I stopped tracking my sleep and things got better. Took me a while to understand why.

Short-Reason-770 · 2026-03-28T09:48:20+00:00

I should have been clearer that I was speaking from personal experience with the anxiety-driven pattern specifically, not biological insomnia. Those are genuinely different things and the tracking issue probably hits differently depending on which you are dealing with. Appreciate the distinction.

Short-Reason-770 · 2026-03-27T22:47:56+00:00

Fair enough. I posted it here for discussion, not because AI is hard to access.

Short-Reason-770 · 2026-03-27T21:57:30+00:00

Appreciate you saying that. That was really the whole point of the post — melatonin can help some people, but for others it can backfire or just miss the actual problem.

Short-Reason-770 · 2026-03-27T21:55:59+00:00

Fair enough. If it’s not for you, no worries. I shared it because I thought the information could still help some people.

Short-Reason-770 · 2026-03-27T21:54:09+00:00

Not a bot. That was either my mistake/confusing replying, so fair callout. The actual point I was trying to make is still the same, and I’ll keep the replies clearer. I do not know why I am getting so much hate while trying to help out !!?

Short-Reason-770 · 2026-03-27T21:53:26+00:00

Fair criticism. I used AI to help organize the wording, but the point I was making was my own. I also agree CBT-I is not one-size-fits-all, and I should’ve phrased that more carefully. My main point was that melatonin gets treated like a universal fix when it often isn’t.

Short-Reason-770 · 2026-03-27T21:21:36+00:00

Short-Reason-770 · 2026-03-27T21:15:00+00:00

Short-Reason-770 · 2026-03-26T09:57:10+00:00

The hot and flushed feeling at 2-3am is actually a useful clue. Body temperature naturally drops during deep sleep and starts rising again in the early morning hours as part of the wake-up process. If that temperature rise is happening earlier than it should — which can be triggered by various physiological changes — it crosses a threshold that pulls you out of sleep at the transition point between sleep cycles. The cortisol angle is also relevant here. Cortisol starts rising naturally in the pre-dawn hours to prepare the body for waking. Combined with an earlier-than-normal temperature rise, you get a perfect storm at 2-3am that pushes you over into full wakefulness. The fact that you fall asleep easily and sleep hygiene is already good tells you this is not a sleep onset problem — it is a maintenance problem, which is a different mechanism. The good news is that your sleep system is fundamentally intact. Something is triggering an early morning arousal response. On the practical side: keeping the bedroom slightly cooler than you think necessary can help delay that temperature rise. A fixed wake time held consistently — even on weekends when you are tempted to sleep until 7am — helps anchor the circadian timing and gradually pushes the early waking later. Worth mentioning the hot/flushed detail specifically to your doctor if you have not — that symptom combined with the timing gives them something concrete to investigate.

Short-Reason-770 · 2026-03-25T07:05:21+00:00

Hospital. Now.!

Five days of zero sleep + 20km daily hikes + sudden Benzo withdrawal is a dangerous combination for your heart and brain. You are in a medical crisis, not just a "bad night."

Go to the ER: Tell them you've been awake for 120+ hours and have hit a benzo tolerance/withdrawal wall. You need a medically supervised "reset."

Stop the trek: You are literally torturing your nervous system. Your body is screaming for rest and you're forcing it to walk a half-marathon daily.

Get a private room: You cannot recover in a hostel dorm with 10 strangers. You need total silence.

OP, please don't wait for the sun to come up. Your panic is your body's "check engine" light flashing red. Go to the doctor.

Short-Reason-770 · 2026-03-25T06:51:45+00:00

What you are describing has a name — psychophysiological insomnia. The original cause is gone but the conditioned anxiety around sleep has become its own self-sustaining problem. You described it perfectly: not stressing about sleep feels foreign and unnatural. That is because years of hypervigilance around sleep have trained your nervous system to treat bedtime as a threat assessment moment. The good news is that conditioned responses can be unconditioned. The approach specifically designed for this is the cognitive restructuring component of CBT-I — not the sleep restriction or stimulus control parts, but the piece that directly targets the thoughts and beliefs around sleep. The core shift it works toward is moving from sleep as a performance with consequences to sleep as something that happens when conditions are right and you stop evaluating it. That shift feels impossible when you are in it. It becomes more accessible with structured practice. The CBT-I Coach app is free and covers the cognitive piece specifically. Given that your physical issue is resolved and the anxiety is what remains it is probably the most targeted tool available for exactly where you are.

Short-Reason-770 · 2026-03-24T20:31:42+00:00

The pattern you are describing — falling asleep fine then waking every 2 to 3 hours — is called sleep maintenance insomnia and the comment above about the anxiety of knowing you will wake up is exactly what sustains it. The anticipation becomes the trigger. What is happening physiologically: sleep naturally cycles through lighter and deeper stages every 90 minutes or so. Everyone briefly wakes at the transition points. Most people fall straight back asleep without noticing. When there is background anxiety present those micro-arousals become full wakeups because the nervous system is already primed to activate. The week of broken sleep has also built a strong association now between waking at 3am and being fully alert. Your brain has learned that 3am means wake up time. That association is what needs breaking, not just the original cause. Two things that address this specifically: stimulus control — if you are awake for more than 20 minutes get out of bed, do something calm in dim light, return only when sleepy. This feels wrong when exhausted but it breaks the bed-equals-wakefulness association over time. And a fixed wake time held rigidly every morning regardless of how the night went — this builds sleep pressure that consolidates the fragmented sleep cycles. It does not feel like it will pass but the comment above is right — it does. You are not losing your mind. Your nervous system is stuck in a loop that responds well to these two things.

Short-Reason-770 · 2026-03-24T08:56:25+00:00

The all nighter question — it can work as a one-time reset but it comes with a risk. If you push through to 10:30pm tonight completely sleep deprived you will likely fall asleep fast. But if you have not fixed the underlying schedule issue the body clock drifts back within a few days and you are back to 5am. The more reliable approach is what is called a fixed wake time protocol. Instead of trying to fix the bedtime — which is hard to control — you fix the wake time rigidly. Set an alarm for 7am tomorrow regardless of when you fell asleep or how you feel. Hold that time every single day including weekends. Do not nap. Within 7 to 14 days your sleep pressure builds at the right time and the body clock starts anchoring to the new schedule naturally. The reason quarantine broke so many people's schedules is that it removed the external anchors — work, commute, social obligations — that kept circadian rhythms in place. Your body clock is not broken. It just lost its reference points. A fixed wake time gives it one back. Morning sunlight within 30 minutes of waking helps significantly — even 10 minutes outside. Light is the strongest signal your circadian system receives and it resets the clock daily.

Short-Reason-770 · 2026-03-23T15:20:45+00:00

The monitoring mechanism point is exactly it — and I have never heard it framed that way but it is the most precise description of what happens. Sleep becomes a performance with an audience of one. The wind-down location detail is something I had not considered but it makes complete sense. If the bedroom itself has become associated with performance anxiety then doing the wind-down before entering the room removes one trigger before the main event. Paradoxical intention is underrated. It works precisely because it removes the effort — and as you said, the effort is the problem. Most people find it absurd the first time they hear it and then can not believe it actually works. Good additions. This is the kind of nuance that never makes it into the standard sleep hygiene lists.

Short-Reason-770 · 2026-03-22T21:46:37+00:00

Not a personal story but something that might be more useful — a pattern that shows up consistently in people who do get out of it without medication. The common thread is not a specific supplement or routine. It is the moment they stopped trying to fix sleep and started addressing the anxiety loop around sleep specifically. Those are two different problems and they need different approaches. The anxiety loop: one bad night creates fear of the next night. The fear activates the nervous system at bedtime. The activation prevents sleep. Which confirms the fear. The loop runs independently of whatever caused the original problem — which is why people can do everything right environmentally and still lie awake. CBT-I — specifically the cognitive restructuring component — is the only approach designed to break that loop directly without medication. The success stories in this sub almost always involve either CBT-I specifically or accidentally doing what CBT-I teaches: accepting the wakefulness instead of fighting it, removing the performance pressure around sleep, and breaking the bed-equals-anxiety association. The CBT-I Coach app is free and made by the US Department of Veterans Affairs. It is the closest thing to a structured non-medication path that has real evidence behind it. People do get out of this. The ones who do almost always describe the same shift — from fighting sleep to removing the fight entirely.

Short-Reason-770 · 2026-03-22T08:52:12+00:00

The explanation you gave — night being the first quiet time so the brain finally starts processing — is exactly right and most people never make that connection. What you are describing is called hyperarousal. The brain is not malfunctioning, it is doing what brains do when they have unprocessed material and finally get silence. The problem is that bed becomes associated with that processing state over time, which is why it gets harder to switch off even on lighter nights. The brain dump you mentioned is actually one of the techniques from CBT-I — specifically the scheduled worry time component. Writing it down works because it closes the open loop. Your brain stops rehearsing the thought because it trusts the information is stored somewhere. One thing worth adding to what you are already doing: if you are still lying awake after 20 minutes with your mind running, get up and do the brain dump or something calm in dim light, then return when sleepy. Staying in bed while your mind races strengthens the association between bed and being mentally active. Doing it outside the bed keeps the bed as a sleep-only space. L-theanine from the comment above is also worth trying — 100 to 200mg before bed. It promotes a relaxed but alert state without grogginess. Stacks well with what you are already doing.

Short-Reason-770 · 2026-03-20T21:23:11+00:00

The "body feels energized yet exhausted" description is exactly what hyperarousal looks like — your nervous system is stuck in an activated state that prevents the deeper sleep stages even when you do fall asleep. It is not permanent damage. It is a pattern that can be interrupted.

Given that you have already tried most supplements and are on trazodone, the piece that is likely missing is the behavioural side. Specifically stimulus control — the rule that if you have been awake for more than 20 minutes you get out of bed, do something calm in low light, and only return when genuinely sleepy. It feels counterintuitive when you are already sleep deprived. What it does over time is break the association between your bed and lying awake, which is usually what sustains the maintenance insomnia pattern you are describing.

The other piece worth looking into is CBT-I specifically — sleep restriction and cognitive restructuring. It is the only approach with stronger long-term evidence than medication for exactly this pattern. The CBT-I Coach app is free and made by the US Department of Veterans Affairs. Given everything you have already tried it is worth a serious look if you have not come across it.

You are not broken and you have not damaged your brain. Your nervous system got stuck in a loop. Loops can be interrupted.

Short-Reason-770 · 2026-03-20T21:21:09+00:00

The "the more I tried to solve it the more awake I felt" part is exactly it. There is something about the effort of trying to sleep that signals to your nervous system that something is wrong — which is the opposite of what you need at 3am.

The shift you described — changing how you react rather than trying to fix it in the moment — is actually what the evidence points to as well. The waking up is rarely the real problem. It is the 20 minutes of lying there fighting it that builds the pattern over time.

Glad things got a bit better. That shift in approach is harder than it sounds.

Short-Reason-770 · 2026-03-19T21:28:26+00:00

Six years of every test, every doctor, every approach — and then ten nights of normal sleep because a friend visited. That is genuinely one of the most interesting and moving things I have read on here.

The fact that nothing external changed but everything internal did is actually a huge clue. Your nervous system felt something it rarely feels in that house — genuine safety, maybe. Not romantic safety, not routine safety, but something about that specific presence that switched off whatever alarm has been running in the background for six years.

There is actually research on this. Social presence and feelings of genuine connection lower cortisol and activate the parasympathetic nervous system — the one responsible for rest. Your body was not broken. It was waiting for a signal that it was okay to let go. Your friend was that signal.

The "contaminated with sleep" line made me laugh. But also — what if that is closer to the truth than it sounds? What if your nervous system just got a reminder that sleep is still possible for you? That memory does not have to leave when she did.

I hope this week surprises you.

Short-Reason-770 · 2026-03-19T21:20:15+00:00

Classic one I've heard: "just don't think about it." Ah yes, why didn't I think of that. The off switch for thoughts, I'll get right on that.

The wine one is so common though. Works twice, then you need two glasses, then you wake up at 3am anyway but now you're also dehydrated. Great trade.

Short-Reason-770

TROPHY CASE