longing to sleep.

I am the same Kiora. I wake around 3am and then can't shut my brain down. The difference with me is that I have been the same since doing an early morning paper round as a teenager. I always have a long soak in the bath when I get up, so I am at least relaxing, with a book, and it passes the time until a more 'normal' start to the day.
People take great delight in telling me that I have something in common with Margaret Thatcher!

If you are always tired, kiora, perhaps you should talk to your GP about it.

Nope don't think its that sort of tired. I don't feel ill at all. On the very very odd time that I sleep longer than the 4-5 hours I'm raring to go...well perhaps that's an over exaggeration but I feel better.

I'm the same but have decided to take it to my GP as I now feel so sleep deprived- I think unfortunately that depression is at the bottom of mine so its time to get some help in my case.

Are you saying you think you don't actually need more sleep ("not that kind of tired" — there are kinds of tired?) but just wish you could sleep more?

Did you used to sleep more?

I sympathise with you Kiora as I am exactly the same. Very tired when I go to bed (shattered even). I have no problem falling asleep and then I wake up after only an hour or two and the pattern starts. I am often awake 2-3 times a night and find myself wandering around the house, making a cup of tea, going to the loo (to pass the time) and generally tossing and turning.

When I wake it's like a switch being flicked and my brain goes into overdrive with worries. Of course when it's really time to get up, I am so tired I want to tun over and to sleep but have to get up for work etc.

Yep I just wish I could sleep more. The kind I had when I was younger. I used to have to literally force myself awake. I'd be dreamily half conscious for a few minutes and could even snuggle down and drift off again(oh bliss) Now after four or five hours PING fully awake. I'm not really complaining just wondering if it's an age thing and others are the same.

Yes, I think its an age thing. I also think that tiredness has nothing really to do with your amount of sleep. It is that your body is older than it used to be, and gets more tired doing what it used to take for granted.

If you are warm and comfortable and relaxed, and don't have any pains to keep you awake, is it that important that you are not actually asleep? You can learn relaxation techniques so that your body is not tense, but resting and recovering from the previous day.

As for your brain - there are techniques for removing anxieties from your mind and letting that rest too. The worst thing for insomnia is worrying about having insomnia -try to get rid of that.

Or you can accept that you are awake, and you might as well be up and doing something - reading is one occupation that fills in the time without effort.

I certainly can empathise with the brain 'ping'! I find that if I can force myself to imagine I'm going down a long tunnel on a train, for example, focusing on just a dot of light in the distance, I will eventually go back to sleep. Guess is a form of self-hypnosis and sometimes can do this easily, sometimes seems to take a lot more concentration, might be worth trying?

How old are you kiora? I also suffer from lack of sleep, and can date it from when I began the menopause. My mother also suffered this way, but as she got older her normal sleeping pattern returned. I hope mine will one day, but probably not until I finish my early morning cleaning job, ( start at 04.00, get up at 03,00).

i have been suffering from Insommnia since the beginning of this year, when I talked a friend through a bad suicidal depression.(I was afraid to go to sleep in case I didn't hear the phone)
I have constant pain and my GP has given me something to help me sleep, it is a pre-med, so it relaxes me rather than knocking me out. It doesn't work every night, certainly not last night.
It just seems to allow me to relax then I drift off to radio 4/World service.
I have found that after a few days without sleep, the pain intensifies, I am happy with 5 hours a night and really feel better.

hildajenniJ Shhhush I'm 61. Keep it to yourself although first thing in the morning I look 101.

I sleep about 2 hours.... brain ping... up and about for a couple of hours, and then another couple of hours. This has been going on for about 15 years. It was hard when I was still working full time, retirement now has eased the pressure of lack of sleep.

Insomnia plays such a big part of our quality of life.

Insomnia is such a debilitating thing. I have a relaxation CD in my DiscMan and I bung un the headphones and try listening to that. If that fails I change the CD to some beautiful music and just try to accept that I am awake, but that I am spending the time listening to something beautiful.

When I wake at night I go into the spare bedroom and turn the radio on very quietly, I usually have it in the bed under the duvet with me. Usually it is tuned to R4/World Service and as these programmes are predominantly speech, keeping the volume very low means I have to really concentrate to listen and this drives out intrusive thoughts or worries.

Alternative I reread a book I know really well and love and which is not going to be too harrowing. Jane Austen, Georgette Heyer and Anthony Trollop work for me. Just rereading the stories while not getting excited or drawn in to much I gradually find myself falling asleep over them.

I can't remember the last time I slept all night. I try not to disturb my DH so I plug in my iPod and listen to an audio book I tend to pick ones I have heard many times before. Because I know what is going to happen I tend to relax and sometimes drop back off to sleep. The only problem I have is sometimes the charge runs out and I am left wide awake with nothing to listen to I occasionally resort to breathing exercises which help me to relax if not to sleep.

Nobody's mentioned medication on here. Many types of medication affect sleep patterns.

that has been also mentioned for me, I take Sintrom an anti-coagullent and have an atificial valve in my heart which clicks alllllllllll the time, my cardiologist warned me it might affect my sleep .It just seems to have got worse this year, didn't sleep last night and now 3.00am.

Remember when you could go all night without sleep? I tried that last year. I was discharged from A&E at 4am after four hours sat on a trolley, then sat in the waiting area until the first bus at about 6.30. By the time I got home it was about 7.30, so I decided to stay up and get on with the laundry, and washing the pots that had been abandoned the night before. I managed until about 9.30, and then hit a brick wall, and collapsed into bed.

Thinking about doing night duty alternate nights and not going to bed the following day makes me wonder how I survived! Can only put it down to being younger.........

crun that was a good strategy. I generally sleep like a log but if I have a nap in the day time and I haven't done much that day either, I just cannot get off to sleep. So I make sure I do something to tire me out e.g. go for a walk. And the only day of the week I have an afternoon nap is on a Saturday.

Hilda to have to get up at that hour! It would kill me. You have my complete admiration.

Not so much strategy as optimism, I naively thought that I was going to keep going like I could have done 30 years ago.

I've always been a poor sleeper, now I wake several times with pain and am starting to feel sleep deprived as well.

I've had the same problem for some time, on and off. For me, the worst part is the change of mood the following day. Depressed, negative etc.
My doctor won't give any medication for it.
Hilda - as GrannyK. writes, much admiration - perhaps the remedy is to get up at 3am and do some cleaning.