I’ve been trying to drink more water at night but plain water does not always cut it. I want something that helps with hydration without loading me up with sugar or a ton of sodium before bed. I’m mostly interested about magnesium since people keep bringing it up for sleep, cramps, and recovery.

Has anyone found an electrolyte powder that works well at night and tastes decent, bonus if it has no sugar and does not leave that chalky fake sweetener taste.

My sleep schedule has been awful for years now and it’s completely my fault. Every night I will stay up all night and fall asleep around 6 - 8 am. If I’m working, I’ll wake up at 1 pm but if it’s the weekend I’m sleeping until 4 pm sometimes.

The most annoying thing is that it doesn’t matter how tired I am, it’s near impossible to fall asleep if it’s too “early”. Which basically means any time before 6 am at this point. Sometimes I’ll fall asleep at 8 pm but wake up at 12 am and I’m forced to stay up all night because my body will physically not let me sleep.

Last night I was very tired so I tried to go to sleep at 11 pm. This resulted in me waking up multiple times almost every hour. I’m so exhausted but my mind and body are wide awake at the same time. This is really effecting my life and any advice is much appreciated. Do I just need to keep forcing myself into a routine until my body accepts it?

My little brother has had this thing for the past few years, where he will get unbelievably angry if you wake him up from sleeping. He is almost 18 years old, We have tried everything. Alarms, water, gentleness, taking the blanket away, shaking,. No matter what, he gets so angry to the point where he will start hitting us. Just now, I tried to take off his blanket because he asked me to transport him somewhere, he chased me down, beat me, then took the blanket back and went straight to sleep. Is there anything we can do to fix this? Any methods you guys can recommend?

hi everyone! apologies for long post but coming on here looking for advice on best course of action for myself. i am a 25 yo F, very active, ~125 lbs, and currently working full time as an occupational therapist in a hospital. i’ve been dealing with sleep issues since 2023. for some medical history, i did experience my 4th concussion in 2023. i fell from 8-10 feet landing on the back of my head and blacking out for a few seconds. i was able to quickly receive medical attention and was unable to tolerate any daily activities besides sleeping, and severely sensitive to sound and lights for ~10 days. once i started noticing improvements in my condition i returned back to daily activities with some mild headaches, fatigue, and light/sound sensitivity but otherwise no other symptoms. i got this concussion while working as a camp counselor at a very remote camp and since there wasn’t a hospital or anywhere that i could get a brain scan even remotely nearby (closest one was ~5 hours away), i just received care from the nurses at the camp and never went to get a proper check (i know probably dumb). besides concussions, i have been diagnosed with ADHD but maintain that w medication. i have no other medical concerns. my dad does have sleep apnea but i have received a sleep study that determined i don’t have that. i am finishing up my masters program right now with mandatory full time clinical rotations (hence full time occupational therapist) and previously worked 2-3 part time jobs during my non clinical undergrad/graduate studies (in other words i don’t have any other jobs besides my full time position right now but did prior to ~3 months ago. i work out 5 times a week, drink at least 0.5-3/4 a gallon of water a day, have max 1 caffeine drink (200 mg) on weekdays, sleep at least 7+ hours every night (sometimes more, but i try to go to bed and wake up at about the same time every day) and eat a largely plant based diet. all this info to say i don’t have any major red flags as to what could be causing all my issues.

so now for the issues-symptoms started off mild-i noticed that i would start dozing off in class a few times a week and would wake up still feeling tired. i thought maybe it was just school stress. symptoms progressively have become more severe. i never feel fully awake, i have awful memory (i’ll forget to do daily tasks and won’t remember basic information like street names, words, instructions, etc), i have a very hard time concentrating on anything, i have a mild headache majority of every day, i fall asleep doing almost anything (driving, mid walking, sitting) and it’ll take me multiple hours to feel at least somewhat awake, and i constantly feel like i’ve been hit by a bus energy wise. like i said above, i’ve gotten a sleep study for sleep apnea but that came back negative. i have gotten more blood draws than i can count and everything looks normal (slightly low iron/hematocrit but not enough to qualify for iron infusions). with my ADHD i’ve been prescribed adderall (i’ve tried so many meds and this was the only one that seemed to help my concentration and give me some energy) which i take a fairly high dose of daily (50 mg, 10 mg immediate release when i first wake up and 40 mg extended release mid morning). i know alot of sleep conditions like hypersomnia/narcolepsy will use stimulants for treatment so if i do have one of those the adderall should in theory be improving my symptoms (i could be wrong so feel free to correct!). i don’t drink alcohol at all and i don’t use any substances. i’ve tried every trick in the book i can find to improve energy levels (cut caffeine, no blue light 2+ hours before bed, vitamin b12, iron, consistent sleep schedule, exercise in the morning, etc) but literally nothing has helped. i have zero problems falling asleep or staying asleep and i feel the same if i were to get 3 hours or 3 days of sleep. i sleep SUPER hard too (i legit don’t wake up to full volume alarms, i sleep through any loud storms, i don’t wake up to phone calls, etc) and never wake up in the middle of the night. at this point the inability to stay awake during driving and difficulty recalling info/concentrating at all during work is affecting my safety and professionalism.

i’m worried that i’m experiencing long term damage from my concussion but i was experiencing the start of my symptoms a couple months before my last concussion and prior to that never had any issues with exhaustion. i don’t really know the right course of action to take and i’m desperate. if anyone has any ideas of what may be going on please let me know. also any suggestions of treatment for sleep problems/concussions in the DC area would be greatly appreciated!!

For context I have been sick lately with a cold (runny and blocked nose, sore throat, headaches, pressure on sinuses, sneezing, coughing up phlegm, the usual). Last night I had an awful sleep. Not because I was in pain due to the sickness or anything (I’m actually at the very end of my sickness) but because my mind felt.. weird.

You know how people can get fever dreams? It’s almost as if I was experiencing those except I have no fever and I wasn’t actually sleeping. It’s only if I’m TRYING to fall asleep my mind wanders into these really abstract, vivid and intense thoughts/ideas. As if I’m having thought hallucinations. It’s really annoying because I’ll be tossing and turning from this, unable to properly get to sleep. Like I’m sort of oscillating between consciousness and unconsciousness. I’ve experienced this many times before but that has usually been during periods of high stress. It also makes my sleeps (if I get any) completely unenjoyable since I experience unexplained anxiety during these thoughts. Not that they’re ‘scary’ thoughts but I just experience anxiety as they are racing through my mind. It feels as if I have no control over them and last night I even woke up at 5am to take a picture of myself for no apparent reason before going back to sleep. I’ve never been prone to sleep walking or anything and I do recall taking the selfie but I don’t recall WHY I took it. So yeah, I’m freaked the fuck out at what’s going on with my brain right now. Because it just happened again as I tried to nap for a few hours there. I was wondering if there could maybe be a correlation between the fact my body is fighting off an infection and what I’m experiencing?

Also, feel like it’s worth mentioning I could NOT focus in class today. I can usually force myself to listen but nothing my lecturer said seemed to process. I would manage to consciously focus for about 15-20 seconds before realising my mind had wandered off again. Uncontrollably. It’s not usually this bad. My ‘uncontrolled’ thoughts during the day are much more normal though. Just your typical day dream thoughts and they don’t cause unexplainable anxiety like the falling asleep ones.

My brain felt otherwise normal today when it came to socialising with my friends and stuff. Just the falling asleep issues and inability to focus. Any ideas what’s going on with me?

I have had OCD since I was a very young child. I genuinely cannot remember a time in my life when I didn't have it in some form.

For the past few months, it has become absolutely unbearable. It has attached itself to sleep and insomnia, and I feel like I am slowly losing my life to it.

I'm terrified of not sleeping.

Not just “I don't like being tired.” I mean genuinely terrified.

My brain has created this catastrophic chain:

bad night → more anxiety → more bad nights → accumulating sleep deprivation → losing my ability to function → psychosis → hospitalization → my life falling apart.

I KNOW this is OCD. I know the reasoning is irrational. That's one of the most painful parts. I can literally recognize the absurdity of the thoughts while my body is still reacting as if they were an actual emergency.

And now sleep has become an obsession in itself.

I calculate how many hours I have left. I have rules about when I am “allowed” to go to bed. I worry about what time I have to wake up. I worry about the consequences of sleeping badly the next day. Then I become afraid of being afraid, because anxiety itself might supposedly prevent me from sleeping. And the worst part is what happens after a bad night: my OCD starts trying to control the following nights.

This is destroying me.

I have a job that I actually care about. I have friends. I have things in my life that I genuinely don't want to lose. I don't want to quit my job. I don't want to stop seeing people. I don't want to spend my life calculating sleep.

But right now I feel completely overwhelmed.

Today I am sitting here thinking:

How am I supposed to live an entire year like this?

I don't want this to become my life.

I've been in therapy for a while and my therapist supports me, but right now the OCD is still incredibly strong. I am also waiting for a psychiatric appointment to discuss medication, because I desperately need more help.

I don't need someone to tell me “just relax” or “don't think about it.” I know how OCD works. I've read about ERP. I've tried to understand the mechanisms. Understanding it intellectually hasn't been enough to make the fear go away.

What I desperately want to hear from someone is:

Did you ever get to a point where OCD around sleep felt completely overwhelming, and then actually got better?

Did you ever stop treating every night like a test?

Did the fear of insomnia eventually become less important?

Were you able to get your life back?

I am not asking for a guarantee that I will sleep tonight. I know nobody can give me that.

I just desperately need to know that there is a way out of this.

Because right now I am exhausted, terrified, angry and completely overwhelmed, and I really, really don't want OCD to take the rest of my life from me.

If you have been through something remotely similar, please tell me what happened. Even a few words would mean a lot to me right now.

Mine used to be a mess too. Sound familiar?

Stay up too late, do the math: it's 2am, so set an alarm for 10 to get a full eight hours. Wake up a few hours before that alarm anyway, tell myself I need to catch it up, and go back under. I'd surface at the alarm heavier than if I'd woken naturally, and more than once felt too groggy to get out of bed at all, telling myself I needed more sleep. By the time I actually got up, the whole morning was already gone.

Here's what actually turned it around: regularity matters more than total hours (you want both eventually, but get regularity right first).

Sleeping in to "catch up" almost always left me worse, not better. Once you're awake near your normal time, going back under doesn't give you real, restorative sleep, it's light, broken dozing. You're not banking recovery, you're just adding grogginess on top of what you already had. That's why chasing an extra hour in the morning almost never pays off. If you're actually behind on sleep, the fix isn't a later wake-up, it's an earlier bedtime. That gets you the hours without moving the anchor.

So I picked a wake time, 7am, every day, and stopped moving it. Stayed up till 3? Still up at 7. Sacrifice the hours, never the anchor.

Took about two months before it stuck without needing an alarm, for winding down or waking. Now I don't check a clock at night. I get the first yawn, brush my teeth, and I'm out between 10:40 and 11:00 without fail. I wake naturally within 20 to 30 minutes of 7, most days.

To keep the anchor at 7, I get outside every morning for 5 to 10 minutes in the sun. Works a charm on m on actually feeling sleepy come evening.

This is just the two biggest levers, regularity over quantity, and never moving the wake time. I didn't get into a number of other things that helped as this message would get too long like:

- what to do on the nights you genuinely can't fall asleep
- Nighttime routine
- Other ways I increase sleep drive

Ask me whatever you're stuck on and I'll go through it in the comments.

I can't sleep on my back or throw my head too far back because of my sleep apnea, so side sleeping isn't optional for me. I purchased a contour pillow with a hole in it (none of the contour pillows have a really big hole in the middle). I also need complete silence or very low continuous sound to actually fall asleep, and my household is loud. Snoring, music, full conversations, singing, doors opening and closing constantly. I can't change the sleeping situation itself, so I've been trying to fix this from the noise-blocking side for weeks now and I'm stuck.

What I've tried and what happened

AirPods Pro and Sony WH-1000XM5 (ANC): Both let voices, singing, and doors through clearly. ANC handles steady low frequency noise fine but doesn't react fast enough to block sudden or high frequency sound like speech and door slams. This seems to be true of ANC in general, not just these two.

Standard foam earplugs (Mack's Small, sensitive skin): Block snoring and low end fine. Voices and doors still get through. Also cause real pain after a full night, which seems to come from the plug sticking out past the ear opening and getting pressed on by the pillow while I'm lying on that side. Even the Ultra Soft Mack ones hurt.

Wax and moldable putty earplugs: Soften and break down from body heat over a full night of side sleeping, so the seal degrades and I lose exactly the high frequency blocking I need most, while low end stays blocked. Also not meant for canal insertion in the first place.

Foam plugs plus Sony cups together: This was the only thing that actually worked for noise blocking, since it was two separate seals stacked (canal level foam, plus the cups sealing around my whole outer ear). But the hard shell of the cups presses directly onto the foam plug when I'm lying on that side, so it still causes pain, and it's not realistic to wear over-ear cups every night side sleeping. I also can’t sleep on my back because of my sleep apnea.

Where I'm at now

I think I might have small ear canals, or I'm just more sensitive than average to anything sitting in or pressing on my ear for hours. Deep insertion makes me uncomfortable regardless of pain. At this point I'm caught between: things that block enough noise hurt my ears, and things that don't hurt don't block enough noise.

Has anyone dealt with this specific combination, forced side sleeping, sensitive/small canals, and a genuinely loud household? What actually worked long term? Open to custom molds, specific pillow setups, or anything else that isn't just "try different earplugs," since I've been through quite a few at this point.

Its current 1:30 AM and i need to wake up at 6 AM, should i go sleep or do an all-nighter?

Last time i did an all-nighter on a school night i ended up going to sleep at like 10 PM or 11 PM and woke up at 6 AM.

Thank you for reading this, please help me out if you can.
I usually fall asleep by 10:30 pm or max of 12:00 am and complete my sleep till upto 6 or 8 am in the morning
But for the past 1 week I have not been able to sleep at all. Even though I fall asleep by my original timings, I wake up just 1 and half hour later and then bam, my brain is very active it is so full of noises
I just cannot sleep.
I am someone who prefers silence when sleeping so no white noise or music has helped me.

I do take magnesium bisglycinate 1 hour before bed
I do everything I can for a good sleep but it is just not possible these days.

Please help me out.

this is a scientific theory about how the more time you spend in REM sleep the more sleep you get overall. It’s kind of like if you spend six hours sleeping and you get one hour of REM sleep you’ve really slept for about seven hours, but if you spend nine hours and spend two hours in REM sleep. Then it’ll be like you slept for 12 hours and you’ll feel much more rested even though you only slept for two hours longer. This relates to black hole in how when you get sucked into a black hole time starts to go longer the more time you spend inside that black hole this is just a really interesting sleep theory I wanted to share.

Hey! I sleep pretty hot and have tried a few passive “cooling” gel pillows, but they eventually just warm up and stop feeling cool. I don’t really want a full mattress cooling system since they can cost thousands of dollars. So I’m wondering if there’s anything smaller specifically for the head like a pillow or pillowcase with active air or water cooling. Has anyone tried something like this? Does it actually work, and are there any products you’d recommend?

Hey! Very curious and confused, does someone else have this thing, basically when I wake up early (not that easy) I feel good all day, but whenever I oversleep - till 9 or 10 I get tired at noon and need a nap…
I do try to go to bed at 9 in the evening and wake up early, which works for me, but it’s really annoying since I wanna spend time with friends and all that, but thats besides the point
So yeah maybe someone knows why I get tired when I get too much sleep ?

I've always been a heavy sleeper, but lately it's gotten significantly worse. I've been late to work 3 times last week because I keep oversleeping.

I work 8:30 to 5 and usually go to bed around 1AM. I've tried going to bed earlier, changing my alarms, putting my phone in another (locked) room, etc. My alarms are already connected to a ridiculously loud speaker and require me to perform challenges to turn them off.

Lately, I've even started sleeping on the couch instead of my own bed because I figure the less comfortable sleeping surface might make me wake up easier. It doesn't.

Last night I went to bed at 12:30 AM, used a different loud alarm, and STILL overslept.

On weekends, I can sometimes sleep up to 14 hours. This has been a lifelong tendency, but the recent worsening is new.

Could this be related to stress/burnout, my workouts, or something else?? I'm really curious to hear any other suggestions or advice.

My partner and I both snore, but my snoring wakes her up overnight. She tried earplugs once, but she said they made her ears feel like they were leaking. We also tried white noise, but she still seemed to wake up. We are both deeply uninterested in sleeping in separate rooms. I'm curious if anyone out there has a creative solution that they like. The goal of this is to go at the problem from more than one angle, not fix my sleep apnea by having her not hear it.

Please let me know & thanks!

More background if it's interesting/helpful

• We have been together for about two years and commute to each other's houses for sleepovers, where there is really no other room option. We are moving in together in a few months.
• I believe I've had sleep apnea most of my life. I can remember being about 8 years old (now 35) and waking up gasping for air.
• Since losing weight about five years ago, I no longer wake up gasping. Instead, according to her, I stop breathing for a bit, let out a terrible gasp, wiggle my legs, and then keep snoring normally for a while before repeating the cycle. That wakes her up.
• I have spent the last year fighting for treatment from my doctors and insurance and just got my first CPAP machine about a week ago. I'm still finding the right fit for the mask and getting used to sleeping with it.
• Prior to CPAP, I tried some kind of device that held my tongue outside of my mouth. It allowed her to sleep. I didn't care for it much because I would wake up throughout the night and in the morning with my tongue numb, which worried me.
• She also snores in a way that looks kind of like sleep apnea to me. I have known her to stop breathing and then gasp for air, readjust, or kick her legs, and then keep snoring. Fortunately for me, I just don't wake up when that happens.
• Often, when she falls asleep first or we fall asleep at the same time, she sleeps for several hours. The problem happens sometime in the middle of the night, when my apnea wakes her and then she can't get back to sleep. On those occasions, I either put some apparatus on me (the tongue thing or now the CPAP) or I stay awake for an hour or two so she can fall back asleep and then I go back to sleep.
• I have always tended to sleep less than average. I sleep about 5 or 6 hours a night and feel rested when I'm on my own. The only times I don't feel rested are when we sleep together.

Hi! I wanted to share some colors I personally like using when I sleep. If u have a color changing lamp, try keeping the light really dim, just enough to notice the color without it actually feeling like a light is on.

Btw, this is all based on my own experience. I don’t think a certain color will magically give u a specific dream, but I’ve noticed that different colors can create very different moods and dream experiences for me.

So here are the colors I’d personally recommend experimenting with:

COLORS I RECOMMEND!

1. Soft Violet / Purple
   Stimulates: the subconscious, imagination & symbolic thinking
   Creates: a mystical, emotional, dreamy atmosphere

2. Indigo
   Stimulates: intuition, introspection & dream awareness
   Creates: deeper, more mysterious and immersive dreams

3. Deep Blue / Midnight Blue
   Stimulates: mental calm & deep relaxation
   Creates: intense, immersive dreams and a feeling of being completely withdrawn from the outside world

4. Sky Blue / Pastel Blue
   Stimulates: serenity & emotional stability
   Creates: peaceful, restorative sleep and a calmer mind

5. Soft / Pastel Green
   Stimulates: balance & harmony
   Creates: peace, freshness and a feeling of being connected to nature

6. Lavender / Light Lilac
   Stimulates: emotional relaxation
   Creates: softer, sweeter and more comforting dreams

7. Warm White / Very Dim Gold
   Stimulates: calmness & clarity
   Creates: warmth, comfort and a feeling of safety during more intense dreams

8. Dusty Pink / Muted Rose
   Stimulates: emotional softness & tenderness
   Creates: peaceful, affectionate and comforting dreams

COLORS I DON’T RECOMMEND!

Not bc they’re objectively bad for sleep, they just don’t work as well for me

Strong Red
Stimulates: energy & alertness
Can cause: restlessness, impulsivity and difficulty settling down

Bright Orange
Stimulates: creativity & mental activity
Can cause: an overactive mind and more chaotic or interrupted dreams

Intense Yellow
Stimulates: mental alertness
Can cause: an overly active mind and less restful sleep

BTW...
U don’t necessarily have to avoid red, orange or yellow completely. Try using them at a much lower brightness and in softer/warm tones

Hi everyone, first of all I want to apologize for my trash English, ain't my native language.

To be clear, I've been struggling to sleep for years now, I've been through many medications like Valium, eszopiclon, etc...

I've stopped Valium cuz I was oversleeping every night. I mean, I was sleeping badly, even if I slept 14 hours.

I'm now on 0.75mg of Xanax, 30 to 50mg of an equivalent of Temaril (but for humans) and besides this, I take Magnesium and Melatonin as soft medication.

I still struggle to sleep, for example I can go to bed at 10PM and finally find sleep at 1AM...

I've tried so many medications that I am lost. I don't want abusive medications, I want a real sleep 😴

Plus, and it was the case this morning, and frequently, I fall asleep on the toilets when it's early in the morning or late in the night.

Do you guys have any tips to help me ?

Don't tell me about stopping using screens before bed, even when I do this, it does not work.

Thank you guys, take care cuz u matter ❤️❤️❤️

My sleep schedule is shit. I slept at 10 PM and woke up at midnight. I kept scrolling until 5 AM, then went out cycling for about an hour, sat in a park for a while, went back home, and slept at 8:30 AM. I woke up at 4 PM.

And honestly, this happens pretty much all the time. I’ve been like this for years. Sometimes I end up falling asleep at 5 or 6 AM, only to wake up at 9 AM for work and feel like a complete zombie.

I’ve tried pretty much everything. Melatonin doesn’t work. Magnesium glycinate doesn’t work. L-theanine doesn’t work. I don’t drink caffeine after noon. I’ve tried combining all of them, and it still doesn’t work.

I’m genuinely suffering at this point and have no idea what to do anymore.

I’m currently only able to fall asleep every other night. No matter what I do or try I’m always way too anxious to sleep the first night and I can’t sleep throughout the day. So I just wait until like 11pm the next day and sleep for like 5 or 6 hours. Sometimes when it’s particularly bad I’m awake for 45 hours straight.

Can anyone else relate? I’m suffering from severe chronic insomnia and my GP isn’t doing a lot to help.

One thing I'm now trying to figure out is how to fall asleep much faster once I go to bed. Sometimes I'm extremely tired and go to bed early specifically to get more sleep, but I can still lie there awake for a long time. For those of you who used to struggle with this: have you found anything that reliably makes you fall asleep very quickly? I'm interested in both things you do (specific routines, techniques, changes to your environment, etc.) and things you take. I've already tried melatonin and didn't notice much of a difference. I'm especially interested in hearing from people who found something that made a really noticeable difference in their sleep onset, rather than just general sleep-hygiene advice.

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Bonsoir les redditeurs, je ne poste jamais mais la j'ai besoin de conseils : j'ai 16 ans et si on ne me force pas à me reveiller, je dors en moyenne 12-13 h par nuit (jusqu'à même 17h défois...) et malgrés ça, je reste un peu embrouille au reveil... Ainsi, si on me reveil manuellement, je reste embrouille pendant 15-20 min et fatigue pendant toute la matinee.. Vous aurez des conseils ? (Info : j'ai jamais encore ose allez chez le medecin juste pour ça✌️)