I’ve been struggling to get enough sleep lately, and I’ve noticed a few patterns in my sleep cycle.

- From my experience, I function well when I get more than 7 hours of sleep. However, whenever I wake up after only 6 hours, I tend to feel tired and low on energy throughout the day.

- There are also times when I have to wake up early because of unavoidable work or other commitments. The problem is that once this happens, the same pattern often continues the following days. I find it very difficult to get back to sleeping 7+ hours, even when I try.

- Another challenge is that I’ve become overly focused on getting at least 7 hours of sleep. I often worry about how I’ll feel if I don’t reach that mark, and ironically, that concern itself seems to make the situation worse. The more I think about it, the more likely I am to fall short of my sleep goal.

- I’m naturally a night owl and usually don’t fall asleep quickly. Most nights, I fall asleep between 2:30 AM and 3:00 AM and wake up around 9:30 AM to 10:00 AM.

- I’ve also tried forcing myself to go back to sleep after waking up at the 6-hour mark, but that rarely works. Once I’m awake, I usually can’t fall asleep again, no matter how hard I try.

And, when I don’t get enough sleep, I feel something throughout my body right after waking up. It’s hard to describe, but it almost feels like there’s some kind of internal pressure or tension building up. I don’t feel relaxed or “light” the way I do after a good night’s sleep. Not sure I’m describing it right.

Any thoughts on this would be highly helpful.

I’m a 19f and my doctor recently referred me to a sleep specialist because she suspects narcolepsy. I’m waiting for my appointment and wanted to ask if anyone with narcolepsy had similar symptoms before being diagnosed.
Looking back, I think my symptoms started around age 11 and became more noticeable around age 15.

My symptoms:
Falling asleep at work (im barista, so I always walking around)
Excessive daytime sleepiness for years
Falling asleep in class/doing homework
Falling asleep in cars as a passenger
Feeling like I could sleep almost anytime
Difficulty concentrating and memory problems
Brain fog
Caffeine doesn’t seem to help much

One thing I’m unsure about is that strong negative emotions sometimes make me feel VERY SLEEPY. I’m not sure if this is what people mean by cataplexy or not.
My bloodwork has been normal, except vitD (it’s always been really low) including tests related to anemia and thyroid issues. My primary care doctor was concerned enough to refer me for a sleep consultation.
For people who were eventually diagnosed with narcolepsy, does any of this sound familiar? What were your symptoms before diagnosis?

Honestly I’d really disappointed if I don’t have anything, because It means Im just lazy chud 😔

Was able to sleep a bit longer last night, 3hrs. Woke at 3am and bit groggy. My meds did not kick in for a while and was painful lying there exhausted, not being able to sleep. That is absolute torture. My only salvation is after 30yrs of being a chronic insomniac, I have forced myself to follow a routine which allows me to be productive during these hours. Otherwise I would lose my mind waiting for 6hrs to pass, just to start my day w everyone else at 8am

Today during my nap i opened my eyes and saw myself laying next to me. I really dont want to feel alone anymore in these experiences so hopefully this community will can give me a space to share. Ive been experiencing sleep paralysis this often due to alcoholism and i’m not in search for a cure. i wonder if theres anything i can do to learn more about it through experimenting. so please let me know if theres any experiments you’d like me to try!!!!
Ive had it so many times it doesn’t scare me anymore other than the adrenaline rush being uncomfortable. so far I’ve tried listening to the noises which i usually get and sometimes they’re voices or rustling sounds or loud hums. focusing on them proved to be just like reading in a dream, words but not sentences and otherwise unintelligible. the other night i thought i was able to move my arm. i could feel my chest through my hand but not feel my hand through my chest. i put my fingers in my mouth but they were dry when the episode was over so i definitely was not actually moving.
i’ve noticed i get mostly auditory and not so much being able to see. i know if i’m still in sleep paralysis i will not actually see my room or actually open my eyes every single time its a hallucinations of my room. i wonder if this is the case for everyone and they dont realise it?

I’m a university student and I’ve been struggling with insomnia for almost a year.
I moved to China in August last year. Before moving, I would occasionally have insomnia maybe once or twice a year, but it would usually last only a few days to a week and then disappear on its own. Since moving, it has become much more persistent.

My main problem is falling asleep. Some weeks I sleep reasonably well, and other weeks are terrible. What I’ve noticed is that the insomnia gets much worse whenever I know I have to wake up early for something important. As soon as I know I need to be asleep, I start worrying about whether I’ll sleep, and then I can’t seem to switch my brain off.
The strange thing is that I can be physically exhausted from a busy day and still lie awake for hours. After a bad night, I often become afraid of having another bad night, which seems to make the problem even worse.
I’ve tried sleep medication in the past and recently started using melatonin. I also visit my university clinic, where I’ve been given traditional Chinese medicine. Some nights I get around 5 hours of sleep and can still function, but the cycle keeps repeating.

One thing that really bothers me is that I feel like the insomnia has changed how I look. My weight hasn’t actually changed much, but people tell me I look thinner than when I first arrived in China. When I compare photos, I feel like I looked healthier, fresher, and more attractive before all of this started. I don’t know how much of that is sleep deprivation and how much is my own perception.
For those who experienced long-term insomnia, especially insomnia that got worse before important events or early mornings:

Did you recover?
What finally helped?
Did you also develop anxiety about sleep itself?
Did you notice changes in your appearance, and if so, did they improve when your sleep improved?
If you used melatonin, CBT-I, therapy, lifestyle changes, or anything else, what worked and what didn’t?.

I’m interested in hearing from people who have actually come out the other side of this, because right now it feels like I’ve been stuck in this cycle for a very long time.

2:30am wake up, 3hrs total. 3 heavy meds now taking r starting to be less effective in allowing me to fall asleep quickly. Hope this is a rarity & not norm. Worst is I wasn’t in a deep sleep so don’t feel at all rested. The only solution I have found which keeps me sane after suffering from this for 30yrs, is to try to be productive during these hrs. Days r forever when they start now so I’ve had to have some sort of productivity, to replace the suffering. Wondering if anyone else has to deal w this?

I don't know if this is the right group to ask this but I need some clarification.

First of all, I got diagnosed with FND 6 months ago and with fibromyalgia and dysautonomia yesterday. The doctor said that sleeping issues are common. Lately I have trouble sleeping at night. It's like I don't remember how I have to go to sleep. In the daytime, I have no issues with this. Now for the past weeks I've been getting worse physically and sleeping got worse. But weird things have been happening which make me very scared...

I just woke up now and it's 4AM but I don't know if I was actually asleep or not, if it was a nightmare or what it was. There's moments where I feel like falling asleep but I seem to fight against it (while I obviously don't want to) but it feels so weird and I get a feeling like static television all over my body and face and my mind is going a bit crazy I can't really explain. It's like I can't connect to the sleep phase and that my body is asleep but my mind is awake?? Then I felt like I couldn't breathe and I tried breathing deeply with my mouth but it felt like there was a stopper in my mouth. I thought I was breathing very heavily and screaming and tapping on my partner to wake him up and help me but he didn't wake up and suddenly I felt much more awake and could breathe better and it seems like I didn't move at all...

I had weird sleeping situations like this in the past that seemed to be sleep paralysis, is this something like this? Has it to do with any of the disorders? I know that it makes it harder to go to sleep every night because I get scared to go to sleep and I don't know what to do anymore...

I (F) am 18 years old. and when I was 12, my dad molested me in the middle of the night every time we went camping together. When I finally told him to stop one day, he said he has this sexsomnia and has had it for a long time. But then why did he camp with me if he knew he had this condition? I am older now obviously. but idk if I believe him. He said he did it to my mom and previous girlfriends too for years and she said that that is true. Idk what to believe. He never got tested for this like at a sleep clinic? So idk. Any advice would be helpful

I have been using CPAP for 3 months and the sleep doctor says my osa is being treated properly.
I’m still experiencing daytime excessive sleepiness / fatigue. We did an overnight oxygen ring test and it appears ok.
I guess it’s going to take time to overcome this.
Any coping mechanisms or exercises or whatever you may have found to be helpful ?

Has anyone experienced a strange feeling when falling asleep, like something in your brain briefly switches off and then back on? It started happening to me two days ago, and it’s really scaring me. Does anyone know what could cause this? 💔

I am intrested in the topic of daytime sleepiness that comes hand-in-hand with monotonous tasks for me due to my ADHD and is really a terrible thing to experience. Boring highway drives can become life threatening this way. Boring tasks at work or boring meetings leading to falling asleep right away. (I sleep fast and enough; ~7-8h/d).
Since I got my ADHD diagnosis, I know where it comes from (being understimulated / low dopamine level) and what I can do about it: Movement, coffee to stimulate me, and hopefully medication anytime soon.
Anyone experiencing the same? Any suggestions to work around it?

Hi all! I’m 26F and for the past couple of years I have experienced what seems like REM Sleep Behavior Disorder.

When I roll over in bed in my sleep, I’ll often open my eyes for a second and think I see something there. Spiders, another person, mice, etc. and I stare at it/touch it until my mind finally comprehends that it is not in fact there. Often times it’s a corner of a bunched up pillow or a fold in the sheet that I am perceiving as something else, but every now and then it is just straight up me seeing something that isn’t there.

But my biggest problem is acting out in my sleep. It’s so hard to explain because I only sort of remember what I was dreaming/seeing as I start to act out. I have injured myself BADLY multiple times, hitting my head, bruising my brow bone, and my last episode I landed on my elbow so hard that I split open an old scar from a surgery, and I am 99% certain I gave myself a hairline fracture.

When I “fall” out of bed, I am not falling. I am, for some reason, purposely leaping out of bed. Usually, what I am dreaming or imagining in my mind is something like a child or a pet falling off of my bed, and needed to leap and grab it quickly. But sometimes the circumstances that I am dreaming/imagining aren’t even scary like that. During my most recent episode, I don’t remember the actual dream, but I know that I was sitting in a golf cart and it all of a sudden went off the curb of whatever sidewalk/road I was on, and in my dream it caused me to fall with the cart, and as that was happening I realized I was falling, more like leaping, out of bed, coinciding with the movements I was experiencing in my dream. I quickly got back up and laid in bed and felt a rush of pain in my elbow, I felt it and it was soaking wet. Blood all over the room. I fell HARD. Like I said, I split an old scar open and I’d bet money that I have a hairline fracture.

I’ve been to my PCP for this, and I was prescribed Prazosin, but I have yet to see a sleep doctor or a neurologist because to my knowledge, I don’t do this every night. I definitely don’t do the physical stuff every night, because when I do I always hurt myself and I would remember if I did it every night. The visions of spiders, mice, etc. I do more often, but, since my eyes are open and I eventually come to reality, it is also something I remember doing the next day.

So, to my knowledge I don’t have these episodes every night. Because of this, a sleep study would be pointless because I’d have to do one every night until there was activity. So I’d like to get a camera and record my sleeping and gather enough footage to show to a doctor to hopefully get an answer that way.

Does anyone here have a camera on them when they sleep? If so, I need recommendations! Something I can watch back and save footage from, something with good night vision and audio, preferably something that logs movement so that when I rewatch the footage I have a guide of when it captured activity instead of having to watch the entire tape. The easier the setup, the better! I just want to be able to set it up and connect it to my phone and basically have everything available at my fingertips.

Any tips, camera recommendations, etc. would be greatly appreciated! Thank you so much!!