[DowdyTheFifth]

Hello,

I am a college freshman and during my first year I developed Generalized Anxiety Disorder, OCD, Social Anxiety, and another episode of Psychotic Depression. I have also always had Social Anxiety and some OCD throughout my life. I developed insomnia for a long period of time last semester (have had multiple bouts with it over the years). Currently I align more with hypersomnia, generally sleeping 10-12 hours a night.

However every night before an important event such as a Psychiatrist appointment, my Final tomorrow, or anything important, I have a strong fear that I am somehow going to oversleep all of my alarms and miss whatever I have tomorrow. I know that I will not oversleep since it has not happened last semester, but I cannot avoid worrying about it, and feeling like it would be better for me to just not sleep at all so I have no chance of missing the event.

I am just wondering if anyone else has bad anxiety about the possibility of oversleeping, and how you deal with it. I typically wind up falling asleep a little later than usual, but do not oversleep. Thank you.

[Thunder Bow]

You just have common anxiety. Forget the worry and just do it. Go to sleep, no worrying. You will see that you fears were trivial.

[zara smith]

Hi,
Here are some tips to cure oversleeping:
1. Use light to your advantage
2. Wean yourself off an alarm clock, to begin with
3. Think about your sleep in increments of 90 minutes
4. Get creative with your method of waking up
Thanks..

[Llama_Llama44]

Sorry you're so anxious about oversleeping. I've never had an intense anxiety about it, but I can relate a bit to the fear.

I am a huge fan of the Android alarm clock app "I can't wake up". It allows you to do a number of things, including use a barcode scanner to wake you up. You make it so you have to scan a barcode (say, the label from your shampoo bottle, or some random barcode you cut out and put on the fridge) before the alarm will shut off. You can also include checkpoints like an 'awake test'.

I have found it really helpful for getting up on time, and also reducing worry about missing alarms. If you don't have Android there are probably similar apps for other devices. But it might be worth checking out.

[avlady]

I have sleep apnea so my suggestion may not seem doable for you but i've found that if i put less water in my machine i'll wake up earlier and it gives me time to take a shower, do my hair and put makeup on. brush teeth, put them in i mean too!!i have partials on my top and bottom gums. If you think you'll sleep in could you go to bed a few hours earlier so you'll wake up earlier too. I did have this anxiety for so long and i do still have it but if i do the above i've found that the best thing to do is to try to get to sleep earlier, although i know you'll probably say you've tried it and it doesn''t work, because of the anxiety. Then if i can't get to sleep i take a valium and it puts me to sleep. Another thing i've tried is to sleep on the couch, works like a charm for me, and i get up earleir too. good luck!