# nitez

> Why we can’t sleep, and what helps. Lying awake, wondering why sleep won’t come? Sleep research has answers, from waking at 3am to what a drink, a nap or a sleeping pill does to a night.

Every page is also served as markdown at the same address with .md added (https://nitez.com/index.md for the home page). The full text of every piece is in https://nitez.com/llms-full.txt.

## Trouble sleeping

- [How do I get through the day after a bad night?](https://nitez.com/after-a-bad-night.md): Barely slept? How one short night really affects your day, what helps you get through it, and why tonight's sleep will probably be deeper.
- [How do I stop my mind racing at night?](https://nitez.com/busy-mind-at-night.md): Why your mind races when you lie down, why trying to stop the thoughts keeps them going, and what can help a busy mind tonight.
- [How do I wind down when I’m tired but wired?](https://nitez.com/winding-down.md): Tired but wired in the evening and can’t switch off? Why the day keeps running after you stop, and how to let it wear off without a routine to get right.
- [What can I do when I dread going to bed?](https://nitez.com/dreading-bedtime.md): Bad nights can leave you dreading bed, and the dread keeps sleep away. Why it happens, why tonight matters less than it feels, and what to try this evening.
- [What can I do when worry keeps me awake?](https://nitez.com/worry-at-night.md): When a real worry about money, health, work or someone you love keeps you awake: why it seems bigger at night, and how to leave it until morning.
- [Why am I still tired after a full night’s sleep?](https://nitez.com/tired-after-sleeping.md): Slept seven or eight hours and still woke up exhausted? Why mornings feel so slow, from sleep inertia to body-clock timing, and when it's worth a doctor.
- [Why am I wide awake at bedtime?](https://nitez.com/awake-at-bedtime.md): Wide awake at bedtime after a long day? Why the body clock pushes alertness in the evening, how naps and caffeine add to it, and what helps tonight.
- [Why can’t I fall asleep?](https://nitez.com/cant-fall-asleep.md): Lying in bed tired but unable to drop off? Why trying harder keeps you awake, why the wait can feel longer than it was, and what to try tonight.
- [Why do I keep waking up at 3am?](https://nitez.com/waking-at-3am.md): Waking at 3am and can't get back to sleep? Why it happens in the second half of the night, why it feels so bleak, and one small thing to try now.
- [Why do I stay up late when I'm tired?](https://nitez.com/staying-up-late.md): Tired but still up at midnight, scrolling or watching one more episode? Why we put off going to bed, and how to keep your evening without losing your sleep.
- [Why do I wake up too early and can't get back to sleep?](https://nitez.com/waking-too-early.md): Waking an hour or two before your alarm and lying there until it goes? Why it happens, from an early body clock to low mood, and what helps you sleep later.

## How sleep works

- [How much sleep do I really need?](https://nitez.com/how-much-sleep.md): How many hours of sleep adults need, why it's a range rather than one number, and how to tell from your days whether you're getting enough.
- [What happens while we sleep?](https://nitez.com/stages-of-sleep.md): What happens while you sleep: light, deep and REM sleep, how the cycles repeat through the night, and why brief wakings are a normal part of it.
- [What is deep sleep, and am I getting enough?](https://nitez.com/deep-sleep.md): What deep sleep is, why it comes early in the night and thins with age, and why a tracker's deep sleep number is only a rough guess.
- [What is REM sleep?](https://nitez.com/rem-sleep.md): What REM sleep is, why your body can’t move while your brain is nearly awake, why it gathers toward morning, and what it may do for memory.
- [What is the body clock, and how does it decide when I'm sleepy?](https://nitez.com/body-clock.md): How your body clock works: a clock in nearly every cell, reset each morning by light, and why some people are simply built to sleep later.
- [What makes us feel sleepy?](https://nitez.com/sleep-pressure.md): Why sleepiness builds the longer you're awake, how the body clock puts it off, and why caffeine, naps and sleeping in work the way they do.
- [Why are some nights better than others?](https://nitez.com/good-nights.md): Why you sleep well one night and badly the next: how your day, wake time, light and hours awake shape tonight's sleep, and why some variation is normal.
- [Why do we dream?](https://nitez.com/why-we-dream.md): Why we dream, why dreams are so strange and borrow from yesterday, and what the main scientific theories say dreams are for.

## What helps

- [Are naps good for you?](https://nitez.com/are-naps-good-for-you.md): Are naps good or bad for you? How long and when to nap, why a long nap can leave you groggy, and how a nap changes the night ahead.
- [How do I get over jet lag faster?](https://nitez.com/jet-lag.md): Why you’re wide awake at 3am after a long flight, why flying east is harder, and how to time light and dark so your body clock catches up sooner.
- [How do I sleep well on night shifts?](https://nitez.com/night-shifts.md): Why sleep after a night shift is short and light, and what helps: when to sleep, a nap before work, light and darkness, and guarding day sleep at home.
- [How does light affect my sleep?](https://nitez.com/light-and-sleep.md): How morning daylight, evening lamps and your phone set your body clock, what’s worth changing and how to use light if you sleep by day after night shifts.
- [Should I get up if I can’t sleep?](https://nitez.com/getting-up-at-night.md): Lying awake and wondering whether to get up or stay put? Why leaving bed for a while can help, what to do while you’re up, and when to go back.
- [What is CBT for insomnia, and what would it ask of me?](https://nitez.com/cbt-for-insomnia.md): What CBT for insomnia asks of you, why it starts with less time in bed, how long it takes and how to find it or try it on your own.
- [What makes a bedroom good for sleep?](https://nitez.com/the-bedroom.md): What makes a bedroom good for sleep: why cool, dark and steady sound matter, what's mostly marketing and what helps if you share a bed or sleep by day.

## Remedies and substances

- [Are sleeping pills safe to take?](https://nitez.com/sleeping-pills.md): Are sleeping pills safe? What prescription pills and PM sleep aids do, the risks of one hard night versus every night, and how people come off them.
- [Do herbal sleep remedies like valerian or chamomile work?](https://nitez.com/herbal-remedies.md): Do valerian, chamomile, lavender or magnesium help you sleep? What trials show for each, how much products vary, and what not to mix them with.
- [Does alcohol help you sleep?](https://nitez.com/alcohol-and-sleep.md): Alcohol can help you fall asleep, but what happens later in the night? How drinking changes sleep, and what to do if you've had a few tonight.
- [How long does caffeine stay in your system?](https://nitez.com/caffeine-and-sleep.md): How long caffeine stays in your body, why an afternoon coffee keeps some people up, and how it can thin deep sleep even if you fall asleep fine.
- [Is it okay to take melatonin every night?](https://nitez.com/melatonin.md): Is melatonin safe to take every night? How the body's nighttime signal works, what it helps and which dose and timing make sense, with a word on children.

## Conditions

- [Do I have insomnia?](https://nitez.com/insomnia.md): Weeks of bad sleep: is it insomnia or a rough patch? What counts, why it outlasts the stress that started it, and what helps.
- [Do I have sleep apnea?](https://nitez.com/sleep-apnea.md): Loud snoring, pauses in breathing, tired however long you sleep? The signs of sleep apnea, why you may not know, and what a test and treatment involve.
- [Should I worry about my partner’s snoring?](https://nitez.com/snoring-partner.md): When a partner snores every night: how to tell ordinary snoring from signs of sleep apnea, how to bring it up, and how to get some sleep yourself.
- [What are night terrors, and what should I do when my child has one?](https://nitez.com/night-terrors.md): Your child is screaming but doesn't seem to see you. What night terrors are, how they differ from nightmares, what to do and when to see a doctor.
- [What is narcolepsy, and could I have it?](https://nitez.com/narcolepsy.md): Sleepy all the time, or woke unable to move? What narcolepsy is, how it differs from ordinary tiredness, its signs and how it's diagnosed.
- [Why do I keep having nightmares?](https://nitez.com/nightmares.md): Why nightmares keep coming back, what makes them more likely, and how rewriting a bad dream while you're awake can ease them, with when to talk to someone.
- [Why do my legs feel restless at night?](https://nitez.com/restless-legs.md): Restless legs at night: what the creeping urge to move is, why it comes in the evening, how iron and some medicines feed it and what helps.
- [Why do people sleepwalk, and should I wake them?](https://nitez.com/sleepwalking.md): Why sleepwalking happens, why it's so common in children, whether it's safe to wake a sleepwalker and how to lead them back to bed.

## Through life

- [How can I help my child sleep?](https://nitez.com/children-and-sleep.md): Why children wake in the night and call for you, how much sleep school-age kids need, and ways to ease bedtime battles, fears and night wakings.
- [How much should my newborn sleep, and how do I keep them safe?](https://nitez.com/newborn-sleep.md): How much newborns sleep, why they wake every few hours and mix up day and night, when nights lengthen and how to put your baby down safely.
- [Why can’t my teenager fall asleep before midnight?](https://nitez.com/teenagers-and-sleep.md): Teenagers’ body clocks really do shift later. Why your teen isn’t sleepy at 10pm, what school start times do, and how to help without a nightly fight.
- [Why does my sleep change as I get older?](https://nitez.com/sleep-in-later-life.md): Why sleep gets earlier, lighter and more broken as you get older, which changes come with age itself and which come from something else, and what still helps.
- [Why is it so hard to sleep while pregnant?](https://nitez.com/pregnancy-and-sleep.md): Why sleep gets hard in each trimester, from nausea and heartburn to needing to pee, what the side-sleeping advice really says, and what helps.
- [Why is my sleep so bad during menopause?](https://nitez.com/menopause-and-sleep.md): Night sweats, waking at 3am, lying awake for an hour: why sleep changes in menopause, and what helps, from CBT for insomnia to hormone therapy.

## Words

- [adenosine](https://nitez.com/words/adenosine.md): A natural substance in the brain that helps to regulate sleep and is thought to add to the need for sleep when we stay awake for longer than usual. Caffeine works by blocking the places in the brain where adenosine acts.
- [antihistamine](https://nitez.com/words/antihistamine.md): A medicine that blocks histamine, a chemical that helps keep you awake. Some older ones make you drowsy and are sold as nighttime sleep aids.
- [augmentation](https://nitez.com/words/augmentation.md): A worsening of restless legs caused by the medicine used to treat it, most often a dopamine drug: symptoms start earlier in the day, come on faster or spread to other parts of the body.
- [benzodiazepine](https://nitez.com/words/benzodiazepine.md): A family of sedative medicines, such as diazepam and temazepam, prescribed for anxiety and sometimes for sleep. Taken for a long time, they can lead to dependence.
- [body clock](https://nitez.com/words/body-clock.md): The timekeeper in your brain that runs on a cycle of about a day, setting when you feel sleepy and when you feel alert. Daylight, especially in the morning, keeps it in step with the clock on the wall.
- [caffeine withdrawal](https://nitez.com/words/caffeine-withdrawal.md): The headaches, tiredness and low mood that can follow when someone who has caffeine most days stops suddenly. It usually passes within two to nine days, and it isn’t considered dangerous.
- [cataplexy](https://nitez.com/words/cataplexy.md): A sudden spell of muscle weakness while awake, usually set off by laughter or another strong feeling, during which the person stays fully aware. It's a sign of narcolepsy type 1.
- [CBT for insomnia](https://nitez.com/words/cbt-i.md): Cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia: a short course of practical, talking-based techniques that help retrain sleep. It’s the first treatment doctors recommend for long-term insomnia.
- [cognitive shuffling](https://nitez.com/words/cognitive-shuffling.md): A bedtime mental game: picturing a string of unrelated, everyday things one after another, for example things that begin with each letter of a chosen word.
- [cortisol](https://nitez.com/words/cortisol.md): A hormone that helps the body respond to stress and to waking. Its level rises and falls each day: lowest around midnight and highest in the early morning.
- [CPAP](https://nitez.com/words/cpap.md): Continuous positive airway pressure: a machine that sends a steady flow of air through a mask to keep your airway open while you sleep. It's the usual treatment for obstructive sleep apnea.
- [deep sleep](https://nitez.com/words/deep-sleep.md): The slowest, most settled stage of sleep, when it’s hardest to wake someone. Most of it comes in the first part of the night.
- [delayed sleep phase](https://nitez.com/words/delayed-sleep-phase.md): When your body clock runs late, so sleep doesn't come until well after a usual bedtime and waking early is very hard. It's common in teenagers.
- [dependence](https://nitez.com/words/dependence.md): When your body has adapted to a medicine or substance so that stopping it brings unpleasant effects for a while, such as worse sleep.
- [ferritin](https://nitez.com/words/ferritin.md): A protein that stores iron, measured with a blood test. The level shows roughly how much iron the body has in reserve.
- [half-life](https://nitez.com/words/half-life.md): The time it takes the body to clear half of something, such as caffeine. After one half-life, half is left; after two, about a quarter.
- [hot flash](https://nitez.com/words/hot-flash.md): A sudden wave of heat through the body, often with sweating and a flushed face, common around menopause. At night it can wake you, damp and too warm.
- [hypnagogia](https://nitez.com/words/hypnagogia.md): The drifting, half-dreaming state between waking and sleep, when thoughts loosen and pictures arrive on their own.
- [insomnia](https://nitez.com/words/insomnia.md): Trouble falling asleep, staying asleep or waking too early, that keeps happening and affects how you feel or get on during the day.
- [jet lag](https://nitez.com/words/jet-lag.md): The tiredness and broken sleep that come from crossing time zones faster than your body clock can adjust to the new local time.
- [light sleep](https://nitez.com/words/light-sleep.md): The lighter stages of sleep, the drifting doze a small sound can lift you out of. A night spends more time here than in any other stage.
- [lux](https://nitez.com/words/lux.md): A measure of how much light falls where you are. Daylight outdoors is many times brighter than ordinary indoor lighting, even on a cloudy day.
- [melatonin](https://nitez.com/words/melatonin.md): A hormone your brain releases as darkness falls, telling the rest of your body that night has come. It's also sold as a tablet.
- [microsleep](https://nitez.com/words/microsleep.md): A brief spell of sleep that can happen while someone is trying to stay awake, often without their noticing.
- [narcolepsy](https://nitez.com/words/narcolepsy.md): A long-term condition in which the brain can't keep sleep and waking properly apart, bringing overwhelming sleepiness by day and, for some, sudden muscle weakness.
- [night terrors](https://nitez.com/words/night-terrors.md): Spells in which someone, most often a child, seems to wake in terror from deep sleep, crying out or thrashing, without really being awake. They usually remember nothing of it in the morning.
- [nightmare](https://nitez.com/words/nightmare.md): A frightening dream that wakes you, usually from REM sleep later in the night, and that you can often remember clearly afterwards.
- [nocturia](https://nitez.com/words/nocturia.md): Waking from sleep once or more in the night to pass urine. It’s common in both men and women, and becomes more common with age.
- [non-REM sleep](https://nitez.com/words/non-rem-sleep.md): All of sleep except REM sleep, from the lightest stages down to deep sleep.
- [orexin](https://nitez.com/words/orexin.md): A messenger made by a small group of brain cells that helps keep us awake through the day and holds sleep and waking steady. It's also called hypocretin.
- [placebo](https://nitez.com/words/placebo.md): A dummy treatment, such as a pill with nothing active in it. Studies compare a real treatment against one to see how much of the effect comes from the treatment itself.
- [progressive muscle relaxation](https://nitez.com/words/progressive-muscle-relaxation.md): A relaxation exercise in which you tense one group of muscles for a few moments and then let it soften, moving slowly through the body.
- [rebound insomnia](https://nitez.com/words/rebound-insomnia.md): Sleep that is worse than usual for a night or two after stopping a sleeping pill that had been taken regularly.
- [REM rebound](https://nitez.com/words/rem-rebound.md): A return of extra dreaming sleep after it has been held back, for example by alcohol or a short night.
- [REM sleep](https://nitez.com/words/rem-sleep.md): Rapid eye movement sleep, often called dreaming sleep: the stage when most vivid dreaming happens. The eyes move quickly beneath the lids while most of the body’s muscles stay relaxed and still.
- [restless legs syndrome](https://nitez.com/words/restless-legs-syndrome.md): An urge to move your legs, often with uncomfortable feelings in them, that comes on when you rest, especially in the evening, and eases when you move.
- [sedative](https://nitez.com/words/sedative.md): Something that slows activity in the brain and makes you feel drowsy.
- [shift work disorder](https://nitez.com/words/shift-work-disorder.md): Poor sleep, and sleepiness that gets in the way at work, brought on by working nights or other hours that cut across the usual time for sleep. Doctors can assess and treat it.
- [sleep apnea](https://nitez.com/words/sleep-apnea.md): A condition in which the throat repeatedly narrows or closes during sleep, briefly stopping or reducing breathing. Loud snoring, gasping and daytime sleepiness are common signs.
- [sleep cycle](https://nitez.com/words/sleep-cycle.md): One round of the stages of sleep, from light sleep down to deep sleep and on to dreaming sleep. Each lasts about ninety minutes on average, though the length varies, and a night holds four to six of them.
- [sleep hygiene](https://nitez.com/words/sleep-hygiene.md): Everyday habits often suggested for better sleep, such as keeping caffeine to the first part of the day, sticking to regular hours and sleeping in a dark room away from noise.
- [sleep inertia](https://nitez.com/words/sleep-inertia.md): The groggy, slow feeling just after waking, before the brain is fully up to speed.
- [sleep paralysis](https://nitez.com/words/sleep-paralysis.md): A brief spell, on falling asleep or waking, of being aware but unable to move the body, while the eyes move and breathing goes on as usual.
- [sleep pressure](https://nitez.com/words/sleep-pressure.md): The body’s need for sleep, which builds the longer we stay awake and eases while we sleep.
- [sleep restriction](https://nitez.com/words/sleep-restriction.md): A part of CBT for insomnia that limits time in bed to about the amount of sleep you're getting at the moment, then widens it as sleep becomes more solid. It's usually guided by a clinician or a tested program.
- [sleep study](https://nitez.com/words/sleep-study.md): A night with sensors recording your breathing, brain waves, heart and movements as you sleep, in a sleep clinic or sometimes at home, to see what's happening in your sleep.
- [sleepwalking](https://nitez.com/words/sleepwalking.md): Getting up and moving about while still partly in deep sleep. The person usually remembers little or none of it.
- [stimulus control](https://nitez.com/words/stimulus-control.md): A part of insomnia treatment that helps the bed feel linked with sleep again: going to bed when sleepy, and getting up for a while when sleep won’t come.
- [tolerance](https://nitez.com/words/tolerance.md): When a medicine or substance does less than it used to at the same dose, because your body has adapted to it.
- [withdrawal](https://nitez.com/words/withdrawal.md): The body’s reaction when a drug it has adjusted to, such as a sleeping pill, another sedative or alcohol, is cut down or stopped too quickly. It can bring anxiety, shaking and sleeplessness, and at its most severe seizures, so stopping is planned with medical support.
- [z-drug](https://nitez.com/words/z-drug.md): A group of prescription sleeping pills, such as zolpidem, that act on the same calming system in the brain as older sedatives like benzodiazepines.

## Optional

- [Sitemap](https://nitez.com/sitemap.xml)
- [Catalog](https://nitez.com/catalog.json): every page, with its title, description and when it changed
- [Feed](https://nitez.com/feed.xml)