Being unable to fall asleep all night once in a while

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It's currently 4:38 am in Singapore and I am unable to sleep, so thought I may as well get started on the day's computer work after posting this.

As a toddler, I didn't sleep a lot. I would be playing at night when everyone else was sleeping. My parents asked the doctors about it, but they said not to worry as it was related to my brain's wiring.

After starting school my sleep pattern went back to normal, though once in a blue moon I would wake up in the middle of the night and stay awake for a long time.

On New Year's Day 2008, I was awake the whole night. That was the only instance I recall being up the whole night until I resigned from my job two years ago (I posted about it here). I didn't leave my job under harmonious circumstances, so from the weekend I was writing my resignation letter to my last day on the job (about a fortnight), I would be awake almost the whole night. After about a year, I managed to get out of my depressed state of mind, but my breathing will still become the tiniest bit in the world shallower a few times a day. It's not very serious or life-threatening, but it makes me want to change gear and do something else.

It happens almost every night before I fall asleep (unless I am very, very burnt out that particular night), so I try to deal with it by checking my social media feeds on my phone. It's contrary to the usual advice about not reading in bed or looking at bright screens before bedtime, but I feel I have to get over my shallow breathing before I can fall asleep.

For the past few months I can only fall asleep slightly past midnight most nights. Should I be particularly alarmed about this situation? Thanks.

I can soooo relate. I always needed pretty long to fall asleep, at least one hour. But in the last few months it has become worse. Partially because I moved into a louder flat. But it's not really too loud, just.. new. I had a very bad phase in November, when I could only sleep with pills, otherwise I would lie awake for ages and sleep only 2-3 hours. It's a little better, but last night I only slept 3-4 hours again. I just can't shut off my brain and relax. Right now, I'm kind of tired (it's 0:56 am here), but I still don't think I would be able to sleep now.

At the moment I usually go to bed at 1-3am. Because that's when it's at least kind of quiet. But I feel like I just don't really get tired at night any more.. and even when I'm tired, my brain will wake up again once I lie in bed and don't have anything to do.

It can be really distressing...

Yes, sleep is a real problem for me. I have had quite a few nights where I have litrally not being able to sleep at all and gone to work shattered. It is 1:15AM now but I have a feeling I will be back up again in 45 minutes or so unless I manage to drop off. I think my brain had trouble switching off and, even though I might be lying in bed wanting to sleep, my brain has other plans and works away thinking about all sorts of random things like I cant control it - only maybe steer it in the rough direction i want.

Sucks, really.

have you tried melatonin?

It's 2:48 here, and I'm wide awake. I went to sleep about 9 pm and slept for 3 hours. I've been surfing the internet since midnight, and will probably stay awake for hours yet. This is not at all unusual for me.

I've never had any kind of regular sleep pattern. According to my mother I played at night as a toddler, too. And from about age 12, I would often read through the whole night.

When I was still trying to fit in to society and follow rigid schedules I was always tired, and suffered a lot more from anxiety and depression than I do now. I also had nightmares and night terrors, being unreasonably afraid of dying in my sleep from heart failure, because the stress of a 'normal' life made my heart rate uneven and gave me strange pains and twinges. I'm so glad I don't have to live like that any more.

I still have a hard time falling asleep unless I'm absolutely exhausted, and I wake up a lot in the middle of the night and lay awake for a loooong time. More and more when this happens I just get up, go to the living-room and read or use the computer, then maybe sleep a little on the couch. Since I'm on disability pension now, I don't have to get up at a certain time in the morning, so my erratic sleeping pattern is no longer really a problem. I've begun to trust that my body knows how to demand the sleep that it needs.

@whiterat. I wouldn't worry about your situation. In fact I think not worrying about it seems the best course of action, since the worrying itself can make it even harder to sleep properly. There's something you could try though, that's easy and risk free and I've had some success with this myself. It's been proven that something so simple as keeping your head cold can make it easier to fall asleep. I read about this in Danish originally, but here's a link to an article in English that I googled: http://www.rodale.com/help-insomnia

In the Danish article they claimed that the part of your head that it is most important to cool down is your forehead, because it's mainly frontal lobe activity that causes insomnia. It sounds so simple that it seems stupid, but it's easy to do - and if it doesn't work, no harm done.