It always begins with one night.

It is one of those nights when you believe that sleep is but a myth, when the bed is ice-cold, when the world is so silent, and the mind is so loud. So you spend some more time scrolling, play a game to forget and perhaps cut that final video. It is all right, as you imagine. You can sleep tomorrow. Yet the next day it is and still the same silence and still the same wide eyes gazing up at the ceiling--until the dawn at last, not the dawn, but the giving up of it.

One thing led to another, and next thing you realize you sleep at 3… then at 5… then at 8 in the morning. And regardless of how weary you are, no matter how hard you would like it, you simply cannot fall asleep when you should 

The choice turns into a trap. A loop. A haunting.

The Trap of the Night: The Habit Loop We Don’t Notice

At first, it was innocent. Nights are so comfortable, spacious, and free. The world is sleeping, and you can just breathe. You begin to relate night to safety, not to sleep.

This forms what the psychologists term a habit loop:

• A signal: a warning--quiet, night, your mind
• A habit: you swipe, post, play, overthink
• A pay-off: disengagement, dopamine, the feeling of control

Your brain studies: This is our night activity.                                                  And unknowingly, you reprogram yourself to be awake.

Your brain remains alert even when your body is pleading to sleep. It becomes unable to release melatonin at the right time. It continues shooting ideas when it should grow silent. You are lying in bed with your fatigued body and wired mind, your eyes are open, and your soul is so achy.

You are no more a night owl. You simply are in a rut.

When It Becomes a Syndrome: The Psychology Behind It

It has got a name: Delayed Sleep Phase Syndrome (DSPS). It is a diagnostic circadian rhythm loop disorder, not merely a bad habit. Individuals living with DSPS experience an internally aroused feeling during the night and sleepiness during the mornings, even when they desire to sleep at an early hour.

It is not a unicorn as many of us believe, particularly:

• The young adults and teenagers,
• Video game and content makers,
• Ethnicities faced with stress, apprehension or emotional pain.

DSPS is not insomnia. It is not the inability to sleep. It is about a lack of ability to go to bed at the right time. The internal clock of the body is retarded, in some cases by hours. And you can work, and it seems that sleep won't come no matter how early you lie. Rather, there is frustration. The clock turns around. The phone on your wrist is being lit up. Your chest is tightening.

You’re exhausted. You do not feel like sleeping?

What Happens When You Stay Awake at Night Too Long

It is not only about experiencing fatigue. It is about the trickle that creeps in progressively in changing your life in terms of the mind, the body and the heart.

Physically:

• Unbalanced hormones: Schemes of cortisol and melatonin become ruined
• Poor immune system: You are an easier target for diseases
• Weight gain or loss: Weight gain or loss is a result of an unstable hormonal balance that influences the appetite and metabolism
• Lifestyle disease risk: Cardiovascular disease, diabetes and even high blood pressure long term 

Psychologically:

• Mood swings: You get irritable, impatient and emotionally numb
• Mental cloudiness: You can not concentrate, you forget, and choices are heavy
• Anxiety and depression: The greater out of control the nights are the weaker the days are
• Time Distanciation: Day crosses with night. You lose your days. You are sort of living an outside life.

Sometimes, you are smiling in the afternoon, and people think that you are okay. Nobody knows about the 6 am heartbreak, the thoughts that make you cannot stop, the trials you tried to shut your eyes and move away.

Why It’s So Hard to Break?

It is owed to the fact that sleep is not merely physical.

It’s emotional. It’s psychological. 

It’s trust. Safety. Letting go.

You cannot make yourself sleep. The scream test does not make you keep quiet.

There will be those nights where you have all the tricks factor in it, the music, the breathing, the dim lights, and yet you do not sleep. You are beaten, and afterwards you lie there as far as you feel like a failure, even though your mind has failed you.

And the most frustrating bit is? 

Other individuals comment, Just go to sleep early! 

By the way, you have been trying to. Who wants this (as it were)?

Nevertheless, it is not defiance. This is helplessness.

Healing the Cycle: Gentle Ways to Return

And how do you come out of it?

It is not by force. By no means through guilt. Yet beat of low groove.

These are the things that can assist:

1. Wake Up at the Same Time- Each Day

Although you sleep at 6 am, wake up at 12 or 1 PM.                                   Will you be tired, yes. But that fatigue is the beginning of the cure.

It does not start a body up on a sleep side, but on a wake-up side.

2. Ensure you get real sunlight within the first hour of rising.

Look over the balcony. Be in a sunlit window. And let light touch your skin and eyes. Sunlight communicates to your brain that it is a day. That is the time to clear.”

3. Construct a Night Routine - Yet Make It Gentle

Switch off the screens 1 hour before sleep. No games, edits, no dramas. Substitute them with:    

• A scorching shower 
• Light Breathing Exercises  
• Sketching or writing in the light   
• Hearing the voice of a close person
• Make the night a ritual, not a war zone.

4. Say No to Sleep Fighting, Give Sleep Invitation!

Do not panic when you are unable to sleep. Get up. Move around. Read. Stretch. Then fetch yourself back. 

Sleep is not an enemy. It is a visitor. You do not go seek it, you gladly receive it.

For Those Loving Someone Who Can’t Sleep

Seeing your loved one unable to sleep is in itself a pain. 
At 7 AM, you hear their voice, tired and disillusioned.  
You would even put your own hands to close their eyes. 
You hope your goodnight will be sufficient. 
It is not always so that love will solve the situation. It holds.

Now explain to them: It is all right. We will have another attempt tomorrow. It is not that you are failing. Your body is only getting healed.

Be the talk after their mind hath yelled. Remain poised when the earth around them turns.

To those Sleepless Ones here reading this...

You are not busted.
 There is nothing wrong with you not being lazy
 You are not transparent.
You are harried. You are afraid. You are in recovery.
Sleep will come back to thee. 
By no means by punishment.
Does not come in fright.
But with patience.
Now, then, when sleep will not come tonight, it is all right.
Put your eyes closed. Breathe deeply.
Sleep with no guilt.
And tell thyself,
 The body is a memory.
I have not lost my peace.
It is simply waiting to be back.

.    .    .