Question: I’ve routinely spent 1-3 hours a night trying to fall asleep for pretty much 90% of my nights for the past 4 years or so. I’m in my second year of university now and this problem wasn’t that big of a bother during high school because my parents would make sure i was up every morning and out of the house, and plus back then i just felt like i could get by a lot better on little sleep.
But once i got into university, I was 18, it got a lot harder to survive on like 4 hours sleep and i started sleeping through my alarm clock, waking up and falling back asleep, and missing tons of early morning classes.I scheduled an appointment with a doctor at my school last week to try and get sleeping pills or something but i slept in and missed it. I’ve also been pretty uniformly depressed for pretty much the entirety of the last like 6 years but i couldn’t say if that has anything to do with dsps.Kevin: Hey Austin, thanks for writing in. I feel ya, and I’m sure a lot of others can relate to your situation as well. I’m glad you’ve at least been able to identify it now.The next steps are to see if you can structure your life and your circadian rhythms so that 1) your responsibilities and sleep times don’t overlap, and 2) you are fulfilling your body’s sleep need. I think if you can achieve this, you’ll be surprised at how much it lifts you out of depression as well. Your motivation and mood will likely be completely different.Good luck!Kevin(Please keep in mind that I am a student of sleep science and not a medical doctor. Please take any thoughts I give with my background in mind.)