this post was submitted on 24 Feb 2026
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one thing I have done in my endless struggle with sleep is to track how much I sleep for a week or two. i think paper is best but if you use computer instead make sure it is something you can easily look at in entirety. make a grid with 7 days across the top and 24 hours along the side. then color the blocks to indicate sleep or awake. you can also add more detail like "trying to sleep/wake", work/school, exercise, drinking/drugs/caffine, alone/social time, whatever. but just sleep and awake is useful because you can count the sleep blocks and average out to find out how much you actually sleep. and see the overall pattern visually.
i was very surprised to find out I actually sleep about 8-9 hours per day. over the years I have done this and it is consistent through various lifestyles. my body just have a lot of inertia. once it is in one state it will keep going. physiological difficulty switching tasks.
i have various wake up strategies when I need to wake up. i have never found a way to force myself to get up at a certain time "because I should". like you I will simply do whatever is required to disable the alarms and go back to bed.
after years and years of struggle my preferred option is to arrange my life to allow flexibility. i think other people are able to overcome this so it is worthwhile to try. if not already done you could look into medical causes like thyroid, sleep apnea or other disorders, mentalhealth depression neurodivergence. could also investigate melatonin which is a pretty benign drug (when used as directed) which is indicated for this kind of problem. it is available without prescription in a lot of places.
anecdotally, I have been told by many people that a surefire way to solve this problem is to have a baby.
Alright. on my way to get pregnant
so clarification, you slept for 19 hours, does that mean you were awake for 5/24 hours prior, as others are assuming? if you are literally sleeping 19h/day x 7days each week, that's different.
Its like im 20h in bed and followed by 20h awake and so on ,
I have slept for >24 hours after being awake for 2-3 days. To whatever extent that is a problem, the awake is equal problem as sleep. So you should do the chart thing I said to at least have a grasp on the situation. If you are 20h/20h then you are sleeping avg 12h/day which is way less severely abnormal than 19h/day. "8 hours" is a kind of general guideline
middle of the bell curve. There are people at the tails of the bell. 4 and 12 hours. But it isn't just that you need more sleep, it's that you also need/take more awake. Most people do not stay up for 20 hours by choice! So all these things people are saying about fatigue are not it; if you were fatigued this would not be possible. Obviously if you stay awake for a long time, you will sleep long to compensate.
The issue is the whole cycle not sleep. Work, drugs/meds/substances, physical activity, socializing, screens, food, sex, noise, light, temperature, habits, extrinsic demands + innate temperament are all potentiially contributing.
So I dont think I have ever been awake for 2 days ? like I do try not to surpass 30h Today is probably going to be a 30h day but I will try to fit a 2h nap in there somewhere
Right, so if you can plan to stay awake for 30h than you are not plausibly having a fatigue issue. It would be impossible with some of the health issues proposed in this thread. Quite abnormal even without those. But naturally you will sleep a lot after. if sleep wake is averagely 16h:8h (2:1), that gives 30h:15h approximately. So I am not finding it strange to sleep 19h if you are keeping hours like this.
It is an issue with circadian rhythm. Things that could help if you have the discipline for them are
But I am guessing if you plan for a 30h waketime, there is some reason for that too? Work demands? Plans stacked up to not allow sleep? So you must decide if this is your lifestyle that you are doing, or if those underlying reasons can/should be modified. Because you cannot expect to have such long wakefulness without long sleeping. About 1/3 time is normally spent sleeping. Some people more and some people less.