Men who used to wake up after 3-4 hours of sleep and struggled to fall back asleep how did you fix it?
August 24, 2025
I dont want to hear the normal things like:
– No phones 1 hour before bed
– no caffine, etc
I want something that actually works without medication..
Edit: i sleep anywhere from 5-8 hours
47 comments
Fix or accept things that give you stress.
Reduce stress and have more sex (seriously, it works).
I just sit there in bed and close my eyes and intentionally let myself be bored. Boredom can help you go back to sleep.
Consistent physical activity is key.
Mirtazapine. I do not know what I would do without it.
What is your daily routine like?
weirdly this happened to me when I shifted my schedule too early. I started going to bed 2 hours later and it normalized. still easily reproducible every time I fall asleep too early again. it’s important to find your best schedule even if it’s unusual by somebody’s standards
Good pee before bed. Saw Palmetto. 1x in AM 2x 12 hours later.
I also started sleeping on my stomach. Cuts down snoring and I regularly get 6-7 hours straight now.
It could be you have insomnia it’s the act of being unable to go to sleep and stay asleep I have it I know because I have it because of my crazy work schedule like if I’m not asleep by a certain time I can’t fall asleep
More exercise helps me.
Never did.
It seems how my body gets by is by self initiating a periodic massive deep sleep of twelve hours or more where because I wear a sleep tracker I am noticing when body does this I seem to spend most of the time in ‘ dead to the world ‘ slow wave sleep and yes I am aware it can be a dangerous sleep given that lack of notice of the world outside
Get more exercise during the day to tire yourself out more.
If you do wake up I find closing my eyes and trying to force back to sleep makes it worse. Instead I try to focus on a specific spot in the room (even though it’s pitch black) and keep my eyes open. I find they will get heavier and heavier and I’ll fall back to sleep.
Try a fan or a white noise machine.
No phone before bed, no caffeine after 2pm, exercise (never at night) and L-theanine supplement (it does not make you sleep, but if you do, you sleep well)
Try a herbal supplement called Valerian. Helps me stay in a deeper sleep and drift back off if I wake up in the nights.
Can find it at Whole Foods
Learning to meditate means I can go to sleep when I want to. Used to have terrible insomnia.
Since turning 60, I can only sleep 4 hours a night. The funny thing is I am never tired because of it. I used to get 7-8 hours of poor sleep, now my four hours are deep sleep, then I am awake.
I wish I had an answer but just wanted to say OP that you’re not alone – I have the exact same issue. 37, relatively low stress, work out a lot (I’m a rower, teach rowing classes, average 1-2 hours a day of solid exercise not including walks and such)…. And I woke up this morning at 3am after 4.5 hours of sleep. Wide awake, and it’s not abnormal. Usually I can get 6-7 hours, but never more than that and often less.
Exercise and magnesium.
A lot of people have magnesium deficiency
In my late 40s and I’ve been sleeping about 5 hours a day since my 20s
I started wearing soundcore A20 sleep ear buds awhile back and they have helped me a lot.
You don’t want to hear the normal things yet you didn’t say you weren’t doing them.
Be on your phone all you want but wear blue blocker glasses an hour before bed.
Don’t take any medication or drug that keeps you awake after noon (and yes that includes caffeine). Don’t drink alcohol before bed either.
Don’t have anything with blue led lights on in the bedroom unless absolutely neccessary and cover them if you can.
Sauna before bed is pretty great. I have a cheapish steam sauna that I do for 20 minutes or so before bed when I can spare the time.
Exercise and putting Seinfeld on my phone when I wake up. Takes my mind of everything and there’s something calming about the laugh track and theme song.
One 5 mg gummy before bed. I’m in my seventies (for the moment), and sleep gets scarcer as you get old. Plus, I developed a nasty case of insomnia while I was taking care of my dying wife, and I got tired of getting by on three or four hours sleep every night.
Yeah, I’m in California, so buying weed is like going to the grocery store. And, yeah, civilization hasn’t fallen apart since they legalized recreational marijuana.
So you want to first restart the bodies sleep clock.
Wake up at 5 a.m., no matter what time you go to bed. If you wake up at 2 a.m., don’t go back to sleep and don’t nap during the day, but do try to get to bed the same time each night no later than 10.
Repeat this cycle, and you will reset the mechanics of your sleep drive. When you wake up after these hours and try to go back to sleep and can’t, your brain is rewiring in a way that prevents you from going back into the deep sleep, so you are in a way inadvertently causing your brain to learn to function with just light sleep phases and if you’re doing this regularly then chances are it’s causing some actual damage that will lead to insomnia.
By waking up at the same time, you’re targeting the end of sleep cycles, which, in some funny way, teaches your brain to want sleep, and with a day’s work and no napping your going to want it even more.
Stress and just general thinking causes imbalances of the chemical wiring in the brain which causes this so yes, no phone, no caffeine but a light book and some gentle music or podcasts to attach the brain to something other than you. But make sure the volume isn’t too high or too low, but it has to be low enough that your mind has to find it and not too loud it keeps you alert of your surroundings.
Try a hot water bottle or a heated blanket. If you lay on your back, putting a light weight on your chest and belly (heated blankets work the same) seems to help some.
There is also the counting method… count to 10 over and over, but as you go through, picture the next number as you’re thinking of one before.
I don’t know if it’s placebo, but there is a Spotify Playlist that makes noises “proven” to help you fall asleep that helps me.
Also, if you don’t eat close to when you go to bed, take a magnesium supplement
Extended release melatonin
Melatonin 10mg.
I can’t turn off my head some nights. I feel too strongly about an argument going on in my head. I need something else ti shut me down at night. This usually helps. There’s “gentler” blends to start with.
Learn how to perform a meditation technique called ‘noting’. It occupies your mind and gets you into the sleep zone. You also need to get your heart rate down to sub 60 (ish) to sleep so tossing and turning will not help – lie still.
Exercise
Consistent sleep schedule
Natural lighting (go to be at a time that sunrise comes when you want to wake up.)
Don’t drink too much water before bed.
Basically I’ve done a lot of little things to incrementally improve.
You could try guided meditation. Try Headspace, their sleep stories might help you
Stop drinking.
Tire yourself out in the gym in the morning or at lunch. Not evening though.
I know you’re saying “without medication,” but I’m assuming you mean stuff like prescription sleep aids, benadryl, nyquil, etc.
I’m finding recent success that when I wake up in the middle of the night, I take a low dose melatonin to get back down. It doesn’t kill me in terms of drowsiness in the morning.
Heavy barbell training. Getting actual heavy lifting in you’ll be desperate for every minute of sleep you can get
Audio books that are just enough of a distraction to settle my brain but not exciting enough to make me want to stay awake.
Long hard workout in the morning.
Exercise, no caffeine after lunch, indica weed and melatonin at bedtime.
And above all, remember that this is all just a ride someone else forced you to to be on, that the earth has been here for 4.5 billion years and if you live to see 80, that means you’ll have seen .000000001% of it. Everything we do will be washed away by time and forgotten. So rest well
For myself, evening exercise or alcohol, caffeine or late dinners and a warm room tend to affect my sleep.
So I workout in the morning. I rarely drink and no more than one cup of coffee in the morning. I try to have dinner no later than 3 hours before bed. A light dinner helps too. A relaxed downtime evening and no electronics in the bedroom also go a long way.
Yesterday was a long day, which means increased physical stress and I had a beer and too much to eat with dinner. During the night the room felt warm and woke up uncomfortable from bloat and such. Had a poor sleep. Tossing and turning several times, plus had to pee twice. Ignored my own learnings… paid for it.
Everyone is different. I learned these over years anecdotally how my sleep went or felt and then got deeper and confirmation bias watching my stats with a garmin watch I got for the purpose of learning to improve my sleep via some trial and error.
Stopped drinking alcohol and went for an hour walk before bed.
>Alcohol initially acts as a sedative, helping you fall asleep faster, but it disrupts the quality and structure of your sleep later in the night, leading to fragmented sleep and reduced deep, REM sleep.
I sleep with earplugs. Helps me stay asleep all night.
GABA supplement before bed, and getting out of bed as soon as I wake up. Do not teach yourself to associate your bed with anything but sleeping or sex.
I’m that guy.
I keep the novels of Henry James on my bookshelf. If I wake up at 2 a.m. and can’t get to sleep, I pluck one out and start to read. Better than Nyquil. I’m not kidding you.
Develop a routine for bed.
Last thing before bed, brush teeth, empty bladder.
Stick to your routine and it will become like Pavlov’s dogs.
Brush teeth and pee after a certain time of night are the precursor to sleep.
Maybe add some music that takes you to a chill place in your head. And that middle of the night pee break? Keep a thermos at bedside.
Rinse your mouth and restart the music. Get yourself used to going back to sleep (if it’s before a certain time) rather than jumping into action and getting ready to go to work.
For me, don’t drink alcohol after 8-9pm. Switch to water or flavored-water, if you need to.
Changed jobs. Was on anti anxiety and sleep meds and mind racing wondering if/when the next one call 24/7 phone would ring. Changed jobs and it all went away
Tactical breathing. Look up Navy Seal breathing techniques for sleep. Stimulates the body into sleep mode.
47 comments
Fix or accept things that give you stress.
Reduce stress and have more sex (seriously, it works).
I just sit there in bed and close my eyes and intentionally let myself be bored. Boredom can help you go back to sleep.
Consistent physical activity is key.
Mirtazapine. I do not know what I would do without it.
What is your daily routine like?
weirdly this happened to me when I shifted my schedule too early. I started going to bed 2 hours later and it normalized. still easily reproducible every time I fall asleep too early again. it’s important to find your best schedule even if it’s unusual by somebody’s standards
Good pee before bed. Saw Palmetto. 1x in AM 2x 12 hours later.
I also started sleeping on my stomach. Cuts down snoring and I regularly get 6-7 hours straight now.
It could be you have insomnia it’s the act of being unable to go to sleep and stay asleep I have it I know because I have it because of my crazy work schedule like if I’m not asleep by a certain time I can’t fall asleep
More exercise helps me.
Never did.
It seems how my body gets by is by self initiating a periodic massive deep sleep of twelve hours or more where because I wear a sleep tracker I am noticing when body does this I seem to spend most of the time in ‘ dead to the world ‘ slow wave sleep and yes I am aware it can be a dangerous sleep given that lack of notice of the world outside
Get more exercise during the day to tire yourself out more.
If you do wake up I find closing my eyes and trying to force back to sleep makes it worse. Instead I try to focus on a specific spot in the room (even though it’s pitch black) and keep my eyes open. I find they will get heavier and heavier and I’ll fall back to sleep.
Try a fan or a white noise machine.
No phone before bed, no caffeine after 2pm, exercise (never at night) and L-theanine supplement (it does not make you sleep, but if you do, you sleep well)
Try a herbal supplement called Valerian. Helps me stay in a deeper sleep and drift back off if I wake up in the nights.
Can find it at Whole Foods
Learning to meditate means I can go to sleep when I want to. Used to have terrible insomnia.
Since turning 60, I can only sleep 4 hours a night. The funny thing is I am never tired because of it. I used to get 7-8 hours of poor sleep, now my four hours are deep sleep, then I am awake.
I wish I had an answer but just wanted to say OP that you’re not alone – I have the exact same issue. 37, relatively low stress, work out a lot (I’m a rower, teach rowing classes, average 1-2 hours a day of solid exercise not including walks and such)…. And I woke up this morning at 3am after 4.5 hours of sleep. Wide awake, and it’s not abnormal. Usually I can get 6-7 hours, but never more than that and often less.
Exercise and magnesium.
A lot of people have magnesium deficiency
In my late 40s and I’ve been sleeping about 5 hours a day since my 20s
I started wearing soundcore A20 sleep ear buds awhile back and they have helped me a lot.
You don’t want to hear the normal things yet you didn’t say you weren’t doing them.
Be on your phone all you want but wear blue blocker glasses an hour before bed.
Don’t take any medication or drug that keeps you awake after noon (and yes that includes caffeine). Don’t drink alcohol before bed either.
Don’t have anything with blue led lights on in the bedroom unless absolutely neccessary and cover them if you can.
Sauna before bed is pretty great. I have a cheapish steam sauna that I do for 20 minutes or so before bed when I can spare the time.
Exercise and putting Seinfeld on my phone when I wake up. Takes my mind of everything and there’s something calming about the laugh track and theme song.
One 5 mg gummy before bed. I’m in my seventies (for the moment), and sleep gets scarcer as you get old. Plus, I developed a nasty case of insomnia while I was taking care of my dying wife, and I got tired of getting by on three or four hours sleep every night.
Yeah, I’m in California, so buying weed is like going to the grocery store. And, yeah, civilization hasn’t fallen apart since they legalized recreational marijuana.
So you want to first restart the bodies sleep clock.
Wake up at 5 a.m., no matter what time you go to bed. If you wake up at 2 a.m., don’t go back to sleep and don’t nap during the day, but do try to get to bed the same time each night no later than 10.
Repeat this cycle, and you will reset the mechanics of your sleep drive. When you wake up after these hours and try to go back to sleep and can’t, your brain is rewiring in a way that prevents you from going back into the deep sleep, so you are in a way inadvertently causing your brain to learn to function with just light sleep phases and if you’re doing this regularly then chances are it’s causing some actual damage that will lead to insomnia.
By waking up at the same time, you’re targeting the end of sleep cycles, which, in some funny way, teaches your brain to want sleep, and with a day’s work and no napping your going to want it even more.
Stress and just general thinking causes imbalances of the chemical wiring in the brain which causes this so yes, no phone, no caffeine but a light book and some gentle music or podcasts to attach the brain to something other than you. But make sure the volume isn’t too high or too low, but it has to be low enough that your mind has to find it and not too loud it keeps you alert of your surroundings.
Try a hot water bottle or a heated blanket. If you lay on your back, putting a light weight on your chest and belly (heated blankets work the same) seems to help some.
There is also the counting method… count to 10 over and over, but as you go through, picture the next number as you’re thinking of one before.
I don’t know if it’s placebo, but there is a Spotify Playlist that makes noises “proven” to help you fall asleep that helps me.
Also, if you don’t eat close to when you go to bed, take a magnesium supplement
Extended release melatonin
Melatonin 10mg.
I can’t turn off my head some nights. I feel too strongly about an argument going on in my head. I need something else ti shut me down at night. This usually helps. There’s “gentler” blends to start with.
Learn how to perform a meditation technique called ‘noting’. It occupies your mind and gets you into the sleep zone. You also need to get your heart rate down to sub 60 (ish) to sleep so tossing and turning will not help – lie still.
https://www.headspace.com/articles/noting-technique-take-advantage
I reduced alcohol consumption
Exercise
Stop drinking caffeine at midday
Leave your cell phone 1 hour before dinner
Exercise
Consistent sleep schedule
Natural lighting (go to be at a time that sunrise comes when you want to wake up.)
Don’t drink too much water before bed.
Basically I’ve done a lot of little things to incrementally improve.
You could try guided meditation. Try Headspace, their sleep stories might help you
Stop drinking.
Tire yourself out in the gym in the morning or at lunch. Not evening though.
I know you’re saying “without medication,” but I’m assuming you mean stuff like prescription sleep aids, benadryl, nyquil, etc.
I’m finding recent success that when I wake up in the middle of the night, I take a low dose melatonin to get back down. It doesn’t kill me in terms of drowsiness in the morning.
Heavy barbell training. Getting actual heavy lifting in you’ll be desperate for every minute of sleep you can get
Audio books that are just enough of a distraction to settle my brain but not exciting enough to make me want to stay awake.
Long hard workout in the morning.
Exercise, no caffeine after lunch, indica weed and melatonin at bedtime.
And above all, remember that this is all just a ride someone else forced you to to be on, that the earth has been here for 4.5 billion years and if you live to see 80, that means you’ll have seen .000000001% of it. Everything we do will be washed away by time and forgotten. So rest well
For myself, evening exercise or alcohol, caffeine or late dinners and a warm room tend to affect my sleep.
So I workout in the morning. I rarely drink and no more than one cup of coffee in the morning. I try to have dinner no later than 3 hours before bed. A light dinner helps too. A relaxed downtime evening and no electronics in the bedroom also go a long way.
Yesterday was a long day, which means increased physical stress and I had a beer and too much to eat with dinner. During the night the room felt warm and woke up uncomfortable from bloat and such. Had a poor sleep. Tossing and turning several times, plus had to pee twice. Ignored my own learnings… paid for it.
Everyone is different. I learned these over years anecdotally how my sleep went or felt and then got deeper and confirmation bias watching my stats with a garmin watch I got for the purpose of learning to improve my sleep via some trial and error.
Stopped drinking alcohol and went for an hour walk before bed.
>Alcohol initially acts as a sedative, helping you fall asleep faster, but it disrupts the quality and structure of your sleep later in the night, leading to fragmented sleep and reduced deep, REM sleep.
I sleep with earplugs. Helps me stay asleep all night.
GABA supplement before bed, and getting out of bed as soon as I wake up. Do not teach yourself to associate your bed with anything but sleeping or sex.
I’m that guy.
I keep the novels of Henry James on my bookshelf. If I wake up at 2 a.m. and can’t get to sleep, I pluck one out and start to read. Better than Nyquil. I’m not kidding you.
Develop a routine for bed.
Last thing before bed, brush teeth, empty bladder.
Stick to your routine and it will become like Pavlov’s dogs.
Brush teeth and pee after a certain time of night are the precursor to sleep.
Maybe add some music that takes you to a chill place in your head. And that middle of the night pee break? Keep a thermos at bedside.
Rinse your mouth and restart the music. Get yourself used to going back to sleep (if it’s before a certain time) rather than jumping into action and getting ready to go to work.
For me, don’t drink alcohol after 8-9pm. Switch to water or flavored-water, if you need to.
Changed jobs. Was on anti anxiety and sleep meds and mind racing wondering if/when the next one call 24/7 phone would ring. Changed jobs and it all went away
Tactical breathing. Look up Navy Seal breathing techniques for sleep. Stimulates the body into sleep mode.