Weird mental focus issue waking me up at night

[Tymon]

Bear with me, this is really hard to explain because I have no idea how to correctly describe it.

Basically every couple days, not usually two days in a row, at around between 5:45 and 6:30 AM, I will wake up.

It's never before, never after.

What happens is, it feels like my brain is thinking about a million different things at once, and if I try to relax or think about nothing in particular, common ways for me to fall back asleep, it will jolt me back awake. It feels like it's demanding me to keep my eyes open and look straight forward.

If I try to close my eyes, or look in a different direction, it'll bug me constantly.

I can usually make it go away temporarily by watching TV or sitting up, with my eyes open. But it will usually come back afterwards, until around 6:30-6:45 AM, after which it will promptly go away again and I can resume my sleep.

This is ridiculously annoying. It's only happened to me like 6 times, and only in the last two weeks.

Any idea what this might be?

I've tried cutting down on caffeine, sugar, tried staying up 24 hours so I'm absolutely exhausted, and going to bed when not tired. Nothing really helped.

I should add that this never occurs when I'm awake during the day. I would notice for sure if it did; it's a very annoying feeling.. like you have to be staring directly ahead and never blink. It's not panic, or anxiety.. just annoying.

I know this is a really weird, vague description, so I'll try my best to answer any questions anyone might have about what I'm talking about.

[Haiko]

Smoke some canibus it cures everything lol

[Myrrh_Quetz]

Have noise playing in the backround. Television works for me. I've needed it to sleep since I was ten. Just make sure its something youve seen numerous times and enjoy. I find doctor who, dirty jobs, or community works for me.

Also make sure you dont set your tv to autosleep. Just stating that since I didnt see it in your post

[Heavencloud]

How old are you?

[Tymon]

Have noise playing in the backround. Television works for me. I've needed it to sleep since I was ten. Just make sure its something youve seen numerous times and enjoy. I find doctor who, dirty jobs, or community works for me.

Also make sure you dont set your tv to autosleep. Just stating that since I didnt see it in your post

That's a thought. I'll have to turn the brightness on it way down though, not hard.

I actually used to do this before I moved, when I had a shitty 10'' CRT TV. Then I moved, and got a huge flatscreen that was annoying to leave on overnight.

How old are you?

I turn 21 in a couple months.

[finalwolf]

use a fan or rock tumbler for slight noise if you need it.
I used to use a fan, then my gf threw a hissy fit how she was always cold. Luckily she had a rock tumbler. I have my noise when I sleep and polished stones when I wake up.

[Tajin]

5:45 to 6:30 am is hardly night unless you live in idk, Finland or something, tried having a light dinner? or no dinner at all.

A glass of water/milk will usually help me sleep when I wake up in the middle of night.

[Tajin]

There are internet stations that will transmit white noise, no need to use tv, think there's also a few phone apps.

[Tymon]

I guess I'm going to experiment with white noise tonight.

I'll be posting in here tomorrow if it doesn't work, that's for sure.

And for someone who's job/class schedule allows for a 1am - 10~11am sleep schedule, 5:45 is absolutely the middle of the night.

[BaneTheBrawler]

The idea of sleeping all the way through the night and being busy all day is actually fairly modern. Back in the day it was common for most people to go to bed a few hours after sundown, wake up around midnight, sex/eat/etc for an hour or two, then go back to sleep. It's where the term Midnight Snack comes from. Same with Tea Time (and Afternoon Delight), actually. People frequently took naps/tea/etc just after lunch, like a siesta.

Try going to bed earlier, then when you wake up read a book or something until you get sleepy again.

[Pirian]

Are you stressed out?

I experience something that sounds very eerily similar, and have since I was 14 or so. It doesn't usually happen as often as you have described, but I didn't link it to extremely high stress until last year, so I did have weeks when it would happen 4-5 nights in a row. What I experience is a little different, in that the entire experience is accompanied by a shot of adrenalin, but it took a while for me to figure out that is what was happening, so I wouldn't be surprised if you experience the same thing. I also don't recall having problems looking in other directions, but the experience usually makes me get up, and I try and distract my unfocused mind by making tea and walking around (doesn't really work that well). Watching TV works relatively well for me, too.

Essentially, I'll wake up and my heart rate will be greatly elevated, and my mind will be racing, but the thoughts are not very linear. It happens during the same time frame as you (4-6 hours after falling asleep). It usually takes anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour for the whole thing to subside, and I normally have absolutely no trouble going right back to sleep afterwards. I don't abstain from caffeine, and my processed sugar intake is very low (this wasn't the case when it first started around 14).

[Tymon]

Are you stressed out?

I experience something that sounds very eerily similar, and have since I was 14 or so. It doesn't usually happen as often as you have described, but I didn't link it to extremely high stress until last year, so I did have weeks when it would happen 4-5 nights in a row. What I experience is a little different, in that the entire experience is accompanied by a shot of adrenalin, but it took a while for me to figure out that is what was happening, so I wouldn't be surprised if you experience the same thing. I also don't recall having problems looking in other directions, but the experience usually makes me get up, and I try and distract my unfocused mind by making tea and walking around (doesn't really work that well). Watching TV works relatively well for me, too.

Essentially, I'll wake up and my heart rate will be greatly elevated, and my mind will be racing, but the thoughts are not very linear. It happens during the same time frame as you (4-6 hours after falling asleep). It usually takes anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour for the whole thing to subside, and I normally have absolutely no trouble going right back to sleep afterwards. I don't abstain from caffeine, and my processed sugar intake is very low (this wasn't the case when it first started around 14).

This sounds really close, because my heart rate is usually elevated too.

I'm not stressed that I can think of. Probably the opposite. I was way more stressed until a couple months ago, when I finally got a lot of stuff sorted out and now I'm kind of on autopilot for the first time in like 5 years.

There's another weird, small detail about it that I noticed last night.

You know how you can unfocus your eyes to the point of being unable to see almost anything? Well, if I do that, and look straight ahead, it stops.

I doubt this is relevant to anything. It's just me trying out weird small things to see what might make it go away. I was trying all kinds of different things, even holding my eyelids closed at times.

[Skjie]

Cocaine.

[Pirian]

It does sometimes happen to me out of the blue, but these instances only account to 1-4 times in a year. The rest have been centered around stress. The actual situations do not stress me out. I am very INTP, and this essentially means that I go over and over and over and over situations, and my mind is always thinking about and trying to break them down to look for the motivations and reasoning of all parties (including my own). So, it's not the situations that stress me, it's sometimes the weeks afterwards when it seems my mind snaps and I wake up at 5am

[Kaylia]

Bear with me, this is really hard to explain because I have no idea how to correctly describe it.

Basically every couple days, not usually two days in a row, at around between 5:45 and 6:30 AM, I will wake up.

It's never before, never after.

What happens is, it feels like my brain is thinking about a million different things at once, and if I try to relax or think about nothing in particular, common ways for me to fall back asleep, it will jolt me back awake. It feels like it's demanding me to keep my eyes open and look straight forward.

If I try to close my eyes, or look in a different direction, it'll bug me constantly.

I can usually make it go away temporarily by watching TV or sitting up, with my eyes open. But it will usually come back afterwards, until around 6:30-6:45 AM, after which it will promptly go away again and I can resume my sleep.

This is ridiculously annoying. It's only happened to me like 6 times, and only in the last two weeks.

Any idea what this might be?

I've tried cutting down on caffeine, sugar, tried staying up 24 hours so I'm absolutely exhausted, and going to bed when not tired. Nothing really helped.

I should add that this never occurs when I'm awake during the day. I would notice for sure if it did; it's a very annoying feeling.. like you have to be staring directly ahead and never blink. It's not panic, or anxiety.. just annoying.

I know this is a really weird, vague description, so I'll try my best to answer any questions anyone might have about what I'm talking about.

Something similar happen to me almost every night, except that it start right before I fall asleep, and last many hours. Even when I'm incredibly tired like yesterday (22 hours up, less than 15 hours of sleep in 5 days), I will remain wide awake for a long time. It also happened a few time in the morning, but it's not as common.


Anyway, the culprit is most likely stress, mixed with an unhealthy lifestyle (not enough exercise, shitty sleep schedule, terrible food habit). It's the obvious answer, but it's the same for pretty much everyone with sleep related trouble.

[Surealistic]

aliens

Cue "its aliens guy".jpg

[Guitarman]

@Pirian and OP:

It's a panic attack. nothing more. I get them, a few members of my family get them. Side effect of our modern, stress-filled lives. How it affects you is different; for me i'll get a tightening in my chest, my pulse rate accelerates, and i feel a bit cold. For you two, you experience it as you described.

Take time out each day to relax and focus on your stress and managing it. Meditation truly does work, and alot of research is coming out showing a slew of medical benefits it has on our bodies.

[MarkM.]

Could try melatonin,

[Psion]

It's possible you have a natural alarm clock and are accidentally using it. Sometimes your brain gets stuck in a loop with something, when you do something, the memory gets stuck in your brain, and then you wind up causing it to happen more often because you're paying attention to it.

In this case, you might have woken up the first time around 6 AM, maybe noticed your heart was beating fast and stuff (this is actually normal when you wake up, your body basically dumps adrenaline and the like when you wake up to give your body a kickstart, though if you wake up in the middle of (non?)-REM sleep, your brain takes a while to fully wake up with the rest of your body. And since adrenaline lingers for a while, it can take some time to relax enough to fall back to sleep. And possibly, you then got stressed over it, and the stress of waking up at such an ungodly hour inadvertently set your brain to wake up at that time, because of the stress of waking up at that time of morning.

Of course, that's a lot of possiblys, but that's what it kind of seems like to me. I know I'm able to set my body to wake up at a certain time, and i generally will wake up at that time, unless I'm incredibly mentally fatigued from an all nighter studying or the like. Even then it often works, i just go out cold right after doing so. :D My mental alarm clock also seems to apply to telling time without a clock as well, since even without seeing any light from outside i can guess the time of day or night within 15 minutes or so, except for a while after daylights savings. Then it's an hour and 15 minutes off. XD It probably came from never wearing a watch, and being too embarrassed to ask people what time of day it was.

Anyways, I wouldn't worry too much about it. (i know, i know, telling you not to worry makes you worry more, etc. just look at the situation as humorous and give yourself a good laugh. then laugh at how ridiculous you look laughing. works wonders.) If you want, you could also plan a time you DO want to wake up at, and try to focus on waking up at that time instead. you might wind up mastering a new handy skill.

[Serif]

Could be a sleep disorder and just going to a sleep Doctor could help you understand. I went in when I was waking up 6-10 times a night. I am pretty sure you are not the same as me but what could it hurt actually seeing a credible sleep Doctor?

I went in and I was diagnosed with sleep apnea, on a CPAP now for the rest of my life. Best thing I ever did, now I have energy throughout the whole day and never really get tired. Was constantly tired and I am only 27.