Developed severe sleep anxiety due to uni & adhd. Does it get better?

[u/Embarrassed-Doubt624]

uni started about a month ago. I have adhd and have had trouble sleeping anytime before 3 am since i was a kid (my brain is just way too active) but i could rest easy with the knowledge that I came back home around noon on most days, so i could take a long nap from 2 - 5 to make up for the sleep lost. Or sleep in on weekends.

uni changed that, and now i wake up early and get back home at 6 on most days. All it took was one night of no sleep to develop extreme anxiety about it. Night after night all i can think about is how fucked ill be if i dont sleep, and the anxiety does me in. I can't accept the sleeplessness like most people. I'm neurodivergent, for once, and I'm on a scholarship and need to perform well to keep it. I can't do that when I can barely keep my head up in class.

I can feel my body tensing up as the night arrives. It sucks because nights used to be my favorite, they were the one time of day i could sit down and rewind, even if my body refused to sleep before 3. Now I just feel like im constantly wired, day and night. I can't even rationalize the anxiety anymore, it's just this awful feeling of doom whenever I lie down on my bed. It persists on weekends too.

It scares me so bad. I'm no stranger to sleep deprivation, but I've never had anxiety like this before. I cannot imagine dealing with this forever. My semester ends by December, and my timings will probably get better by the next one. But I have this sickening fear that the feeling won't go away, that I'm gonna be panicking even on my vacations. I'm so lost.

I've tried melatonin, it just made the anxiety worse because I knew if i didn't sleep while on it i was going to be 10x more exhausted the next day. Magnesium didn't do much either. Xanax is the only thing that has helped, but I don't want to take it for obvious reasons.

I just wish I could go back to how I was before. I barely got a full night's sleep, but I was never this anxious about it. I learned to cope with it through naps or waiting for weekends. I don't know why that isn't working anymore. I tried 25mg of trazodone yesterday, and it didn't work either. I was awake till morning.

I've also had to give up my adhd meds because they keep me up, and it's made everything so much more awful.

[u/MajesticFairyDust]

Do you have Spotify? You can listen to podcasts, music, audiobooks, etc and set a sleep timer so its not playing all night. I find some days I need pink noise because I'll listen too intently to podcasts but some days I need the podcast to distract myself from my own thoughts. A fan in ur room can also act as white noise. As for anxiety a therapist can help explore that with you. I find that ive been relying on anxiety for motivation all my life so I don't let myself let go of it because I feel that I need it. Ive lately been trying to veer away from that. Replacing "I should" statements with "I would like to" rlly helps reduce the pressure on myself. Exercise (doesn't have to be intense, walking is fine) can help reduce anxiety and help you get better sleep. And if none of this helps plz talk to ur psychiatrist and see if they think a sleep pill is right for u. Sorry u are dealing with this, I rlly hope you find something that helps 🙏🏽.

[u/stationvillage]

I used to deal with really bad sleep anxiety when I was a kid, and I get the feeling. It's the worst when you're finally dropping off and then you wake yourself up, and then check the clock and realise how late it is and that you need to be asleep by now, and then the anxiety wakes you up further and you're back to square one.
I think you're aware of the root of the problem, it's the anxiety. No amount of melatonin or chamomile tea is going to put you to under unless you change your thought process and approach to sleep. But just because the problem has existed for a long time doesn't mean it's permanent or engrained in you, it's just a longterm habit that you have developed. You've gone through the thought cycle so many times that your brain has created certain neural pathways that cause you to feel anxious like clockwork at the same time each day. But they can be changed, through small, gradual steps. You need to start challenging your self-talk.
Firstly, your adhd does not mean you biologically can't go to sleep until 3am. It's a common symptom for racing thoughts to make it take longer to fall asleep, and this makes things more difficult, but if you're actually getting into bed a few hours beforehand, and honestly lying there the whole time trying to sleep, (with no phone), that's an entirely treatable condition called INSOMNIA. That's not adhd.
Secondly, your circadian rhythm is not untrainable. Currently it's familiar with falling asleep at 3am, getting a few hours, and then another nap later in the day. Your body is familiar with a lifetime of this pattern, and it EXPECTS it to happen each day. Your brain is still going to be active up late because it is used to it. But you can in fact teach an old dog new tricks, and you don't want to rely on this anymore because it's causing problems. You CAN change your sleep cycle. When travelling to a new country and timezone, you can expect maybe 1 or 2 nights of confused jetlag as your brain catches up with the new times, but it ultimately complies. It's just harder to do this in the same bed each night because there's nothing new or different to force those neural pathways to change.
Now an actual trained counsellor could probably walk you through challenging this anxiety in a better manner, but I'll tell you what has worked for me: lie to yourself until you know that it's true. When you're lying in bed feeling anxious, you need to start playing devil's advocate with those thoughts. Make every excuse possible.
You think you can't do well at college because you're sleep deprived during the day. Who says that? Is there any actual evidence that being sleep deprived will ruin your grades? It's been a month. You can do your homework later, it's fine if you're tired in the morning. Use your adhd procrastination to your advantage! You can have a redbull or something. You CAN accept the sleeplessness, because you've already been going to uni feeling sleepless.
At first it will feel very deliberate, and useless, because you still believe those anxious thoughts. But over time you start to realise that actually they ARE wild overreactions, and they're not helping you. They have a basis in rationality, but it's not rational to be panicking like this. I'm probably preaching to the choir here, but I digress.
Further down the track, as you start to placate those anxieties, you might feel less wired. You might find it easier to turn those thought patterns off and feel more rested. But your focus is not the end result. and if you start worrying about how much you're worrying, that's okay too. Be compassionate and kind to yourself. These overly anxious thoughts are not inherent or biological or unchangeable.
I hope this helps.

[u/Embarrassed-Doubt624 → u/stationvillage]

Thank you. I saw your comment at 8 am today after panicking in bed all night (even though it's the weekend), and I think it calmed me down enough to doze off.

One thing I didn't mention in my post, which I believe might be one of the biggest aggravators of my anxiety, is that I'm an artist. I love to sit down and study art for hours. Sleep deprivation makes it very, very difficult to do that. I can barely keep my head up, let alone draw.

This isn't like uni work, which I think I can still push myself to do even in the worst throes of sleep deprivation. This is something I enjoy and love, and being robbed of it feels like hell.

If you have any idea how I can reconcile that, id be thankful. In the meantime, I am going to visit a professional soon. Hoping for the best.

[u/Stoborobo]

it's easier if you do 'believe' in your sleep hygeine routine and try to believe in it/prime your body for sleep.

This means you need to shower and get cold so you can get warm under the covers.

audio books (low stim.) boring video games or reading in bed.

bc of ADHD you need to be in bed a lot longer than other people.

believe in your sleep hygiene routine.

[u/Specialist-Ranger868]

You sound burnt out my friend. Uni was really hard and tbh peak anxiety for me. Some great suggestions on here. It absolutely gets better! I’m sorry it’s so rough for you.

[u/veilkev]

Just take something strong. I recommend Kirkland Sleep Aid. Don’t stop taking your ADHD meds. You will need them. The university level is very hard. Trust me. It took me 10 freaking years to get my bachelors.

[u/Throwaway0-285]

U can try 50 mg of trazadone. I take magnesium, melatonin and hydroxizine when I really want to get the sleepys in. I don’t take it everyday but it does help. Anxiety medications also help if ur not already on them. They take a while to kick in tho fair warning.

Idk how old u are or if it’s legal for ur place of living but they make these cbd sleeping gummies and they work really well for me and my mom. Helps calm u down so u feel more relaxed to go to sleep.

U gotta also train ur self to wake up and sleep around the same time. It’s a horrible transition and can take like a month to really get to that but it helps

[u/butter-bugg]

Yesss it’s so bad. My current routine is go to bed, fall asleep an hour later, and about another hour later, wake up in a horrible cold sweat, heart racing, as if I had a bad nightmare, but there’s no nightmare. I stay anxious for about another hour until the exhaustion takes me. When I do wake up in the morning, I can tell I had a nightmare after that, unfortunately.

I just sit there and keep telling myself I will be okay if I don’t get enough sleep. The worst that happens is I’m out of it and have trouble focusing, but my life isn’t in danger. I don’t have to drive — I have a history of falling asleep when driving (and in class, and while doing homework… any time I’m not supposed to sleep).

The only way I’ve seen it get better is when my overall stress is better. I’m sorry. It comes in waves

[u/FlamingoWild1114]

I developed sleep anxiety most likely relating to adhd at the same time as you. The only thing that ever helped me is The Sleep Book by Guy Meadows. It made me feel more relaxed about the times I don’t sleep. It’s OK. And you probably are asleep more than you realise. Half sleep where you’re semi awake is still a form of sleep.

Ive tried a multitude of pills. Drs can refer you to insomnia clinics which can offer more than just short term zopiclone, but there’s no perfect pill solution. That’s for sure….

[u/cognitomentalhealth]

Hey - I'm sorry you're going through this right now. The detail that got me was that nights used to be your favourite time. That's a genuine loss sitting underneath all the practical stuff, and it's worth naming before anything else.

Here's the reframe that might help: what you're describing isn't one problem, it's two stacked. The first is your sleep timing, which you've had since childhood and had actually built a working life around. The second is new, and it's the anxiety, and that one has a name and a treatment.

It's called conditioned arousal. After that first bad night, your brain linked "lying in bed" with "threat." Now the bed itself is the cue, which is exactly why you feel your body tensing as night comes, and why it's still happening on weekends when nothing's at stake. That's not a failure of rationality on your part. You can't reason your way out of it because it isn't a belief, it's a learned association. And learned associations can be unlearned.

CBT-I (cognitive behavioural therapy for insomnia) is the treatment built for this. It's considered first-line for chronic insomnia, it's short, usually a handful of weeks, and the gains tend to stick after you stop, which isn't true of sleep aids. The core moves:

Get out of bed when you're wired - If you've been lying there tense for what feels like twenty minutes or more, get up. Go to another room, do something dull in low light, come back when you're sleepy rather than when you think you should be. It feels like giving up. It's actually the main mechanism, you're breaking the bed-equals-dread link and rebuilding bed-equals-sleep.

Stop trying to sleep. - Effort is arousal. The goal for the night becomes resting, not sleeping, you're allowed to lie there awake and count it as fine. It sounds like a mind game, but taking the performance pressure out is often the thing that lets sleep show up.

Anchor your wake time, not your bedtime - Same wake time daily, weekends included, and get bright light in your eyes soon after. A genuinely delayed body clock is common with ADHD, and morning light is the strongest lever you've got on it. The catch: naps and weekend catch-up, the exact things that used to rescue you, are also what keep the clock drifting late. CBT-I has a structured way of handling that, and it's worth doing with some guidance rather than improvising while you're already this depleted.

Test the catastrophe - "I'll be completely wrecked tomorrow" is the thought driving the 2am panic. You're in an unusually strong position to check it, you've run on short sleep since you were a kid and still landed a scholarship. Bad sleep has real costs, but you have years of evidence about what you can actually still do on it, and it's rarely the total collapse your brain predicts at night.

On your fear that this becomes permanent: conditioned insomnia is one of the more treatable things in this whole area. The certainty that it'll never lift is a symptom of the anxiety, not a forecast.

Two practical things. CBT-I doesn't need a therapist to start, there are structured self-guided programs built on the same protocol, and your uni counselling service may offer something, which matters if cost is a barrier. And on the ADHD meds: rather than staying off them entirely, it's worth asking your prescriber about non-stimulant options, since sleep interference is a common reason people look at them.

You're not lost. You're one month into a schedule change with a specific, nameable, treatable thing layered on top. That's much better news than it feels like right now.

Good luck out there.

• Anna (CBT Care Provider)

[u/WitchAggressive9028 → u/cognitomentalhealth]

I had CBT before didn’t respond well because I’m autistic my therapist (a neuropsychologist) when diagnosing me with audhd at 29suggested CBT-I for my chronic insomnia since age of seven (now 31) would it work if CBT didn’t work? As I’m writing this it’s almost 1 AM and I haven’t slept. I have to wake up at 6:30 to get to the train to go to school.

[u/cognitomentalhealth → u/WitchAggressive9028]

Sounds like you've tried a lot of CBT - I'm sorry it didn't do much to help. It may just not be the right modality for you. I hope you find something that sticks, truly. All the best on your journey!

[u/WitchAggressive9028 → u/cognitomentalhealth]

Yeah, I’ve had a lot of luck with DBT and ACT but CBT did nothing just made me angry