Trouble Staying Asleep

Trouble staying asleep: overview

Trouble staying asleep means you fall asleep easily, but wake in the night and struggle to get back to sleep.

It’s a different problem from difficulty falling asleep, and it often has different causes.

This page helps you spot the likely reasons and what to try first.

First: some waking is normal

Everyone wakes briefly several times a night. Most of the time, you don’t remember it.

Sleep also gets lighter in the second half of the night. That makes it easier for small things to wake you fully.

The real problem is when you can’t drift back off, or when it happens most nights.

Common factors

• Alcohol in the evening. It can help you fall asleep, but often breaks up sleep later in the night.
• Stress. A brief waking can quickly turn into a stream of worries.
• A warm or bright room. Heat, early sunrise or streetlights can wake you in lighter sleep.
• Noise. Traffic, pets or a partner’s snoring.
• Needing the bathroom. Late drinks, alcohol and caffeine can make this worse.
• Going to bed too early. You may simply run out of sleep before morning.
• Hormonal changes. Night sweats around menopause are a common cause.

Practical strategies

For tonight

• Keep the lights off and don’t check your phone.
• Turn the clock away so you can’t count hours.
• Try slow breathing or a body scan.
• If you’re wide awake after about 20 minutes, get up and do something dull in dim light.

Some people find a brief, boring activity helps them fall back asleep faster than lying there worrying.

For the long term

• Keep consistent sleep and wake times.
• Limit alcohol in the evening.
• Keep the bedroom dark, quiet and cool.
• Cut down on fluids in the last couple of hours before bed.
• Wind down before bed so you don’t carry the day’s stress into the night.

For more detail, read Why Do I Wake Up at 3 AM? and Natural Ways to Improve Sleep.

Relevant approaches

If you’re exploring a natural sleep aid for this, see our Slumber CBN review or the CBN vs. Melatonin comparison.

Keep in mind that evidence for supplements helping people stay asleep is limited. They also don’t fix causes like alcohol, stress or snoring.

If worry wakes you up, relaxation-based approaches may help more. See the Mind & Meditation category.

When to seek professional help

If waking during the night is frequent, prolonged, or paired with loud snoring, gasping, or daytime sleepiness, raise it with a doctor.

These can be signs of conditions like sleep apnea that go beyond general sleep hygiene.

Waking very early with low mood is another reason to talk to a doctor.

And if poor sleep happens at least three nights a week for three months, that fits the usual definition of chronic insomnia, which is treatable.