Why does my sleep become worse as I age?
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Despite lifting heavy and doing light cardio 4x/week, I have a lot of trouble staying asleep.
Melatonin makes this worse; I'll fall asleep more quickly but jolt awake three or four hours later without being able to go back to sleep. I originally thought this was due to me taking too high a dose, but this happens even if I take 2mg or less.
Drugs like diphenhydramine help a lot but they contain alcohol and have well-researched long-term side effects. I'd also prefer to not need drugs to sleep.
Unfortunately, sleep depravation is terrible for me, as it makes me extremely irritable and makes doing things like putting coherent sentences together really hard. I also get headaches if the sleep depravation gets bad enough.
I've been using Autosleep for the last few years and have noticed that alcohol WRECKS my ability to get deep sleep...unless I put a lot of effort into pacing my drinks (drinking at least 1.5x more water than beer and waiting 10 mins or so between drinks, or more if the ABV is high). I don't like being drunk anyway, so this isn't a big deal, but it's kind of annoying to have to be so particular to prevent Hyde from coming out.
Have you tried just getting out of bed and reading (non screen) for 20-30 minutes and then going back to bed. I find this helpful when I wake up in the middle of the night. I believe this is called bi-phasic sleeping.
I don't drink to get good sleep; quite the opposite. I discovered that my sleep quality tanks if I drink too much too soon.
When I got to 25 - everything improved and got faster and easier
When I got to 30 - everything started to slow down a bit
They don't know for sure.
It might be because your brain is getting older, days are less structured, depression, loneliness, grief over the loss of a loved one, menopause, weight gain, and medication.
Recommendations for better sleep are the same as for the general population.