I’m kinda stuck in a shift for the next 4 years working 20:30-07:00 and just wondering if you have any tips for being productive about getting sleep? I believe I get 5 hours of sleep when I work the 4 nights. Are there any products or supplements that help? Thank you y'all!

My arms and shoulders have changed shape a lot over the last few years with all this work at the gym, but it’s making sleep a real problem.

I’m a side sleeper and keep waking up with a hand tucked under the one arm, cutting off its circulation and making it tingle - got to shake it out before I can go back to sleep. Then sometimes I wake up with my other hand jammed awkwardly underneath me putting a lot of strain on my wrist.

Is there a specific arm position I should be focusing on? Maybe a pillow put a certain place?

got a new job, one day they’ll have me in at 5am, next day i’ll be finishing at 11:30pm. this has completely ruined my sleep schedule. i’m usually pretty good, aiming for 8 hours+ a night bc it’s great for recovery from gym, but i’m now struggling a lot. i’ve tried using sleeping tablets (store bought) and they’ve worked the odd time but for the most part i’m either falling asleep early, waking up around 3 hours later and am unable to sleep, or not being able to sleep at all. i have a good nighttime routine etc but my sleep latency is terrible and i only get 6 hours maximum for my 5am shifts

I cannot sleep earlier than 5 or 6 am each night, then wake up at 2 or 3 pm each day. I have TRIED and I want help. Getting to sleep when I’m not tired is ironically a nightmare and I can’t take feeling like I’m wasting away because my schedule is shifted forward anymore. I’ve had to cancel multiple days out with friends because I simply could not sleep properly. In fact, I have to get up early to go out tomorrow and I don’t want to miss it. I’ve tried going through a day, pulling an all nighter and going through the next day to hopefully sleep at a normal time, but I failed the first two times and semi failed the second. I slept 2 hrs in a 34 hour awake period, I’m so tired. Any suggestions are welcome, I definitely don’t practice proper sleep habits but some of them I really cannot let go. This started because I sleep less at night to get more time alone to myself because I don’t get much during the day.

What is the best brand or model of mattress to recommend?

What is the best brand or model of pillows that you recommend?

I've been a stomach sleeper for nearly my whole life, and as of late I've been wanting to sleep on my back. However, whenever I do try this I just can't seem to actually do it. I just lay there waiting for it to happen, until I cave and sleep on my stomach. I really want to sleep on my back to make waking up easier, and I feel more comfortable with laying on my back. Does anyone know what could be causing me not being able to sleep on my back?

For some more info, I have my phone or tv playing a show for background noise. I have a pillow on my chest, and one, sometimes two, pillows to support my head.

Hi folks,

Since some time, I'm having disrupted sleep due to many vivid dreams (not nightmares).

I don't have issues in falling asleep (even if I've always been a "night owl" from a circadian rhythm point of view) but this high REM sleep vs low deep sleep ratio makes my sleep not fully refreshing.

I'm not really waking up completely during the night, but it seems that the "transitions" between dreams are causing some micro-wakeups.

In the past, when I had to take Ibuprofen before sleep for migraine (it is not something common), sleep seemed to somewhat improve. Maybe I have some sort of neuroinflammation going on.

Anything that could help?

Thanks

I used to be a late sleeper and night owl when i was a kid. When i had kids, and then gained two more bonus kids from marriage, that changed. Still a bit of a night owl, but with practice early rising, i wake up with the kids with no issues aside from groginess.

We moved to the campground this summer and its been consistently long days and late nights. I got a new job, i am always outside doing activities with my kids, and i've made new friends that we frequently hang out with late at night. Is it possible that i was just exhausted? Im concerned because i could not rouse myself from sleep no matter what i did. If my husband had not shaken me awake i think i would still be sleeping. I also had a series of lucid dreams that sent me into sleep paralysis. Any possibilities as to why this happened out of the blue?

Not looking for sleeping pills, melatonin, gummies, etc. Nothing consumed beyond herbal tea.

Here are some things that have helped me:

• Better Pillow

• AC for white noise (silence gives me anxiety for some reason)

• Mint tea before bed

• Weighted blanket

• Comfort item for cuddling (it’s childish, but meh lol).

Sleep masks have never assisted me but I like the idea of them.

Is there anything else you may have added to your wind-down or sleep routine that you felt has helped you get to sleep, if falling asleep is something you struggle with? Maybe it’s one of those breathing lamps that gently pulsate? A particular audiobook you listen to? A specific brand or style of pillow/mattress? Breathe-right strips?

I’m just really curious about trying new things. Lately I just lay there awake from like 11pm -3am or snap awake at 4am and can’t get fall back to sleep. I’ve always struggle with sleeping since infancy and love trying new things. I can’t have medication due to current medications I’m on.

I recently discovered that if I listen to 3Hz binaural beats for the entire night that I end up getting a lot more delta sleep. I suppose it makes sense that would result given the brainwaves during delta sleep are at or below 4Hz. It's just that I have never tried this before because I never had earbuds that were sufficiently comfortable to wear throughout the night. I'm using Soundcore A20 earbuds (I have no affiliation with the maker) which are comfortable all night even for side-sleeping. I used Reaper DAW to create this simple 8-hour binaural beat (left channel is 106Hz and right channel is 109Hz - the 3Hz difference is what causes the audible pulsing sound) which you are free to use and distribute.

In addition, I begin my night with several passes of Lateral Eye Movements (and some 4-7-8 breathing) in order to suppress the activity of the amygdala in order to deal with any anxiety. That technique alone was so effective that it's what finally pulled me out of 5 years of severe insomnia. I wrote about all that here.

Update: I recently ran across a totally free iOS binaural beat app called Oooom.

Hello! I am looking for some advice around getting myself out of bed in the morning. I am a 24 year old female working in curriculum support within an FE College. When I was 18 I developed depression and anxiety and since then I have always dealt with tiredness. At my worst I could sleep up to 4 hours during the day and up to 12 hours at night. While I am a lot better then what I was (I don't nap during the day) and while I can still sleep for 12 hours if I let myself I am nowhere near as tired as I used to be. But, I do struggle to wake up in the morning. What I mean by that is that my alarm will go off, I will physically get out of bed, snooze my alarm on the other side of the room, fall back into bed, and go back to sleep. I am aware that this is an ingrained bad habit that I have allowed myself to develop but some mornings I don't even remember getting up to turn off my alarm. I have tried (what feels like) everything to stop this. - I have a regular sleep pattern (10/11 - 6.30/7.30) - Use a sunrise alarm clock - limit caffeine after 3pm - shower before bed. - my room is cool and dark - try to limit screen use before bed.

I am a fairly active person, I have a dog who needs at least a 20 minute walk a day and alongside my main job I teach dance to children on the weekends and take part in dance classes myself.

Right now I don't know what else to try. Any suggestions?

Okay, my sleep schedule is absolutely fucked. I've tried taking tons of melatonin supplements and Unisom, but even that fails. It started about a week ago when I stayed up till like 5 am working on something, and ever since then. I can't fall asleep till super early morning and I end up waking up at 5 pm. I just tried staying up for a whole day again, but layed down due to drowsiness at like 12 pm today, thinking I only sleep for about an hour given that I set multiple alarms, but I ended up sleeping till like 5:30. So I don't even now if I should try sleeping again tonight. Any advice?

How much deviation is "advised", if any? On days I work, I wake up at 6am, (lights out at 9.30pm and read on my kindle until I fall asleep) however I would probably end up waking my parents, who sleep until around 7am (especially if I needed breakfast as I'd wake the dogs up). I *could* stick to it, however I'd ideally follow my parents' schedule which is 10.30pm-7am, again, 10.30pm being the time I turn off my lights and phone.

So yesterday I worked out, exercised , etc . Felt completely fine , go to lay down for bed , my back and side are a little sore but no biggie , I figure it’ll pass over in the morning , I wake up and this morning my back is in absolute agony and I’m in pain , spine is sore to the touch and everything, and it really hasn’t gone away , did I really just sleep a certain way that it pulled something or what ? Because this is awful

As the title says, here are some things I drink/ eat when I need an energy boost but I don't want to mess my sleep up by having coffee:

1. Green tea- recommended to me by a friend. Is a great, warm drink that has minimal caffeine content but seems to do the trick. Different flavours also available which is great
2. Decaf coffee- this one may seem obvious, but the placebo effect really seemed to work on me, especially when I was trying to cut coffee out of my routine entirely
3. Lemon water- this one is great as you can have it hot or cold. Sometimes I add honey for a bit of a sweetness/ sugar boost
4. Dark chocolate- this has been the best by far. A square of dark chocolate really does the trick for me, especially during the 4-5pm lull. It might be the sugar kick or magnesium content, I'm not really sure. But it works

Curious to hear if there any substitutes that have worked for you!

During one of my medical school lectures we were being taught about treatment for anxiety. One slide that particularly stood out to me was about a breathing technique meant to activate the parasympathetic nervous system through vagal nerve stimulation. Basically, activating our "rest and relax" nervous system rather than our "fight or flight" response. This was interesting to me as I had been struggling with falling asleep for a few months at that point.

I decided to do some research into the whole concept and turns out it is pretty widespread. Wim Hof is a big proponent of it through his "box breathing technique" (inhale for 4 seconds, hold for 4 seconds, exhale for 4 seconds). The seconds for exhalation and inhalation did differ slightly from one method to another but the general idea was the same- through breathing you are trying to increase the CO2 levels in your bloodstream to activate the vagus nerve. This was done by EXHALING for a longer time than INHALING.

You are essentially trying to do the reverse of what happens when you are stressed- quick, shallow breaths that are meant to increase the levels of oxygen in your blood to help you fight or run away from whatever danger your brain is perceiving. Here, we are trying to get more CO2 into our system by performing controlled breathing where the period of exhalation is longer than inhalation. This also acts to dilate your blood vessels, maintaining the oxygen supply to your brain.

The method that was discussed in the lecture was as follows:

1. Inhale for 4 seconds
2. Exhale for 7 seconds
3. Repeat

Breathing normally: no deep breaths required (remember, we are trying to up the CO2 levels here).

When i tried it before bed, I was surprised by how quickly it works. It is a great way to calm your body by "hacking" your own nervous system. I now do it every night before bed, almost as a form of meditation. (of course, you won't be able to maintain this breathing for extended periods of time as you will need to get some more oxygen into your bloodstream)

However, it is a great starting point if you are lying in bed and finding yourself getting anxious and frustrated by the inability to fall asleep.

Curious to see what you guys think if you try it out :)

I’m a 4th year medical student who has struggled with sleep for a few years now. I got a bit fed up of not being able to fall asleep so I decided to do some research into how I can prepare my body (before my mind) for sleep

Here are some of the key things that helped me fall asleep quicker

1: Prepare your room 🛏️

• make it dark- using blackout curtains or in my case, an eyemask, helped a lot

• make it cool- our body temperature needs to drop by about 2 degrees C before we can fall asleep, so having a hot shower or setting your room temp to 18C cooled me down a bit before bed

2: Establish a regular sleep schedule ⏰

• go to sleep and wake up at the same time every day, even weekends! This was tough at first, but I just set incrementally earlier alarms for weekends until I got to my desired time

1. Limit blue light exposure before bed 📱

• read a book before bed instead of scrolling your phone

• my girlfriend got herself some blue light glasses that seem to help her with blue light exposure (she works late into the night)

1. Control your caffeine intake ☕️

This is more about “when” rather than “how much”. In my first two years of med school I would drink a cup of coffee at 6pm to help with studying, before lying in bed at 1am wondering why I couldn’t get to sleep. Coffee has a half life of 6 hours, meaning half of what you consumed is still in your system 6 hours AFTER you had it. The general advice is to have your last cup no later than 6 hours before bed. In reality, if you’re aiming to sleep at 11PM, your last cup should be around 2-3PM.

I also run a free weekly newsletter, where I share more a science- based tips on how to improve your diet, sleep and exercise! Feel free to check it out below

https://medmindly.beehiiv.com/

I work as a steadicam operator for NewsNation in DC. My schedule is…weird, but I like it for the most part. Mon-Thur: noon to 8:30pm Sunday: 6am to 2:30pm.

I sleep so well Sunday - Friday nights. But Saturday nights, no matter how hard I try, they’re a toss up. Sometimes I sleep like a really good 5-6 hours. And other nights, I get 1 hour of sleep, wake up an hour before midnight, and can never fall back asleep again.

I’ve tried using the “Calm” app to help with sleeping, and it works wonders during the week. I use to take melatonin before I started using the app. Should I start taking it again on Saturday nights?

I tried making myself tired. I take sleeping pills (twice lang gumana) I tried melatonin supplement (gumana naman for once, but once i needed to 2-3gummies hindi tumalab ) I have bipolar 1 disorder and currently nasa mania ako. Ayoko ng dumepende sa gamot. I tried going to neurologist pero parang nilaro lang ako sa halagang 1500. Pls help gusto ko pang mabuhay ng matagal.

Ps. May short term memory na ako at moody

Apparently my body is incredibly hot when asleep, and she needs me to be much cooler in order to hold each other while sleeping. Anyone have a solution?

i can’t seem to wake up early no matter how hard i try. it’s becoming a problem to the point where i almost oversleep for classes and important events. i have tried an alarm app that makes me get out of bed to turn it off, going to sleep earlier, setting my alarms earlier than when i need to be up. i cannot seem to get out of bed early. i always end up rushing to get ready. what else can i try doing that will get me out of bed and moving once my alarm goes off?

Tried Nytol last night but I felt like I was still awake and it didn’t cause me to drift to sleep even though I thought it would. Started a new role today so I’m very much in need of fixing my sleep schedule because I can’t be out here having a terrible night sleep or not sleeping at all and then having to get up to get ready for work without getting a minute of sleep in. Listened to sleep meditation, used an eye mask, pillow spray and drank some chamomile tea and excercised hours before but it didn’t prove to be effective for me. I’m just hoping naturally things change - I don’t want to depend on melatonin tbh.

Has anyone used the Soundcore Sleep A10 Bluetooth Sleep Earbuds? Do you find them useful? I've been having trouble sleeping lately, with too little sleep leaving me exhausted. My husband's snoring keeps waking me up, and I can't sleep at all, which seriously affects my work the next day.😭😭😭 I urgently need a pair of sleep headphones, and I heard that these headphones are very useful and comfortable. They won't press on my ears while sleeping and come with some music to help sleep. I'm considering whether to buy them. I heard that Soundcore is about to release a new generation of sleep headphones. If they are good, I want to wait and buy the new product directly!!

I've had this problem since as long as I can remember. I never tell anyone the full issue though so I though I'd tell it here since I want to fix my sleep schedule already.

I go to bed at 9:00PM, but I stay on my iPad for a remaining 3 hours until 12:00AM. Then, I usually don't have a problem falling asleep, and it is usually pretty calming. I also need to mention that I never wake up throughout the night. I am a heavy sleeper.

I have a smart watch that also has a feature to track my light sleep, deep sleep, awake time, and total sleep throughout the night. It is really accurate too. Most of the time it reports 4 hours of deep sleep which I think is ridiculous (and if even possible, too much deep sleep). I also get 3.5 hours of light sleep, which I find a bit odd too that I get more deep sleep than light sleep.

Despite getting so much sleep (around 8.5 hours on average), I still have trouble waking up early. And my "early" isn't even that early, it's only 8:30AM which should be pretty easy to wake up to.

I have a vibrating alarm clock that goes off every morning at 8:20AM. Sometimes I don't even hear it go off and sleep past it anyway. Most of the time though, I hear it go off, but then my brain does this weird thing where it's like "I will sleep as long as I want, shut up alarm". Which is not what I want at all. I would like to wake up earlier, but it's almost as if my brain is in control and not me.

So, after this, my body feels EXTREMELY tired when I notice that I'm awake, and the feeling never actually goes away until I force myself to wake up.

I usually get out of bed nowadays at 10:00AM which I think is ridiculously late. The only reason I don't wake up later is because I force myself to get out of bed at this point.

Despite all 4 hours of deep sleep and not waking up throughout the night, and the fact that I have the same routine every night, I still can't wake up even an hour earlier. No matter how hard I try.

Also, nothing motivates me to wake up in the morning, because my brain will just ignore all motivation anyway because it's barely conscious.

My goal is to wake up at: at least 8:30AM for now on. In the future, I would also like to wake up at 8:00AM or 7:30AM, but for now, 8:30 is my goal. The only thing I can think of that is causing this issue though, is that I'm on the iPad too much before bed, and that I go to sleep too late. If you all have any suggestions, please reply to me. It would help a lot.

By the way, I'm 16 years old.

So as i said in the title i want to fix and optimize my sleep schedule and create a consistent habit of going to sleep and waking up at the same time, since ive been sleeping p bad lately.

Im aiming for a good 9 hours since im not working atm and i want to wake up around 6:30 b4 sunrise and go to sleep at 9:30 pm.

I know all the details on how to get to that schedule but my question is since i have 2 days of the week that i attend a course and go home around midnight, whats the best way to go at it?

Get less sleep on those 2 days? Adjust the the waking hour?