Keeping my brain turned off.....
I have been sleeping like crap for a long time now.....I don't have issue falling asleep....my girlfriend tells me all the time that I'm the only person she knows that can be asleep in 15 seconds after their head hits the pillow.... and its true......My bed time is generally 8pm because my alarm for work is 3am....I said my alarm is 3am....lately I'm up before my alarm....long before.....my usual night consists of me rolling over sometime between 1230 and 1, looking at the clock, doing the exact thing in the cartoon below and then spend the rest of my "sleep time" tossing and turning in bed, looking at the clock every 15 or 20 min, doing the math to see how much time I have left, and ruminating on what could go wrong at work the next day, or how I feel I mishandled a situation the day before...my brain just won't shut back off once I wake in the middle of the night....you all get the idea.....I've read all there is to read about good sleep....I've tried all the things....yet I cannot make my brain shut off....I have been dragging through my days, and I'm cutting back on caffeine, which hasn't been helpful to the sleep process, it only makes me more tired during the day since I'm not sleeping at night or getting my second wind from the caffeine I've cut out....While I'm not really looking for advice or help, I won't be angry if someone wants to comment or join this thread.... I am just typing this out in this forum because, who know, maybe putting it out in the universe will help the situation.....
Have you gotten out of bed and done something else?
A preplanned easy, relaxing task might help. Leave the bedroom, sit down and fold some laundry. Meal plan for the week. Read. Whatever seems reasonable. Then after a while go back to bed.
Doing the sleeping math generally just makes things worse. Getting up partway through sleeping is pretty normal for a lot of people. Treating it as a normal thing sometimes helps.
@CyclingThroughLife
I agree with Affy above.. as I have done that myself if I feel I can’t sleep or get back to sleep right away.
Even though they say not to, I will spend time on my phone reading, or even go to my meal-planning app and plan out the following day or week ahead. Etc…. Or I will browse different articles until I feel tired again. Typically I don’t have to leave my bed to do any of these things, so that way I can get right back to sleep. However, getting up could help you also as suggested above.
Everyone is different of course, but one thing that helps me is also leaving something run in the background. Typically for me that is a meditation-type thing with a calming voice that soothes me back to sleep…. But maybe even a sound machine could work for you as well?
Not sure if you’ve even tried maybe going to bed a little earlier? If you have to get up at 3, but going to bed at 8, maybe your body “knows” just how little sleep you might get?! Perhaps laying down an hour earlier to relax it more could help? Maybe try 7pm or 6:45 instead? Especially if “falling asleep” for you isn’t a problem! It might allow for more rest even if you do wake up a little earlier?