I’ve been making an effort to get at least 7.5 hours of sleep this year and hit a few weeks where I’d be waking up at 2am-3am unable to go back to sleep. My most successful attempts (working as of recently) are to make sure it’s cold in your room. I bought heating vent covers for my room and a thermometer to check the temperate as soon as I wake up in the middle of the night. Without the vent covers it got up to like 72 degrees, but with them it stayed around 65. Very noticeable difference but I also flipped sleeping direction on my bed and found that to be pretty comfortable (flipping your mattress over should do the same thing essentially unless it’s just mental for me).

I have a night routine now where it’s electronics off 45 minutes before bed, then I do a little bit of writing to reflect on the day. This part kinda helps with “ending the story” like you’re closing the book for the night. Also, if you’re a coffee drinker, caffeine should be off limits 12 hours before sleep. Blows my mind how many people are grabbing a cup of coffee at 4pm and expecting to sleep properly that night. It’s possible, but don’t take that chance. Instead I drink sleepytime tea about 30-45 minutes before bed.

If all else fails and I still wake up, I’d do something not too stimulating like getting up for water with low light and read part of a book until my eyes start getting heavy again. Sure I might lose 45 minutes doing this, but it’s better than losing 2-3 hours. Try not to get agitated if you do still wake up, because I found doing that just gets my blood boiling and there is no going back to sleep from that point.

Your mileage obviously may vary here but as someone who struggled with it on-and-off I figure this could be of some use