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Weird and extremely annoying insomnia cycles

T

thewayjoshis

Bluelighter
Joined
May 31, 2015
Messages
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I keep waking up in the middle of the night about 4 hours after i fall asleep and i literally cant get back to sleep until its time to get up. Its not because im wide awake though, in fact I am completely DEAD tired, tossing and turning all night until it's time to wake up anyways, which happens to be the only time I CAN get back to sleep. And as a result of this, I am dead tired, very depressed and anxious, cant think straight whatsoever, cant focus, and cant be productive in any way all day... Until It's time for bed!!! Yeah, once it finally comes time for me to go to sleep, i all of the sudden get this boost of energy that I should be getting during the day. I feel great and I just WANT to stay up and really never wanna go to bed. Another weird thing is that it happens in cycles. It will happen for a few months straight, then will go away for a few months, then come right back again. I only remember this problem first starting about 9 months ago, but then again, I barely remember anything at all anyways. In fact, memory loss is one my greatest weaknesses. So I wouldn't be surprised if I've been going through this cycle my whole life and don't even remember it.

It also sucks because literally NO ONE that should be able to help me understands me. They just say shit like "Oh, well it's normal and perfectly healthy to wake up in the middle of the night" even though I just explained to them everything I wrote in this post and it's like they just ignore it. And when I tell my doctor about it, he tries giving me all these meds to take at night that are "supposed to make me drowsy" so I can fall asleep, even though that's not my main problem. And even if it was, all these meds don't even help me sleep anyway so I just take benadryl every night. In fact, the meds he gives me aren't even FOR sleep, they're for shit like mood disorder, inability to focus, touretts, and a bunch of other shit. Ever since I got this new doctor, We've tried Trazodone, Clonidine, Abilify, Lamictal, Ziprasidone, and Strattera. Right now I'm only taking Lamictal and Strattera which won't even work because of how bad my insomnia is right now. I'm just beginning another cycle and I'm writing this post because I woke up in the middle of the night and can't get back to sleep, even though all I wanna do is sleep and definitely don't wanna get out of bed. I finally got the willpower to just get up after tossing and turning for an hour or so. I googled this problem and found nothing helpful. So does anyone know what the hell is wrong with me? Or how to fix this problem? You'd be making my next three months by helping me if you can, and any information/help is welcome and appreciated.
 
do you get 45+ minutes of strenuous exercise everyday? are there any recreational drugs that you use regularly? i know the problem that you're talking about. usually means i'm stressing out about the day ahead.

moving the thread from Second Opinion to Healthy Living.
 
What he said^^^

Some people even some caffeine or nicotine in the morning can keep them up all night, or small amounts of booze or opiates can totall fuck up circadian cycles. I had nasty sleep problems till I started getting into lifting. Exercise was my savior. Seriously man, it seems so lame to say but living healthy, after a few months, keeps you feeling good as hell. I'd recommend at least 45 minutes of intense weight lifting 3-4x/week and cardio 15 minutes 4-7x/week. I promise it will make a world of difference.

Also, eat better, and quit any and all drugs.
 
Shout out to that weird period of awakeness between 4:30AM and 6:00AM, where it's too early to just get out of bed and go about your day, but you know you're not going to get back to sleep so you just lie there and stress out.
 
I would also be mindful of avoiding bright lights (including computer screens) in the lead-up to going to bed.
These can really mess with your sleep patterns and are a problem for more and more people that use smart phones, tablets et cetera in the evenings.
I have experienced similar sleep problems, though i struggle to get to sleep to start with.
Can certainly relate with the feeling of being energised when i should be turning in for the night - and dead tired when i should be getting up.
Something that helped me shake this pattern to some extent was spending a bit of time in the country, where there was little in the way of distractions after sundown, and i found myself going to bed early (around 8pm rather than 2am as i had become accustomed to) spent the day hiking and doing active things, and awakening - refreshed - early, as the sun came up (rather than around noon, when i would previously have slept til, when i worked night shifts).

If you don't have the luxury of getting away from civilisation like this, could you possibly self-impose some kind of home environment consisting of just natural light and darkness? Turn off the tv/computer/bright lighting?
Our brains are influenced into wakefulness by light (and darkness).
 
There's a theory out there that humans were only suppose to sleep in 4 hour increments (thus our sleep cycles fundamental structure of being roughly 4 hours).

Back in the 1600-1700s, people would go to sleep for 4 hours, wake up for a few hours, then go back to sleep for another 4 hours.

I need to find the sources to that last statement, but I know I've read that multiple places.
 
Don't take benadryl at all for the promotion of healthy sleep. It's not the correct form of sleep because it's chemically induced and generally leaves your brain waves in a irregular state. Basically you just passed out from chemically mediated drowsiness and the period with your eyes closed was just some exaggerated chemical haze. Yes you may be able to enter the preliminary stages of sleep, but in order to effectively remove the toxins from your brain and facilitate recovery you need to properly cycle through all your sleep cycles and actually attain the paradox of REM sleep brain activity as well as our deep sleep cycle involving delta waves.

Most don't know that REM sleep brain wave frequency is almost identical to the wake state, but for some reason it's the most difficult section of sleep cycle transitioning to wake someone up.

beta>alpha>theta>total muscular tension decrease and subconscious situational awareness diminishes>delta sleep which is the dat' good stuff. Also this is where nightmares occur a lot of times.

Drugs don't help. I don't have school today so I'm working on a thread at the moment to try to funnel sleep discussion into one collective group. We shall conquer this ailment plaguing the Healthy Living section!!



Here is some simple illustrations...

brain-wave-patterns-during-sleep.jpg
c8ac66625a0d0f76fe02b2ec6d1029bb.jpg
Provided as courtesy of google image.
 
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