r/sleep

I have always had trouble sleeping. I thought maybe it was the fact that their beds were just more comfortable, or that I get more tired since I'm hanging out with them. But it's always been like this. I go to a friends house or I have to sleep anywhere else but my bed and I'm asleep in seconds. But when I come back to my own room to sleep, I physically cannot. I'm either laying there for hours on end or I'm on my phone. It drives my mom crazy, and I'd like it if I didn't have to hear her complaining.

Extra info.

-I have severe depression, but I recently starting taking medication for it. I'm a month in.

-My own bed has memory foam and soft sheets

-It's harder to sleep without music, which I never go without.

-My house is old, so there is mold in my room.

-I do have anxiety, but it's mild and I'm able to manage it.

-I am not a morning person, I've always been a night owl but thats most likely because I can't sleep at night.

-I use a Squishmallow as a pillow (I always have and I usually take it to other people's house to sleep)

-I'm going to be honest, I am on my phone a lot.

-I don't get much physical activity in.

-I've told people I have no desire to fix my sleep schedule but it's mainly because I can't sleep anyways. But honestly it'd be nice to.

-My room honestly is always a mess.

It sounds like I pretty much know why I can't sleep, but I'd still like to hear what other people think, and why I am able to sleep so easily at someone else's house as opposed to my own.

I haven't been able to sleep for longer than 4 hours in the past few days due to job hunting. I've read that it could be caused by my nervous system being stuck in survival mode. I need a very effective way to shift my brain into sleep mode. Something that really works fast and easily 😓

Guys if I go to school at 7 am which means I gotta get up at 6am so like when should I sleep

Я хочу попробовать на себе ощущение галлюцинации и недосыпа. Почему то никогда не воспринимал подобные вещи в серъез, но сейчас почему то захотелось попробовать. Пока не спал только 1 сутки и у меня уже ощущение, что на вторые сутки я засну. Хотелось бы получить пару советов как не заснуть минимум 2-3 суток

My partner is an extremely sensitive sleeper and needs 8 hours of sleep every day. Unfortunately, I wake up earlier than him and I do need to set an alarm to be able to wake up on time for work.

Luckily, I'm a pretty light sleeper so I don't need multiple alarms or heavy sounds to wake up. I usually just have 1 alarm on lower volume, but the sound of an alarm is sometimes enough to derail my partner's sleep even if it's low volume.

I am looking into some brands like FitSleeps where it's a wearable bracelet that does light vibration to wake me up and not disturb my partner, but this website seems a little unreliable/scammy based on other people's reviews. I'm looking at other vibrating bracelet alarms on Amazon but seems like a lot of the products on Amazon doesn't have too many reviews or mixed reviews.

Any recommendations for a subtle alarm that will hopefully not wake up my partner? Thank you!!

My main source of stress has been my work lately.

I usually work from home except on Mondays and my commute is 2 hrs drive one-way. Also, recently the management at the company changed, putting me under stricter manager and way bigger responsibilities.

I’m grateful for all the opportunities but at the same time I’m still a contractor (less job stability), same salary, and not where I wanna be career-wise.

Due to work stress, I have trouble getting in quality sleep for Mondays. I track my sleep on my Oura ring and I can see that I only get 5 or less hours on Sunday night and 7-9 hours on other nights.

(I woke up at 4:50am and tried to go to sleep but couldn’t. I’m typing this at 6:30am on Monday morning after I called in sick and requested to work from home lol)

I find myself tossing and turning on the bed a lot more on Sunday nights and having trouble falling asleep. I also need to wake up around 5am to beat the traffic as well so I constantly have the pressure to fall asleep.

I don’t drink, eat late night meals, nor stare at my phone screen before bed.

Can anyone else relate to this? What are some things that helped you? Any advice would be appreciated. Thank you!

The work hours go from 7:30 to anywhere from 10:30-11:00 depending on evening activities and mandatory staff meetings that feel pointless. Between having to shower and get ready for bed, I rarely, if ever, can go to sleep before 11 to get 8 hours of sleep. And even then, rushing to go to bed sooner only means less time to myself, since otherwise, I only get one hour and a half break during the day and one night off. I don’t even like this job, and would rather quit, but for reasons I will NOT be elaborating on, I’m currently choosing to stay *for now*.

Any advice? Hell are there any laws saying I’m entitled to having enough time to sleep for 8 hours?

Seriously guys, HELP.

So my whole life I’ve been a terrible insomniac but these last 6 months it’s at its all time high, I’m not getting tired full stop. I can lie in bed from 9pm - 6am and not catch a wink. The weirdest thing? Not tired the following day. Not tired the following night either… last night I slept 3 hours; it’s 2.35pm now and I’m still happily wide awake, not even slightly tired and have done huge tasks today like clearing a house ready to move, mowed two huge gardens etc. I’m very proactive in the day; I work & attend the gym morning and night so I should be exhausted really.

I have a great routine that used to work perfectly for me, I don’t use any screens an hour before bed, I take a warm bath and get into fresh pjs. My bed is super comfortable I’ve made sure of that, I have ear plugs, masks etc at the ready if necessary — still no sleep.

I’ve tried medications like zopiclone (dr won’t give me melatonin im UK based), calms, night sodding nurse at one point, amitriptyline, cocodamol, cannabis the list goes on... I’ve tried meditations and holistic treatments, I’m very well versed in Jason And Michael at this point. I’ve tried therapy, hypnosis, warm milk, white noise, Tv on, TV off, cool room, warm room, exercise, counting sheep — EVERYTHING that i can think of for sleep, I’ve done it or tried it.

What the hell do I do at this point?
The only time I seem to be able to sleep is when my body hits me with ‘okay now it’s time’ and I have to sleep there and then, it’s not very helpful when it’s sometimes 2pm.. 6pm.. but the issue is if I do nod off at day 7/8pm, I’m up and ready to start the day by midnight. When I do sleep, I wake up every hour to 2 hours, without fail. So I never get an actual full nights rest.
My body does not shut off.

I know my poor body is exhausted because it’s not getting any rest, my health has deteriorated massively the last 3/4 years and I’m pretty sure this isn’t helping. Please throw some ideas at me, I’m desperate!

I have struggled with sleep for as long as I can remember. It's my mind keeping me awake. I have racing thoughts, become extremely anxious, and end up having panic attacks and becoming incredibly distressed when I try to relax in silence. So, I always try listen to something so my brain has something to focus on and wind down to. The thing is, I CANNOT listen to anything like sleep meditation or a sleep podcast that mentions "peacefully drifting off to sleep" over and OVER again. It makes me so aware of the fact I can't fall asleep and make me want to pull my own legs off in anxiety :( I usually end up listening to an episode of my favourite show or hour compilations of people playing geography games on youtube, but when I still can't fall asleep, I end up turning them off in frustration. Then I lie there, very anxious, overthinking, and then the cycle starts again. I've also tryed sleep music, white noise, rain sounds and all that but they are too monotone in a way??? Does anyone have any reccomendations of things i can listen to to fall asleep that are long preferably help you drift off? ( Preferably someone talking as thats what I find the most useful to fall asleep to )

Prologue:

I know I get best sleep values from my garmin smartwatch - if I freeze slightly at night but not too much. And next day attentiveness / sports performance pretty much reflect my Garmin watch sleep quality numbers.

I have seen a study by a university where they said IOT based temperature setting in Korea with University students yielded 90° correlation based on heartrate. However they only relied on a questionnair in the morning to assess sleep quality - which is very unreliable to a smartwatch tracking HRV, heartrate, skin temperature, and some algoes for sleep quality based maybe on some more additional sensors.

I know best sleep quality is when the temperature stays rather the same all night and I need darkness - but cannot cope with an eyepad. Freaks me out if I cannot open my eyes properly. That's why an aircon is essential as otherwise even in winter my room instantly overheats once the shutter closes for darkness bevore sunrise even if window stays open. However that limits me to around 15-16° C. minimum temperature

Temperature control is about the most important thing affecting sleep quality at least for me - besides needing

Some factors to consider:

I know I need about 1K colder temperature after moderate sports during the day, and about 2K colder average temp during the night after a hard sports effort. Two to three hard days in a row (a hard day is like 400-500 activity minutes on my watch per day for me) may mean even 3° colder.

I have not yet had a reliable quiet aircon that I could regulate - but in a few days will get a high quality one that can integrate locally into home assistant and should be able to adjust temp accurate to 0.2-0.3° Celsius.

Personal factors:

Now I know this is very different based on persons. I sleep best with very cold temperature. Very cold meaning near freezing. I have my best sleep at around 0-3° C I get better sleep values at -20° celsius compared to 15° C. I sleep better with a weighted blanket - but that requires for me a constant temperature at around 13-15° C - quite expensive to achieve in summer based on electricty cost - if you want some fresh air exchange for oxygen too. I monitor air quality with a CO2 sensor - and shutters/window are electronically adjustable to open by percentage should air quality fall too low (or better stay open slightly even with aircon running - as otherwise after about 1 hour in my small bedroom air is used up). I cannot use blankets above 17-18° otherwise I overheat. At 17-18° I would use a bedsheet or a knitted blanket (meaning with many holes to let air through) only. For me in the mountains in a tent the low temperature rating of a sleeping bag is perfect as comfort temperatue. I just produce a lot of heat at night. And no - I'm not overweight - body fat fluctuates from good periods at 10% to max 14-15% when i start dieting cause extra kilos aren't good for endurance sports.

Oh yeah - I of course already use a pocket spring mattress that is rated very well for hot climate.

I could try going waterbed - but that will be more noisy and I think aircon is the cheaper, more reliable solution as stiffness/softness can be much better dialled over waterbed/eightsleep or similar. Also eightsleep is out for me because of noise. I'm a sidesleeper and ear plugs annoy me when sleeping.

While i therefore sleep much better in colder temperatues - more important is to have the right temperature that doesn't fluctuate wrongy. If temperature increases too much I will wake up and it will destroy my sleep. So anything below 15° C. is in my bedroom sadly not achievable. Yeah i already placed a fan into the window to blow in subzero air during winter - but as soon as sunrise approaches the temperature increase then will make it horrible. Aircons just cannot reliably cool lower and I'm not allowed to install a venting system as I live in a flat not my own house and walls are owned by everybody. The higher the temperature the more correct it needs to be - at 0-5° I can just pull up the blanket a bit more - but at over 20° the sheet basically just acts as creating a more even temperature around the body.

I basically cannot sleep at all in 25° C. or more - so if forced to in a hotel without aircon, I will drop like 20 liters of water onto the bed to get evaporative cooling to a degree/better heat transfer through the mattress. That will make sleep possible but yeah not good at all.

Literally as soon as I want to go to sleep my skin temperature increases 1-2°. During the day I don't mind heat too much (rather average) but at night it's miserable for me. Strangely taking a short nap during midday/afternoon I can cope with heat better (yeah not as restorative as in cold, but I can fall asleep)- but not at night.

My girlfriend prefers it warmer - but usually when I sleep with a sheet, she already has a winter blanket. And if it's cold enough for me to use a blanket she has a heated bedcover that adjusts temperature based on proprietary loging and data from her apple watch. So she is covered and 15° is still okay for her. She will just use warm blanket and maybe a hot bottle to fall asleep. I often then later see her legs sticking out of the blanket or throw one of two blankets away at night - but she needs heat to fall asleep while I need it cold. So people are very different and I know I'm rather unusual.

Technological aspects:

How can I best set the temperature based on my heartrate? I have an ESP32 with bluetooth that directly gets the heartrate from my heartrate strap - as garmin watches cannot transmit in real time properly (yeah there is the broadcast option - but it's only available during activities - and I don't really know how to capture it with generic tools and get the data into home assistant). After hard sports average overnight heartrate is 10-15 beats higher than after a recovery day - so the simple feedback - the higher the heartrate the lower the temperate needs to be adjusted is the first factor.

The harder the sports was - the more the temperature needs to drop during the night - while after a relaxing day and eating very little - temperature maybe could even increase slightly over night for a good sleep. For waking up a slow increase in temperature is beneficial.

I guess adding an Emfit QS into the loop - but using heartrate via heartrate strap will give the best data - and then allow to build from there.

What I want to know:

Is there an tool I can use for analysis. Best some tool/software that can use the heartrate data and import sleep data from my garmin account. I cannot find anything really. Anything for home assistant that would to it?

Or should I just use the above and ask Claude/another AI to write me an automation for Home assistant and then I would adjust it manually myself?

Anyone with experience on setting up aircon temperature based on heartrate. Or maybe based on some other technical tools that aren't crazy expensive to try out.

Been facing neck/trap pain for about 2 years now. Thought it was chronic. Switched pillows/did PT/ got scans. Nothing helped. Wake up everyday with intense neck and trap pain. I have to heat pad and massage gun daily just to get moving.

I got the opportunity to sleep with my SO in a hotel bed. First time my neck didn’t hurt incredibly badly after waking up. What could this be a sign of?

I use a full body pillow, I’ve used the same hotel pillow brand before, the mattress could be different- but I’ve gone through 6 different ones without any change. So what is my body doing differently when sleeping with SO that i can’t replicate at home alone? I’m hoping for a clue to lead me in the right direction.

all of this came out of NOWHERE, i might actually lose my mind i literally stopped in my tracks and was crying in sheer anger on how i couldnt sleep for days yet i do everything right. I took advice, not stressing about sleep (which wasnt perfect), counted sheep, didnt take much supplements, yet here i am, 3 AM from a hot room despite turning up the AC and a whole fucking fan NEXT TO ME in my room. im literally sweating and i dont know why. Im actually at my breaking point i just want to sleep, i have nothing in life to stress about this came out of nowhere im so dammned

My insomnia has gotten a lot worse lately due to stress. i've tried a few different meds but none of them worked very well. I'm sleeping for max 4 hours a day and feel horrible during the day, i's so bad :( i'm looking into thc and cbd gummies to help with this, since i never tried one before, what's the dosage for a beginner? and will it work right away?

I (30f) often skip sleep every Saturday, Sunday, and Wednesday night in order to work two overnight jobs. If I do sleep, it's roughly 1.5 hrs.

On my slower days, I will sleep for 5-6 hrs.

Most of my life right now is playing catch up with sleep.

I am constantly falling asleep at work while actively working (i work in a bakery, not fun). I often sleep on my lunch breaks to keep my sanity.

I now plan to go back to one job (2am-10am) because this crazy schedule is ruining my social skills, mental focus, and mood.

I have been doing this for a year now though...is it still fixable? Or is my sleep and body forever screwed?

Writing this at 3 am because I’m just confused at this point. About 5 or 6 weeks ago I decided to lose weight with a newfound desire to be fit. At the time I’d rate my sleep quality as a 7.5 out of 10, truthfully one of the reasons why I wanted to lose weight was because I thought it would help me get better sleep.

Some context, I’m a male in my early 30s, I started out at ~219 lbs and currently weigh ~206 lbs. Been averaging a little over 2 lb weight loss a week though it’s been steadying out at around 1.5. I’ve been starting to wake up around 3 or 4am much more frequently (2-3x a week) and it takes me an hour or so to fall back asleep.

I work out with weights 4 times a week around 9-10 am, cardio once a week. I used to eat fast food and drink soda several times a week, but have had neither in over 5 weeks. I just take a multivitamin, no known heart conditions, no current prescriptions. My sleep quality is around 6-6.5 out of 10 now.

Is this some food deficiency because I’m eating a lot less? My diet is what I would consider healthy, lots of eggs, oatmeal, smoothies with spinach and protein powder, Greek yogurt, etc. Yesterday I had in total, a BLT, a quinoa bowl with tofu, shredded carrots, red peppers, and edamame with some cottage cheese. Still woke up early! I don’t understand what I’m missing!

My eyes are tired but I can't sleep now. I tried breathing exercises, background melody music, a comfortable bed, AC and no noise. Still I don't sleep. What can I do now?

I spent years treating sleep like a problem to solve. More rules, more tracking, more effort. It kept getting worse because the effort itself was keeping me awake. The shift came when I stopped trying to make sleep happen and just let myself lie there without the job of falling asleep. Once it stopped being a demand, it came easier. Curious if anyone else found that the trying was the thing keeping them up.

So my boyfriend 18M needs so much sleep that when he sleeps the amount of a normal person's sleep hours he needs like a 6 hour nap during the day. If hes uninterrupted he will sleep from typically 12 am to 3 pm.. just to go back to bed at 12 am again and repeat the cycle. He is not an athlete or anything so I dont understand why he needs so much sleep. Should we be worried? Its gotten worse over the years but hes always been a long sleeper. He once even fell asleep at the wheel and almost accidentally killed himself and his siblings. Its not narcolepsy tho. He doesnt just fall asleep out of nowhere typically but the second hes slightly comfortable he will. When he was in highschool hed sleep 12 hours at night and then all through his classes.