Possible Insomnia

Hi. I'm messaging on behalf of a friend who's excessively tired and having trouble sleeping, waking up really early in the morning. I have insomnia and have for at least ten years, and I consider two hours sleep a night fantastic and I'll probably even that out by having a half hour nap the next day.

My friend sleeps the "average 8 hours", but every so often she goes through these stages of waking up at half five in the morning, after 6 to 7 hours of sleep, and she's very tired the whole day. (She's the kind that doesn't even wake up when they move around or wake up at accidental sounds. A heavy sleeper, I think.) After a few days of this, I'm constantly getting texts and calls about how she's feeling "so tired she feels sick" and how she feels about to fall asleep at any moment, feeling weak, shaky and about to faint, and I relate to how that feels, but I can't relate to the situation.

I get that bad when I've been awake for 4 to 6 days in a row, and that's not every time. It's completely impossible for me to imagine how or why someone would feel that tired when they're still managing in one night the same amount of sleep I would be about happy with in a week.

I know university is stressful at the moment, very stressful, and she struggles with an eating disorder which don't help, but I've been in those places too, so I still can't understand why she can't just get up and not be so exhausted.

I want to think this isn't about the sleep, it may be something else psychologically, which I could then understand. The ED she struggles with isn't bad enough at the moment to cause this.

Is there anyone that can tell me if this is actually normal for a person that normally sleeps a lot?

Thank you.
-H.M.

I'm sorry to say I think she being a bit of a drama queen. I suffer insomnia and like you it takes days before I start to feel feint. The only other explaination is that she is aneamic and that's what is making her feel this way tell her to get a blood test. I'm anemic and when my levels are low I can sleep for ten hours and still feel tired and I actually do feint.

I think so too. It could really be a number of things, but I never thought lack of sleep. She has PKU and a very strict diet. It could vitamin deficiencies. I'll see if she'll say something to her GP. Thank you.

People have different needs when it comes to sleep. I'm more like your friend -- I need 8 hours. If I get "only" 7, I'm half-dead through the day (might also be related to medication I am on). Two hours -- I had a period when I couldn't get more -- meant skipping work, dozing off on the sofa and being unable to do anything else really.

How do you feel with your 2 hours per night? Does that leave you feeling like she describes? Is she aware of your sleep situation? I can see how this is terribly irritating. But if she doesn't know, you can't expect her to tone it down.

Big hugs. Hope the situation resolves soon.

We know each other very well.
I feel perfectly fine after two hours, I feel perfectly fine staying up all night, and she's well aware of that. She's constantly joking about it, and basically challenging me to stay up as long as possible if I ever stay over. I don't mind, although sometimes it's annoying when I genuinely am quite tired. But still, I know I'm an anomaly when it comes to sleep, but it wasn't always like that. I slept more normally and had to adapt to less and less sleep. But even back then, I was never the tired she describes, purely because I got an hour or two less.

She said she hasn't had a blood test for anaemia, she doesn't think, and we're also thinking about diet, stress and possibly depression.

Depression is a good one that makes you very tired.

Just to update. She has gone to her GP, who started her on Fluoxetine. Hopefully things will get better.

Thanks for updating I hope it works for her.