to sleep in the first place and wondering how long I've been trying for, or continuously waking in the night and discovering less time has passed than I think has or seeing that I don't have very long until I have to get up which makes me question whether to bother going back to sleep, getting annoyed that I'm starting to feel tired when it's starting to get too late to get proper sleep from that, or becoming paranoid that I'm going to oversleep despite having multiple alarms set to avoid that ever happening.

[ShiraNoMai]

I've been facing this problem a lot recently... whether it's due to physical or mental issues, or my bed being worn out and in need of replacing >_< .

Usually, I try to clear my head of thoughts, and imagine as calm and peaceful a location as I can. Sometimes works, but not always!

Not that I've tried this for sleeping, but something that always helps me (and something most therapists suggest) to relax and clear my head a little is taking a short walk (like, not even more than five minutes) since exercise helps to elevate ones mood, so maybe if you're looking for a way to wind down before getting into bed perhaps that can be something to consider and hopefully it'll help when you try to go to sleep afterwards.

I second this. I actually always have my best quality night's sleep on night's I do gym. I actually feel genuinely refreshed in the morning, it's kind of wild.