[bat97]

Hello! I’ve been experiencing early morning awakenings for the last three years. Sometimes, I wake up feeling anxious, and other times, I just need to use the bathroom. The consistent pattern is waking up after 4-5 hours of sleep, followed by a cycle of dozing off for about an hour, waking up, tossing and turning in bed, and repeating this until my alarm goes off. On some nights, this is manageable, and I feel okay the next day. However, on other nights, the quality of my sleep is noticeably poor, leaving me feeling exhausted the following day.

My issue is that the usual advice for people who can’t fall back asleep doesn’t seem to fit my situation since falling back asleep isn’t my problem. My concern is that the sleep I do manage to get after waking up is of low quality and highly fragmented, even on nights when I’m not experiencing anxiety. I’ve also noticed that most times I’m in this strange limbo where I’m somewhat awake but also asleep. It’s a really unrefreshing state to be in.

Thanks for the help!

[Martin Reed]

It sounds as though you are waking before you want to be waking (and waking during the night is a normal part of sleep) and then you can sometimes find it hard to fall back to sleep afterwards — am I understanding you correctly?

If so, there isn’t anything you can do to make sleep happen after waking during the night since there’s no magic sleep switch for the brain, unfortunately. The only thing you can control are your actions — in other words, you get to decide how to respond to waking during the night.

Your response might involve tossing and turning, trying to make sleep happen, or it might involve doing something else if tossing and turning is unpleasant. Sometimes all the struggle involved in trying to make more sleep happen can be more exhausting than the missing sleep itself.

What time do you usually go to bed at night and what time do you usually get out of bed in the morning to start your day? Do you usually fall asleep at the start of the night relatively quickly (within half-hour or so)?

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[Lightsleeper84]

Hello Bat97 I also get light sleep even after being awake for long periods of time, I don’t get it either because I get lots of exercise and it seems that all the conditions for sleep drive are there yet still no deep sleep.

[Author]

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