My sleep pattern is really weird, am I getting enough sleep?

Amen to the bit about sleeping pills!

I have chronic pain and nothing works for my sleep  - even sleeping pills! Some nights I don't sleep at all (I'm 13)!

I'm sorry to hear that jemstone. I'm guessing you're under medical treatment for whatever is causing all this pain. You shouldn't have to suffer like this at your age. Have you been referred to a specialist pain clinic?

I must say I'm quite surprised that a doctor would prescribe sleeping pills for someone your age.

Yep, he prescribe amitriptyline- nothing's working

Well, I'm glad to hear that. Amitriptyline isn't actually a sleeping pill, it's an antidepressant, which is often prescribed for intractable nerve pain too. It can have a slight effect in helping you to sleep, but isn't as addictive as sleeping pills.

It sounds as if you need to get re-assessed by a pain specialist. You're far too young to sink into a pattern of untreatable pain. Can you ask your parents about this?

What do you think I'm doing?

Sounds like a perfectly good night's sleep to me! Most people go into a lighter stage of sleep, with more frequent awakenings, later in the night. This pattern becomes more noticeable in adult life, which you're now approaching. You're clearly getting enough sleep. No need to worry about the occasional bad night, which is another part of the adult sleep pattern.

Your daytime tiredness and the resulting brain fog are quite normal for someone your age too. You're still growing, which uses up a lot of energy! This is particularly true if you're currently going through a growth spurt. People your age - especially boys - often go through phases of rapid growth, which can make them even more tired.

Try not to put too much attention on all this. You're doing fine.

One last thing: I feel tired mentally from the moment I wake up, but I can't really fall asleep if I take a nap. Right now, I'm not sure if it's getting worse, staying the same, or getting better, but I do know it makes me basically useless through the day.

You really are within the norms for someone your age. And as I said in an earlier post today, it could get a bit worse before it starts getting better.

Try and focus a bit more on things that interest you, and especially on activities that brighten you up a bit. Running sounds like a very good idea.

Thanks for keeping in touch the entire way, it really means a lot to me. One last question for now: if I can nap in the day, should I?

If you're talking about daytime napping on a regular basis - no, definitely not. This is the worst possible thing you could do. For one thing, it may stop you from sleeping as long in the night.

The other point you need to bear in mind is that you're at the age where you're forming the habits that will stay with you throughout your adult life. Ten years from now, you'll be at the start of your working life - even earlier if you don't go to uni. There aren't many employers who allow their workers to take an afternoon nap every day!

In any case, your tiredness and brain fog aren't really down to lack of sleep, so taking regular naps won't improve the situation.

That being said, there's no reason why you shouldn't take a very occasional afternoon nap, for example when you're going out in the evening. By "occasional", I mean once a month or so. But this shouldn't become a habit.

I'm also wondering about your habit of falling asleep with the radio on. Do you do this deliberately every night, or is it something that just happens by chance sometimes? It can be helpful if you're trying to drown out sudden shouts and screams from a neighbour's noisy party, but it's not really a good idea as a regular strategy.

My main concern is that the sound of the radio may be stopping you from falling into a deep sleep, which might also be contributing to the daytime tiredness. Could you, for example, plug it into a time switch (assuming it runs on mains power)? This would ensure it wasn't running all night. That should be the first stage towards weaning yourself off the habit permanently.

My other reason for concern is the same one I mentioned above, about lifetime habits. If you let yourself develop the habit of only being able to sleep with the radio on, this could cause problems with future room-mates or partners. Don't forget you're an adult-in-waiting! And adult life is much closer than you think, however it might seem at the moment.

And don't worry about asking too many questions.

I think I might just stop listening to the radio, as the sleep patterns were the same last night with it on throughout the night. Thanks for the info on naps, though.

The main reason I'm concerned about my sleep pattern is that I sleep a total of about 7 to 8 hours, but it seems as if I may have 6 sleep cycles in total (or not). Because sleep cycles are apparently usually around 90-110 minutes long, it would seem as if I first wake up after my third, then wake up progressively at the end of every other sleep cycle, though that would make 6. Also, one hour is quite a bit less than 60 minutes, and I've also heard that the last chunk of the last few sleep cycles is usually REM sleep, where the brain stores memories. I feel like I may be waking up right as I get into that stage sometimes, as I sometimes wake up in a dream. I think I'm getting enough stage 3/4 deep sleep, but I'd like to hear your thoughts, as you are much more qualified to assess this.

Note: my anxiety and slight depression is mostly gone now, and I can concentrate much better (I can now watch a TV show or anime and be dragged into the story, unlike before) until about 7:30, where I get more tired.

Well, things are obviously improving, aren't they, if you feel less anxious and depressed?

Don't over-analyse the length/number of your sleep cycles. The figures given in books and on websites are only averages. There can be wide variations in individuals, especially when going through periods of extreme physical and mental change, like puberty.

Anxiety in itself will also affect your sleep cycles, so try to avoid getting into a vicious circle where you get increasingly anxious, which then disrupts your sleep further. You're clearly coming through this minor blip very well.

It's been a few days, and my sleep is still like this. I can get 7.5-8 hours of sleep, but I still feel really tired throughout the day, and it isn't improving. In fact, it might be getting worse. My short-term memory is pretty terrible now, as well, and I'm pretty sure at this point that I'm sleep deprived.

This really is enough sleep. However, if you're worried about yourself you need to ask your parents if you can go back to the doctor. The help you can get on a forum like this is very limited.

I'm 19 and I experienced similar issues.  One night I kept waking up every 2 hours and I guess I got a little anxious about sleep.  The next night I was trying to focus on sleeping and since I couldn't, I got aanxiety attack.  Ever since, my sleep has been awful.  Is this supposed to be normal for my age as well?  I'm waiting on blood tests ATM as well.  Thanks.  

Not really. It sounds more like sleep anxiety. It's good that you're getting a medical check-up to make sure there's no underlying illness, but when dealing with sleep anxiety I'm afraid you basically have to get a handle on it yourself. Either that or spend the next few years on increasing doses of sleeping pills till none of them work any more and there are no further options.

A few years ago, a poster calling himself bemmeh wrote an excellent post about sleep anxiety, which I think really covers everything. I too had sleep anxiety for most of my life, and only wish I could have read something like this when it all started, in my mid-20s.

He gave me permission to quote him whenever necessary, so here goes.

Partial quote from bemmeh:

"...The moment I stopped struggling against insomnia it simply started going away, though not suddenly. It took quite a while. But the improvement was real from the start. Insomnia is not a thing in itself. The ability to sleep is so strong among us, humans or animals in general, that it is almost impossible to seriously alter it. Insomnia in us humans appears when we TRY (and therefore struggle) to sleep. You just need to stop doing all the things you are doing FOR sleeping and let your body and mind do whatever they want - if you sleep it's OK but if you don't, that's OK too (everybody has bad sleep for all kinds of reasons once in a while). When sleep time comes just go to bed, close your eyes, and rest. Don't TRY to sleep, as you are used to do. Just rest! If sleep comes that's OK, if it doesn't that's OK too, you haven't been very successful in getting the amount and quality of sleep you have desired anyway - that's why you call yourself an insomniac. So why keep on trying/desiring? Just let it go. Accept your reality and move on to the things in life you can control over. Sleep is not something we can control. You just need to trust your body and mind for it and stop trying to do anything whatsoever for it. Good luck!"

End quote.

This is all I can offer you, but I think it's excellent advice.

I have anxiety symptoms at night.   Should I just try to accept them and focus on resting (not sleeping)?  Or is the whole point of not worrying about sleeping supposed to ease my anxiety?  

I did something similar last night.   I just tried to focus on doing nothing rather than trying to sleep.  I managed to get 7-8 hours of sleep total though not more than 2-4 hrs at a time.  

Have you tried the advice as well?  If so, I'm resting, do you consciously realize you're about to sleep?  It seemed to me last night for the first two hours of sleep like I didn't sleep at all.   I thought I merely hallucinated some memories and images and somehow two hours went by.   

And in the long term, once you recover from this, do you still worry about not getting sleep sometimes?  I fear that I'll worry about it and it'll happen again.  

In answer to your first paragraph - yes, that is indeed what bemmeh seems to suggest.

Don't worry about not getting solid sleep, that's not important. Everyone wakes to some extent after each sleep cycle (usually lasting around 1.5 hours) but some people wake completely. If you put the people who say they never wake up in the night in the sleep lab, they'll display signs of waking for a very short time after each sleep cycle, but they won't remember this in the morning. I've woken fully several times a night since my teens and it hasn't done me any harm. (I'm 74 now.)

No, I didn't need to try the advice myself, as I'd already retired from paid employment when I first saw this post. Retirement brought about a huge improvement in my ability to fall asleep, although I still do a busy voluntary job. I'm afraid that says something about "the rat race" of working life.

And finally - in my personal experience anyway - the fear of not being able to sleep never completely goes away. Even now I get nervous on the eve of a journey or a big presentation at work. But you eventually realise it's not doing you any harm, even if you often feel tired, and you learn to work around it.

And don't forget new parents. They often go through several years of seriously interrupted sleep, but they survive!

The important thing is not to put too much attention on all this, hard as it can be. Once you accept that you're probably always going to be a slightly nervous sleeper, and that this isn't doing you any harm, things will eventually start to get better. But you'll have to be patient, it's not going to happen overnight.

I see, thanks for all the input.  I'll do my best.  

One last thing.  How would you say your overall quality of life is.  Are bouts of insomnia something like the occasional stomach ache to you?  Have you gotten used to it to the point where it doesn't really bother you as much? 

Well, quality of life is subjective and dependent on so many factors. I formed a number of relationships with men, but none lasted longer than 10 months, and I never had children. But that might have been down to a bizarre and difficult childhood - not that that matters 70 years on.

I qualified as a nurse and worked in the profession for 10 years, including three years in the Army, of which I spent two years in the Far East. I've travelled on most continents of the northern hemisphere, and settled in a foreign country, where I had to learn a new language, in my early 30s. I continued to travel widely in Europe after that, and formed a wide circle of friends and interests.

I always earned my own living, with the result that I now have reasonable savings with which to eke out my pension and continue my travels in Europe. I have a fulfilling voluntary job in a mental health centre, and still quite a few friends in two countries, though some have inevitably died. Fortunately I appear still to have most of my marbles, though I've always been a bit absent-minded - an inevitable consequence of poor sleep.

I hope that answers your questions on quality of life. We're all different, and we all have to accept what we're given and make the best of it. If we don't make the best of it we only have ourselves to blame for the consequences.

I wish you a happy life, however it pans out.

Everything was generally improving until the last two nights, where I got 6 hours of sleep each night. I then discovered fatal insomnia, and though I try to convince myself I don't have it and it's just anxiety, I can't stop thinking about it. Also, the fact that I feel generally terrible during the day with increased brain fog adds fuel to the anxiety fire. Heat was a pretty big factor, as it was quite a bit hotter than usual, but last night, we turned on the AC at around midnight, but I still didn't fall asleep until around 2:30 AM.

On another note, I have a digital clock with green numbers, and there is a nightlight that appears to be a colder shade of white (more blue). I've heard that shorter wavelengths of light (like green and blue) can stop the production of melatonin naturally. Do you think these could be a factor in why I don't sleep too well (when I don't fall asleep, I take lots of bathroom trips)?

My anxiety has gotten a lot worse after I discovered the fatal insomnia disease, though I know I don't have it (I probably wouldn't be able to type this out, even). Now, I have constant nervous stomach butterflies.

Finally, as for getting to sleep, when I lie down, my neck is quite stiff, and I feel like I'm tensing my arm and neck muscles when I'm not. Also, if you have the time, do you think https://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2013/07/how-to-fall-asleep-in-less-than-30-seconds/ would work? I've checked the credibility of the author, and they seem pretty trustworthy.

Note: I have another reply awaiting moderation right now that has many more important details.

I can't seem to write a suitable Google query for this situation, so here's what's been happening. When I lie on my bed to sleep, generally, before actually falling asleep, I lose awareness, then suddenly regain it again right when I'm about to fall into sleep. This happens many times before I actually fall asleep, and it's quite frustrating. Is there a way to just surrender yourself to sleep?

Also, this happened regularly before. In fact, usually, I'd just lie in any random comfortable position, wait for the loss of awareness, then wake myself up and put myself into a good sleep position, then fall asleep.

I had the same issue.  I found that the more you worry about it, the more likely it would happen.  I try to not focus on sleeping, as weird as that sounds.   I just lay there with my eyes closed and try to daydream or listen to ambient sounds until I eventually pass out.  When that happens, I don't even have the chance to notice that I'm falling sleep,  though this may take a while to happen.   If I ever do notice, I just shake it off and go back to essentially doing nothing until I finally knock out.  Again, this could take a little while. 

My issue now is that I keep waking up every few hours.  But even then I just do the same thing and I'll just fall back asleep.  I suspect that all these issues, for me anyways,  may be caused by any lingering anxieties I have about getting good sleep.  In which case, I think the key to getting better sleep is to just not worry about whatever happens,  whether that means getting good sleep, bad sleep, or even no sleep. 

Good luck.  

I feel like I'm going through kind of the same thing as you did, except with a touch of brain fog added to the mix. For the past 3 nights, my waking times have changed to what would logically be the end of 90-minute sleep cycles, and I feel very slightly more energetic with each passing day (though apparently I've fallen asleep in less than a minute in the car recently).

I think experiencing sleep anxiety for the first time is kind of like those "once you see it you can't unsee it" pictures. Once it happens, it never really goes away, but everything ends up pretty much OK. Normally, I do wake up in the night once or twice, usually once, but I kind of wish I didn't.

Also, I've found that having the radio on (very quietly; the AC's ambient noise makes the radio pretty much inaudible) helps me get to sleep, as when I lose awareness, I apparently breathe a lot louder (nose isn't the most clear sometimes) which could have caused me to wake up.

One piece of probably important information is that I do snore. I fall asleep on my side now, though, so I snore a lot less (but I toss and turn in bed, which occaisionally lands me on my back, where I snore). I use an app called Sleep as Android to record this. It also recorded me coughing at 1:00AM last night, where I don't even remember waking up.

More than two months have passed by now. Brain fog might be a bit better, I think it probably is.

Something of note, though, is that my vision feels not right for some reason, and my eyes feel more strained when moving from object to object. I feel like this is probably because of my extremely high computer usage every day, as it has been increasing from about two weeks ago.

Another thing is that I've had two epiphanies that have basically resolved most irrational fears I have had and will ever have.

The real reason why I'm posting right now, however, is because just around two hours ago (I think), breathing deeply has started causing pain, quite like when running. Along with that, as my vision has become more weird, I've also been slightly less balanced when walking, though that is probably also just computer usage stuff. Finally, yesterday, from noon, I had an increasing migraine-ish headache on the right side. I used to have them a few times a month, so it isn't too bad for me (still pretty not great, though). Today, it seemed to try and come back, but it always just disappeared.

Also, about a week ago, I realized that I could distinctly feel two swollen balls near the left of my chin, probably lymph nodes. They've gotten smaller and hurt less when I push them in the last few days, which also happens to be when I've felt the best. Now, they've swollen up again, and I also feel generally worse.

Any idea what this could be? I have a feeling painful deep breathing isn't a normal part of growing up.

Side note: I did a blood test at request by my mom, everything seems to be fine (honestly I wish it was just a simple nutritional deficiency).