How many of us have sleeping problems?

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Yeah, I've had trouble sleeping since I was in HS. Before that, I don't really remember. But, in HS, I used to stay up really late making crafts or watching TV shows and my mom would always come in and tell me to go to bed. But I wasn't tired. I find it hard to go to bed when there are so many things I'd like to cram into a day.

Then, even when I DO get tired, I go to bed and lay there thinking about stuff for hours on end. All of these random thoughts come in then branch off into other unrelated thoughts.

Besides these issues I need for my room to be cold, for blackout curtains to be up, and for me to have at least 2 blankets and an eyemask on.

I have had periods of insomnia for at least the past 10 years. Lately it has been quite bad I hardly get any sleep at all

I'm OK with my sleep routine. I like going to sleep. It's the only way to get me away from reality and the constant pressure of life, for a few hours. I usually get into bed anywhere between 10.30 and 11.30 (sometimes earlier), and I watch a DVD or video then I turn it off and go to sleep, which is usually by 12 o'clock. Then I normally wake up anywhere between 8.30 and 10.30.

Am I the only Aspie here who has a normal sleep routine?

Takes me ages to sleep...although I fear sleeping now through mental stress I seem to get these days.

I used to sleep normally when I was younger though.

I remember being, say, 4-5 years old, not able to get to sleep, awake after midnight in my room, looking out the window at the stars, wondering why I couldn't get to sleep.

Yes, a lot of it is "don't want to miss anything".

I also think I just have a weird circadian rhythm. In grad school, if I didn't have morning classes, I kind of drifted into a schedule where I did my best homework/studying between 0000 and 0400, and slept from 0400 to 1200.

Since I have to function in the "real world" (damn morning people, who put them in charge?), I take 50 mg Trazodone at night. I can fall asleep about an hour later.

I had tried melatonin, but it wasn't enough. Trazodone is "officially" an anti-depressant (and yes, I suffer from clinical depression; I currently also take 40 mg Lexapro at night), but it also has this really handy somnolent side effect.

I've had sleep problems for as long as I can remember. I can't fall asleep easily, even when I'm exhausted, because my mind is racing and I can't get it to quiet down. I have difficulty staying asleep, sometimes waking up every hour or two. And I don't like getting out of bed. I've laid in bed for over an hour, fully awake, just not wanting to get up. I've also hit the snooze button every 9 minutes for over 2 hours on several occasions. I usually function better going to bed late night/early morning (2-3am) and then getting up late morning/early afternoon (11am-1pm). Unfortunately my normal weekly schedule doesn't match, and I often feel like "bleh" because of it. Sometimes I spend most of the weekend in bed. I tried quitting caffeine and processed sugars for 2 months...it didn't help.

I have chronic fatigue thus need a stupid amount of sleep. Like I can sleep 12 hours and still be tired. Am also nocturnal.

I've always had difficulty sleeping. Because of it I've ended up chatting with people in various timezones, they always wonder what the heck I do for a living that I'm up all hours of the night. Truth is I just can't fall asleep easily at night and all the folk remedies (does warm milk really work for anyone? I mean for something other than giving them stomach cramps?) and drugs in the world don't seem to help. I don't feel sleepy until as it's approaching dawn, so I plan around that, I've tried fighting it but it's just how my natural clock wants to run. I have tried pretty much everything. Melatonin has been the only thing that's really helped. I also have a sleep play list on my ipod that I sometimes use if there's a lot of noise outside.

For me it's that my mind won't turn off. I can focus to turn it off, but it only turns off while I focus. And it's hard to focus yourself into sleep, at some point the body goes "ok, relaxing time", concentration turns off and my brain goes "AH HAH! I'm out! Ok, so the thing about that movie that I thought was reallly interesting.." and the part that was focusing on turning the mind off gives my body a classic sit-com 'this is your fault, you deal with it' look and and we start from scratch. I've tried meditation, it didn't work either. I just can't keep my grasp on anything that involves relaxing or focusing without focusing on it really intensely. My mind just won't stop and be still. Unless it's driving or running through mazes - both times which tend to be not so good times to fall asleep.

With melatonin, heavy drapes, the sleep play list and just accepting that I want to sleep on mornings I've done much better. I very rarely get so sleepless now that I start seeing bugs everywhere. Y'know, when you've been up for so long small shapes feel like they're moving and you keep thinking "is that a bug crawling?" even though you know it's just a piece of lint or an inkblot and it didn't move.

I've had insomnia as long as i can remember, in fact its 6:00am here and i don't feel tired at all.

It's 4:30am here and I'm obviously not sleeping. But I'll do it very soon. It usually takes me an hour to fall asleep, too. Luckily I don't have to get up early for any reason tomorrow. My brain can never shut down so I have to keep thinking about stuff. To be able to fall asleep I have to think about boring stuff that are hard to figure out until my brain's tired. i.e. trying to count all my socks, or all my sweaters in my head. Trying to recite some lines from some books.

Melatonin is OK but it tends to wear out in a few hours for me. I've been using Alteril with better success ... it's a combination of L-tryptophan, melatonin and valerian.

Of course, the good thing about having difficulty sleeping is that is makes working the night shift much easier. Been up for 24 hours; gonna try bed now.

I used to take ages getting asleep when I was a child aged between 11 and 15 (the puberty ages). I used to lie awake playing miming games in my head, like pretending I was someone talking to someone else, and going through shenanigans, and reacting to them - except I was just laying there imagining it and miming it. I sort of grew out of this when I was about 18 (thank god!), and now I get to sleep much easier.

I have a normal sleep schedule in-so-far as I like going to bed at night and usually do so around the times you mentioned (10:30-11:30). I need a lot of sleep at night to function and not be a complete zombie (8-9 hours is great). I feel sick if I don't sleep enough and it's enough to ruin my day. I don't know how people get by on less sleep... my dad only needs like 5 hours.

Unlike most Aspies, I am asleep soon after my head hits the pillow. I don't think it's narcolepsy, but it may be similar. In highschool I had some problems with nighttime insomnia, but after learning how to clear my mind, that improved. It's sometimes a conscious effort, though.

The sleep problems that I tend to have are that I'm very light/sound/touch sensitive, so small things can keep me awake. This morning there was a dove in the neighborhood and I was so busy focusing on it that I couldn't sleep after about 6. So yeah, early morning waking is a problem. I also used to get up in the middle of the night to eat a snack. I don't do that anymore because it was leading to weight gain, but I still wake up hungry most of the time. I never skip breakfast for that reason.

Me. I sleep too much and have a constant tiredness and lethargy. I've had it for a couple of years now and can't work out what it possibly might be. I never, ever feel refreshed after a long night's sleep.

It's not diabetes or an underactive thyroid either. I went earlier this week to go and have a cache of blood tests done to try and find out what it might be but, so far, nothing. Otherwise I'm in very good health.

I can't remember the last time I had a good, solid 8 hours sleep. I wake up about 3-4 times a night in a 7 hour period. From the time I get into bed until the time I fall asleep it typically takes about 2 hours. Alcohol puts me to sleep and keeps me that way, but I wake up feeling as if I hadn't slept at all. I can be dead tired but as soon as the lights go out and my head hits the pillow my mind starts racing and then I'm wide awake again.

I used to have sleeping difficulties (in that I could never sleep very well or I overslept). I wonder if I still have them now though as I always seem to feel tired, and yet I am perfectly healthy according to my doctor.