What does insomnia feel like?

Most nights I wake up some time between 2:00 and 4:00 and stay up for a few excruciating hours, the kind where you can feel every minute pass. ... I'm a college student - I was probably stressed about all the work I had to do, staying up too late working on projects, drinking too much the night before. read more

Most of us have experienced brief periods of insomnia (also called acute insomnia). Almost everyone knows what it feels like to still be awake staring at the ceiling and wishing for sleep—this can happen when you travel and experience jet lag, or when you're anxious and overwhelmed by life circumstances. read more

In those times, a 30-day prescription of sleep medication with zero refills has helped to reset my schedule. It takes about a week of consistent sleep to feel like myself again, and the medication feels like a godsend. Which is exactly why I refuse to take it regularly. Sleep medications are extremely controversial, and I can see why. read more

tl;dr: Overall the experience of being an insomniac is quite terrible: you feel guilty for failing to do what normal people can do regularly, you feel anxious and depressed, you know you aren't functioning at your best, you are frustrated at your lack of self-control, you go through mood swings and manic episodes, you can be quite irritable and touchy. read more