Cannot sleep what to do?

Question

so ive only been getting about 4-5 hours of sleep each night for the past three or four nights. ive been a night owl sense its summer vacation, going to bed anywhere from 6-9am and getting up anywhere from 4-6pm. but the past four days ive been only getting 4-5 hours of sleep. ive been getting woken up or having to get up to help move my sister into her new house. so i usually go to bed at 6-7am and wake up at 11-12. so about 5 hours of sleep. i usually take along nap around 2-3pm till about 6-8pm. but yesterday i went to bed at 3am, and woke up at 7am. i was up till about 11, or noon,and slept till 830 tonight. i really dont know what to do its hard to get on a normal sleep pattern when i sleep the whole day away. i suffer from anxiety/depression/and stress too so its very hard to sleep. i go to a councilor and everything so ive tried alot of sleeping exercises but none really work. its my senior year in school and we start in 4 days, and i really would like to get on track of my sleep before then so i can function in school.

Answer 1

Hrmm, yeah, it's extremely difficult to sleep if you are suffering from anxiety/depression/or stress.  I would suggest overcoming those problems first before fully being able to sleep well again, but here are some useful tips for sleeping:

- Try to sleep in a dark, quiet, and cool room.  It's really hard to sleep if there's light, noise, or heat.

- Take power naps during the day, for about 30 minutes. I heard it really rejuvenates you (=

- Eat a balanced diet.  Anything high in sugar/caffeine will undoubtedly hinder you obtaining from a good night's sleep.

Hopefully this helped. Good luck!

Answer 2

I've had this problem recently although I don't suffer from depression. I do occasionally have an anxiety attack here or there, but I've mainly been able to handle those. I understand what you mean by staying up late and then waking up late. I did that for most of my junior and senior years in high school. What you need to do is start trying to go to sleep earlier. Cut out the time you spend on the computer or the tv at night because often the light and colors will stimulate your brain and keep you awake longer. Its better to try and read or simply stare at the ceiling before attempting to sleep. You need to gradually try to do these things and try settling into bed earlier so that way you won't be up as late.

Answer 3

I have extremely bad insomnia and although this advice has never worked for me it has for many of the people I've given it to. Your body has an internal clock and right now you have it set to stay up during the night and sleep during the day. You are the only one to blame for this, so just as you had a little bit of trouble getting used to staying up all night without getting tired at all when summer first started you have to do the same but in reverse. Ok, now here's the drag, you have to pull a 24 hour day. DO NOT go to sleep AT ALL, NOT EVEN FOR 5 MINUTES during the day and then that night your body will naturally crash out. This is not a one night/day fix you will have to continue avoiding any and all sleep during daylight hours and sleeping ONLY at night. Try to pick a certain time that you can guarantee that you'll be in bed EVERY night. Seriously, if you pick 10:00pm then EVERY night be in bed and under the covers at 10:00pm. You don't have to go to sleep or try to go sleep at 10 just be in bed, after a few days your body will realize that this is the time that it needs to shut down and before you know it you'll be asleep before 10:30. But I am being completely serious when I say that you HAVE to stick to the schedule for you to correct your internal clock.

As I said before, this is a bit of a "Crash Diet" method, the process will not fix you in one night but it will cut the "Correcting" time by a minimum of 3-4 days. Also for that fist day avoid caffine, I know that a 24 hour day is not easy and that coke or coffee will sound really really good but you'll regret it later when you can't go to sleep and wake up feeling worse than the day before.

Like I said, I am really an incredibly severe case of insomnia. My average time without sleep is 3-5 days of no sleep whatsoever for the first 3-4 days and then MAYBE a 20 minute nap on days 4-5 and then I'll crash for a whole whopping 5 hours. Even on medication, which I've tried almost every prescription and natural drug for sleep that I can find and I'm still stuck on lack of ZZZZZ's. Well good luck and good night. This method really does work but you have to stick to it all the way. DON'T cheat on anything.