Anyone else wake at 3am and start overthinking?

I've trained my brain to allow 10 to 20 minutes in the morning, you can choose any time, but it must be day time to worry about anything and everything. If I wake in the night or start worrying just as I get into bed I say to myself no this isn't my worry time I can only use my day time slot. It took me some weeks but it really helps.. Brain training they call it. I also use winding down strategies in the evening, a bath is good for me. You find your own thing. I also take a magnesium tablet in the evening...I think it helps me. If I do wake usually about 4 am it's cos I need a pee! If at anytime I start worrying I' tell myself STOP you can worry in the morning for 10 minutes or so. I've somehow accepted it as it was driving me nuts. So your still allowing yourself to worry but you're controlling when.

I have always had this. I have audible...or podcasts .. or in the old days tapes or cds with stories on. I now have a snoozeband so when i wake up can have something not too demanding....(often stories of Henry 8th), and just listen to these. I actually use this to get to sleeo anyway and its a bit of a pavlovian response gor me...put on a story and i am off.

Waking at 3am and eating chocolate. Anyone……?

I listen to audiobooks on my phone, with an ear bud in just one ear. I also wear an eye mask, which doesn’t allow any light in. I usually wake up in the night several chapters further on and have to find my way back to the last things I heard. I carry on listening, so no worrying thoughts, and usually fall asleep again for several hours. I’ve been doing this for years, and always sleep well.

And the same I can’t get to sleep and then I fall asleep and then I wake up wide-awake start worrying about stuff so in the past I’ve got up and started mopping the floor.
Once I’ve been through downstairs with the mop and I get back in bed and try to sleep.
It does work for me. Takes my mind off stuff.

I think of a three letter word and then starting with the first letter I think of things starting with that letter and visualise it. I've never managed to get to the second letter yet.

I think most people have this 'three in the morning' problem, talking of which, don't problems seem scary at that time? I find listening to BBC Sounds on my phone works (with an earpiece so it doesn't wake up my other half), or similarly go online to BBC Radio4 or Radio 4 Extra Daily Schedules, where you'll find their weekly lists of programmes. I can guarantee once you start listening to a programme you really want to hear (last night for me it was Donald Sinden in a very good play called 'The Final Twist' on R4Extra), I bet you drift off to sleep within 10 minutes in spite of wanting to listen. (No worries, you can always re-listen). This ALWAYS happens to me! Guess Dr. Freud would have something to say about my never hearing all of the programme I want to, but hey, if it works . . .
I finished listening to 'The Final Twist' at 6:30 this morning because that's when I woke up.

Down side I wake up at 3am, wash, dress, coffee then get to work for 4am. Plus side, it's only for three mornings or 4 every other week. One day I will give it up

As someone with very long sleeping problems, always hated taking any sort of tablets (even half tablet at night during difficult times), I read about a new well tested medication called Quiviviq that might help, but without the ghastly 'next day effects of the old-fashioned sleeping pill'. Our surgery didn't know about it (and I know that one or two doctors are insomniacs), so learning more, am taking half pill the evening before a difficult day ahead. I am able to sleep for at least seven hours without stirring. My work requires full attention, so at least I am not thrashing about at 2/3am the night before. Check with your surgery.

I wake up sometimes at 3-4 am then go downstairs read my book and have de caf tea by the Aga for a while then go back to bed and sleep . When I did night duties for 12.5 yrs that was exactly the time I most wanted to sleep but couldn’t of course .

I read somewhere recently that we used to have two sleeps. Bed when the sun set, then up again about 11pm or later, having a snack, doing some jobs, seeing to the animals for example. Then sleep til sunup. Are we actually fighting against our ancient body clock?

If I wake in the night I find myself puzzling over the oddest things. The other night I lay awake for ages trying to remember who it was who got so drunk he ended up in hospital with alcohol poisoning at a teenage party when I was 16, I'm almost 78 now. Weird.

Yip, sounds familiar!

I take magnesium and glycinate an hour before bed; drink hot milk, honey, turmeric and ginger before bed. It helps me to sleep.

Judging from the lights on in the houses round me there are lots of people awake at 3 am. Sometimes I do my ironing.

I've been listening to bedtime stories on my phone every night. I don't wear headphones but I sleep alone so it doesn't disturb anyone. I use Insight Timer which is a paid app. Audible is OK but the great thing about the Insight Timer stories is that they stop at the end of an individual story, rather than carrying on through a whole book which you'd not know where you'd got up to when you fell asleep. I enjoy the Sherlock Holmes stories read by Amadeus Astefanesei. He has a very soothing voice. I don't think I'd like the female voices. Occasionally, if I'm very stressed or worried, I get to the end of a story (none of them is longer than an hour). Usually, I drop off about five minutes in! I listen to the same ones over and over. If I wake in the early hours, I just set Amadeus going again.

I listen to favourite TV or radio programmes, preferably with a cast of softly spoken people. I listen to QI episodes and usually miss the last 20 minutes as I have fallen asleep!

MOnica I do the same. Would be lost without my kindle. Gets me to drop off every time.

Check your blood sugar levels
whenever I wake it’s because I have low blood sugar.
It’s worth checking out.
I now have a little snack before bed and all is good.
I am not diabetic but get low blood sugar at night until I started bedtime snack usually 2 small crackers and a slice of ham or a little cheese I think it needs to be a little carb and protein

Stillness, I have read just that! Apparently Pepys wrote about it in his diaries and there is other evidence. It was supposed to be the industrial revolution that pushed us into shorter sleep cycles of about 8 hours without the break in the middle. 🤔

I make up stories, maybe I should write them down.
After a few sleepless nights I take 1/2 of a Boots 2 a night sleeping pill.

Apparently many years ago, people commonly had two sleeps of equal length and got up in between to do things so it’s not as crazy perhaps as it sounds!

I often cannot fall asleep, so I do deep breathing exercises.

Breath in for count of four, hold for count of four and long breath out for count of four.

Really concentrate on the breath distracts the mind.
I have to do this quite a few times and usually it relaxes me enough to eventually drop of to sleep.

I find switching on lights of any description wakes me up so tend to lie in darkness doing my breathing.

Have tried magnesium for several weeks but it hasn't helped. If I'm desperate for an unbroken night, I take a Phenergan tablet, which works, but gives me a bit of a thick head next morning.

Yep. No tips sorry