middle of night insomnia

Over the last few months now I've been experiencing on going night time symptoms where I'll wake up anywhere from 130am - 530am sometimes with this slight feeling that I needed to pee. However I don't always end up actually peeing. The times I have been to pee during these early mornings I can void around 400/500ml so not an excessive amount. Around 6am I can fall asleep again for another couple of hours.
Last few nights I've woken up at like 2am after just one hour of sleep and can't get back to sleep, this is seriously frustrating. I'll wake up feeling like I've just slept 7-8 hours! And then the weird thing is, is that I hardly ever even feel tired throughout the rest of the day. Makes no sense. So during the day time and waking hours I'm fine.

I don't have any other symptoms apart from this slight need to pee (and as I said I don't end up peeing most of the time) but no pain anywhere etc.

I had a prostate/PSA test and that's all normal, urine culture/test came back normal too. Personal blood sugar monitoring was normal too and as far as I know I'm not diabetic.

I know there's something called middle of the night insomnia which can be very common. If I can get by then maybe there's nothing to worry about for now but in the long run this can't be good. Been happening for more than 3 months now anyway.

Well... I don't know as there's a lot I can tell you about this. I'm an older man myself. I have to get up to pee every couple of hours or so! Since, from what you wrote, it sounds as though you've had yourself checked out medically, perhaps this is simply stress-related. Other factors could include the amount of physical exercise you're getting & the amount you're drinking, or what you're drinking, during the evening. (Acidic beverages can have an irritating effect on the bladder, or so I've been told.)

Sometimes I can't get back to sleep after getting up to pee. When I can't, I typically get up & do walking meditation for an hour or so. I just walk slowly throughout the dark & quiet house, around-&-around. I focus light attention on each foot as it comes into contact with the floor. Thoughts come-&-go. I simply allow them to arise & fade at their own pace. I hear the sounds of the city off in the distance. After I've walked for an hour or so, I go back to bed & I typically go back to sleep. I typically don't notice any increase sleepiness the following day. I enjoy this so much that, when I haven't had occasion to do it for a while, I start to miss it. Anyway these are my thoughts with regard to your post. Good luck figuring this out!

I believe that even if your need to pee is slight, you should get up and pee. Holding in urine is not healthy for your body or mind.

I hate my all to frequent 1 to 3 hours of sleep each night. I was confused if I woke up because I had to piddle, or if I had to piddle because I woke u. When I first started taking Trazodone I could sleep about seven hours...since my bed was still dry the piddling was just a side effect of waking. Unfortunately I am back to 3 hours of sleep nightly.

I thought I'd update this thread.
So since I last posted, from around the end of March my sleep improved. I was sleeping through more nights than not and this waking up in the middle of the night seemed to end. I didn't really change my diet or anything, if anything I have and am still trying to decrease my overall sugar intake. So that's almost two months of much better sleep patterns, at least they were less erratic.

But now for the past 4/5 nights it's back! On Monday I woke up at 2am, the next night again at 230am, last night at 215am and so on after just an hour or two of sleep. And it's that wide awake feeling where I cannot get back to sleep. Eventually I do get back to sleep around 5am and manage to sleep for a few hours so thankfully I'm not too sleep deprived and still feel largely well rested.

Anyway this is frustrating. I do have alot of worries and frustrations at the moment but like I said before I've had these for many years. Also although I do have a fairly large tea/coffee intake every day, I haven't changed this intake so it can't be my diet. No other symptoms really. Urination patterns more or less normal, no tiredness, hunger, thirst etc.

So why am I sleeping well for weeks and then suddenly not sleeping well again with the middle of the night insomnia returning?

Try no caffeine at all after noon time or so.

I have no idea what or why this is happening. Last 8 nights now I wake up between 2 and 3am after just a couple of hours of sleep. This is immensely frustrating and I notice the first emotion/feeling I have is one of slight panic as I check the time to figure "oh not again." It's now more than an hour since I've been up, trying my best to go back to sleep and it's just not happening as I do not feel sleepy/tired at all.

I guess why I'm sceptical about the caffeine link is because when I was sleeping fine just a few weeks ago, I was having my usual coffee/tea intake during the day and even a cup of tea before bed and having no issues. Now I've even cut out the green tea and just having red bush and peppermint tea (which has no caffeine) and still waking up after a couple of hours.

I have been slowly weaning off ambien. I read research on line about using calcium and magnesium in a 2:1 ratio for sleep. Overall had very few sleepless nights. Walgreen carries this in a one tab supplement. I take two of them. I think it has helped.