33M, as long as I can remember I toss and turn every night all through the night. I am married now, and my wife mentions how distracting it is. I start on one side, then roll to the other, then roll back and so on and on. I snore a lot. I grind my teeth very loudly. I am not overweight. I think I have restless legs syndrome. Every morning I wake up I feel an overwhelming need to rub my legs, move them around, shake them.
I wake up most mornings very tired regardless of how many hours sleep I get. 12 Hours or 5, it is all the same to me in terms of feeling groggy and out of it.
Things that may be proposed but I acknowledge are:
1. Anxiety. I WFH, I am usually a bit stressed trying to build my business. But then again, I have been restless sleeper since I was a kid.
2. Sleep Apnea, need to test this. I do snore a lot and apnea runs in family. This could be a leading cause
3. I am a phone / screen addict. I find it hard to break away. Especially WFH, I can be at my PC all day then straight onto my phone on the sofa and so on
4. Coffee, usually but, but just early in the morning
5. Exercise: Need to do more. I go in and out of spells of lots of it, then hardly anything.
6. Grinding teeth + anxiety I may get suggestions for therapy. I have done a few sessions. Could do more.
Men: Anyone feel the same? Am I alone? Any other tips?
16 comments
There are a few things you can do to stop being a restless sleeper. Try to avoid caffeine and alcohol before bed, as they can make it harder to fall asleep. Establish a regular sleep schedule and stick to it as much as possible. Create a relaxing bedtime routine to help you wind down before sleep. Finally, make sure your bedroom is cool, dark, and quiet to create an ideal environment for sleep.
Probably your phone.
The blue light waves mess with your brain and don’t let you sleep.
Plus your addiction sounds bad as it is.
I will dm you with a good workout and diet plan when I am home.
Cheers.
I would do the following:
1. Talk to your wife and ask for support and help.
2. Uninstall every app off your phone, so it’s only for calling – or get an old phone that’s not „smart“.
Or ask your wife to hold it for you until you have to call someone.
3. Don’t do anything screen related 1 hour before going to bed.
Read a book or sth. For marriage bonus points – read to your wife.
4. Get into working out. Ever since I started taking working out seriously- I just sleep whenever I am in a horizontal position.
Feel great in the mornings too.
5. Cut back on the coffee and try water instead. 2-4 litres minimum a day.
Maybe take some vitamin d3 in the morning.
It’s 4am here, I’ve been up since 2. I’ve slept about 2.5 hours tonight.
I’m in the same boat. Definitely look into sleep apnea, that could be a big factor. I’m also in the process of doing blood work to check vitamin levels and that sort.
The only other thing I can suggest is start tracking what you do in the evening and when. How you feel. How you sleep (eye mask? Ear plugs? Socks on? Extra pillow? Too hot? Fan on?) maybe you’re eating too late/ close to bed. Or drinking too much in the evening and it causes you to wake up and go to the bathroom or makes it difficult to get comfy and fall asleep. Track if you were upset or stressed during the day/ stressed about tomorrow.
See if you can find ANY pattern. Try something different one night and see if there’s a change. I found out if I am any bit stressed it makes it hard to sleep at all. If I drink water past like 6pm I wake up to pee a lot.
Maybe look into blue light filtering glasses you can wear while you work or in the evening to help with the screen problem.
See your doctor about your blood pressure.
First things first. Don’t self diagnose. Go see a doctor. Get a sleep study done. Trying to self diagnose/medicate can help but might only get the things you are told and see. May be things you don’t. You acknowledge that you need to and i commend that 100%.
2. Yeah definitely do all those things you named. Cutting phone, caffeine and exercise well help tremendously.
Yeah i knoe kinda backwords but had to to honest from both sides.
Certainly not alone. It usually takes me about an hour and a half to fall asleep (after the last disturbance, if my girlfriend comes after me, the clock only starts when she’s in bed too). In that time I first can’t find a comfortable position, then I get a cramp in either or both calves and/or extremely itchy spots. I usually try to stay in bed for an hour, get up to stretch, put something on the itchy spots, etc., go back to bed and if I’m still awake after an hour, the same routine. If I’m still awake an hour later, I usually go downstair to read a book, do some puzzles or something.
I’ve got no miracles for you. I do notice that with rising age (M47) alcohol is becoming a problem. Just one glass of beer, costs me yet another hour of sleep, two glasses of beer or a glass or whisky gives me palpitations, so when I **do** sleep, I’ll wake up again (extremely uncomfortably too). Needless to say that I’ve skipped drinking alcohol in the evening.
As for the cramps, it doesn’t make a different if I’ve been to the gym or not, have been walking all day or sitting. Such things don’t really seem to improve or worsen my sleep. I’m not much of a screen person, but supposedly they don’t help.
In any case, nothing much for you here. Start changing routine and see if anything makes a difference. No screens for two hours before sleeping, if that doesn’t help more exercise, if that doesn’t help, no more coffee at all, etc.
Try a weighted blanket.
You could invest in a sports pillow, these can be positioned behind you if you lie on your side or in front of you to cradle. That seems to be a useful trick for general discomfort and sleep apnoea. Make sure you have some routine to wind down that doesn’t involve computers or phones.
You need to speak to your doctor but the main thing is to distress when about to sleep so you can feel calm and sleep peacefully.
As someone with a lifelong sleeping issue same as yours I can offer some tips that helped me!
* Magnesium citrate to help with restless leg syndrome (makes a MASSIVE difference).
* 5-HTP an hour before bed helps with getting better quality sleep and feeling less sluggish in the morning (widely available on Amazon and health shops that sell vitamins and such).
* CBD for anxiety has really helped me get to sleep faster and through the night without waking as often, and find it much easier to fall back to sleep if woken up. Helps stop your mind from racing so much when you finally get your head down on the pillow. I vape it myself but you can get CBD capsules/gummies to take orally. CBD is generally really expensive though!
I used to have the worst insomnia ever, only sleeping at most 10 hours **a week**, and it was almost entirely down to anxiety and restless leg syndrome. I found a combination of the 3 mentioned above has been an absolute life saver and now I get 7 hours a night every night with minimal issues. I still get restless legs occasionally but it’s nowhere near on the level it was before thanks to magnesium citrate that helps relax your muscles.
Cbd gummies before bed
See your doctor about a mouth guard for griding your teeth, and to get a referral to test a cpap machine.
I also recognize that feeling of never feeling rested regardless of how many hours I slept. For me it had to do with my iron deficiency. Go to your doctor, iron pills and exercise is a good start for better sleep and more energy. As for the grogginess, there are things to try so that you wake up at the right time and not during a deep sleep cycle. I haven’t tried those wake up lamps myself, but people say they work. I use a sleep calculator online to calculate when I should wake up/go to sleep to make sure I wake up in between sleep cycles. It works pretty well, I’m not as tired in the mornings as I used to be. Worth a try.
I’ve been told that I grind my teeth. Maybe a sleep mouth guard could help you with that?
As for the tossing and turning, have you tried a weight blanket? It helps me fall asleep faster but it’s also for those who sleep anxiously (move around a lot).
I think start with gaining understanding.
Try the audiobook “Why We Sleep” by Matthew Walker.
You can even listen to it in bed as you try to fall asleep, it’s something to do, but you get to your eyes shut too. This will give you a more logical reasoning behind a lot of the issues around sleep deprivation. Hopefully you can see your situation somewhere in the topics he covers.
If you are somewhere where healtcare is provided by the state, or are willing and able to pay, try to have your GP refer you to a sleep clinic. You will go to bed there for a night or two, and they can analyse you, including identification of Sleep apnea.
There are many ways of taking it. As oil under your tongue, gummy sweets, vapes or even flower which you grind up and smoke. Personally, the sugarless sweets or vape are my preference. I can’t say I’ve been hooked on it as I can go ages without but if I need something to help me to sleep/soothe my mind, I find some CBD helps. I recommend you do some research on it and if you do get some, make sure it has 0% THC content…. Unless you wanna get high too.
There are plenty of legal online retailers (in the UK)
Stop using your phone at 6pm.