How Do You Go Back to Sleep When You Wake Up During the Middle of the Night?

Moving from the bed to the couch usually works for me. Or I put on the radio or a podcast. Something to keep my mind from wandering. Plus I try not to look at the clock because if I know I have to get up in a hour or so I wont be able to fall back asleep.

 

I have several TV shows that I put on my phone (only audio) that are essentially white noise for me because I've watched them so many times. I fall asleep to them and if I wake up I can quickly put another one on.

 

I give myself maybe 15 minutes to fall back asleep, if I don't, then I just start my day early. I either do some work, workout, watch TV, listen to something. It's not a big deal. The next night I sleep much better.

 

mar1juana

 

This is the story of life if its the weekend some time I can go back to sleep and that is the best sleep but during the week I just lay there.

 

I haven't slept more than 1 hour at a time in the last week, because of Covid........I would kill for that.

It sucks waking up every hour to cough, and then reposition, and repeat.

DD

 

masturbate

 

It depends.

If you wake up with stuff on your mind, it could mean you don't think about it enough during the day or distract yourself from it.

Try taking 10-20 mins to write stuff down or talk about it (to notes if no one is around), then allow yourself some quiet time without devices or other distraction.

I guess some people would sit in front of tv for hours with a beer in hand, but that's grossly inefficient and doesn't always resolve anything.

 

Read a fiction book.

 

watch a Lakers game.

 

Try reading for an hour before trying to go back to sleep.

 

It's 5 am here. I woke up an hour and a half ago and thought I would have a quick look at the Rockets game...

 

This

 

OP, welcome to middle age.

@Invisible Fan has great advice that I echo.

Sometimes I get up, have a glass of milk, stare out the window, and then get back to sleep pretty easily.

Beware your screentime within an hour or two of your bedtime.

 

I suffer from insomnia every now and then. For some reason Sunday night into Monday morning is a bad time for me and by nature I tend to wake up a few times in the night anyway. I agree with doing some reading. It also helps to get regular exercise.

 

I have dealt with that a lot over the last year. (44). I have seen a lot of improvement after I stopped drinking caffeine after 9am (some say it can stay in your system for 12 hours) and I take a sleep drink mix called Calm by Natural Vitality.

 

I used to get what my wife's father calls 'The Mortal Dreads', where I would wake up and start thinking about **** I had to do or things I couldn't control.

• I've learned to stop thinking about the things I can't control. It's pointless. This is honestly a very important life skill that everyone should practice.
  
  
• The things I can do, I send myself an email on to deal with in the morning. 99.9% of these items I can't or don't really have to deal with until the morning anyway.
  
  
• I read a little bit of a fiction book to turn off those conscious thinking parts of my brain.
  
  
• I taught myself a trick that works 99% of the time: I breathe in and literally count to six, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, breathe out and count to six, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. I keep repeating and I fall asleep.
  
  
• I also have white noise and wear earplugs. The earplugs is something I started doing it when our kids were babies and it wasn't my turn to stay up with them. I'm a light sleeper so I always get jarred awake by any tiny noise. With earplugs I still wake up when my mastiff is kicking the wall in his sleep (it sounds like someone is breaking in) but little things don't bother me.
  
  
• ...if all of that fails I wake my wife up and get some. That's very, very rare.

 

I've wondered the answer to this question for about 15 years now. I eat at night to go back to sleep, which well isn't healthy but somehow I lose some weight anyway.

 

Looking at your device is the kiss of death for falling back to sleep. I also put my devices down about 30 minutes before I go to sleep and read a book. (yes, I do it when I need to email myself a reminder, but it is very brief and I'm not taking in information)

No caffeine after 5pm is my rule, too. That Calm tea is really good, +1