Does/has anyone ever dealt with winter insomnia?
I've been sleeping terribly lately, and I realized last night (during all the hours I had nothing to do but think) that this happens every year around this time. I think I've always either had seasonal depression to go along with it that caused me to sleep a lot during the day so the insomnia at night made sense, or I otherwise always found a way to attribute it to other things. But I think it's just straight-up insomnia during the winter months, for some reason.
I try to do everything possible to help. I have blackout curtains. I close the bedroom door so it's quiet and the rowdy cats can't get in. Turn down the temperature. I have no electronic lights in my bedroom, no digital clock. I've tried both total silence and having a fan or soothing music on. I don't look at my phone at least an hour, sometimes more, before bed except to set my alarm and turn on DND. No caffeine past the afternoon. If I nap at all during the day, it's a shitty-quality, short nap between noon and 2pm. Nothing that should be throwing off my ability to sleep at 1am. I am usually working 12+ hour days and I am exhausted. But when my head hits the pillow at 1am (my normal, set bedtime), I cannot fall asleep. I end up tossing and turning for hours before maybe getting 30 minutes to an hour at a time between 3/4am and 8/9am when I have to get up. I'm so tired and want nothing more than to fall asleep, I was almost in tears last night.
When I tried researching it, all I could find regarding seasonal insomnia was that a lot of people have trouble falling asleep during the summer months, but usually sleep more in the winter. But I'm having the opposite problem. And always have, I think. And I don't believe it's tied to seasonal depression this year, because I've been feeling fairly stable as far as that goes right now. The only thing that's depressing me is the fact that I can't sleep!



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