How can I sleep when I need to be up early the next day?

I would like an answer as well.
What I can tell you, since you have to be up in an hour, do not try to sleep now. My own experience tells me that if you manage to fall asleep within that hour, you will be a lot more tired when you wake up than you are now.
In general, you could try sleeping masks and earplugs.
It seems to help in my case.

Half a benadryl (pink allergy tablet) does it for me. I take one 9 hours before I have to get up. Then I shower, go to bed, and start reading a book. I am asleep in no time.

I sometimes have that problem – rarely, but this is when it will happen – when I have to wake up extra-early to get to an airport in time for a particular flight.

I may have resolved it on my last flight, when I knew that I would have to be up and out of the house by 5 AM in order to take a 3-hour ride to JFK for a flight to Hong Kong. I decided – deliberately – to stay up all night the night before. I reasoned that since the limo ride was over two hours and the flight would be just over 14 hours, I’d be able (finally) to sleep then, since I don’t normally sleep well in cars (unless I’m driving, but that’s another story) or in airplanes.

So at midnight the night before I left I was packing (which isn’t unusual), and then I was up reading and on the ‘Net all night (and occasionally packing some “oh, I almost forgot” items), and able to leave exactly as planned at about 4:45 AM.

But I didn’t sleep more than a few minutes at a time in the limo. And I don’t think I slept more than an hour, total, on the 14-hour ride to Hong Kong. Nor did I sleep on the 3-hour layover there, or the 2-hour flight that followed, or the 4-hour cab ride to my final destination in Malaysia. By the time we checked into the hotel at 1 AM in Malaysia, I had been up for over 36 hours; maybe over 40. I was pretty functional at that check-in time, but I did sleep like the dead that night (which is unusual for me in a new hotel on the other side of the planet), and I woke fine the next day. In fact, I didn’t have any recognized effects of exhaustion during the whole week I spent in Malaysia.

However, I did wake up on that first morning with a sore throat, an incredibly dry mouth, and an apparent case of bronchitis that lingered for almost two months. I don’t think that was related, but… we’ll see. I have to make the trip again sometime within the next six months or so.

@LuckyGuy yeah, I wouldn’t get back up. I’m so very sensitive to medicine, stuff like that knocks me out for a long time.

I have been a lifetime sufferer of frequent insomnia. What works for one person might not work for someone else. But here is what I have found to be the most useful…

- Have a bedtime routine.
– Do not lay around on the couch prior to bed.
– Only go to bed when you are so tired that you can’t take it any more.
– If you are still laying there wide awake after about 10 minutes, get up. Get up, go back out to the living room and read. **
– ** Do not take this as a failure. Completely see this as a good thing. You have a few more minutes to read that book you’ve been wanting to finish.
– Repeat. When you can’t sit up anymore because you are so tired, go back to bed.

Also, if you are the slightest bit interested in meditation, these moments are perfect for it. Have you ever tried to meditate in the middle of the day while tired? One of the biggest challenges for people beginning a practice is trying to stay awake.

So, when I am fighting myself in the middle of the night and find myself with racing thoughts of anxiety and finding other ways to sabotage myself, I try to smile and realize that I have just been given a few moments of time. I can spend this time reading, or I can spend it meditating. Sleep will happen. There is very little control I have over that. But I can control my frantic reaction to being awake in this moment.

@DigitalBlue: “For some reason it is far less stressful for me to just stay up all night and all day, rather than just go to sleep and wake up like a normal person.”

Also, don’t be so hard on yourself. So many of us find this to be challenging. Try to keep in mind that while you’re up and working yourself into a panic – you’re not alone. So are many of your neighbors (and me).

I take Melatonin for occasional sleeplessness. I had bad insomnia when I was pregnant and my midwife recommended it. I’m kind of tolerant to medicines, so I double dose – two 5mg tablets, about 20 minutes before bed. The best thing about Melatonin is that it’s not a “sleeping pill” per se, and when you wake up you won’t have that drugged feeling.

But don’t take it unless you have a good 6 – 8 hours to commit to sleeping. You might miss your alarm clock otherwise.

I have the same exact problem. I have an early flight back from Paris in December and am already stressed about its ruining my vacation.

For me, on the nights I need to sleep, the only thing that really works is medication; either an ambien or a benadryl. Sometimes a Xanax will take enough of the edge off that I can get some sleep. Since you say you are sensitive to medicine, this is probably not the solution you want to hear and I’m not crazy about it either.

A friend finds that setting an alarm clock has relieved her anxiety some about waking up on time.

This only happens to me when I need to wake up way before the time I naturally do. I set two alarms and tell my husband to wake me at a certain time, so I feel I have all sorts of back-ups to make sure I actually get up. I half the time have dreams about missing a plane or not handing in homework on time that night, sometimes even during the week preceding. Staying up all night is not an option for me, I physically can’t do it. Living on 3 hours sleep might happen, and then catch up with a nap later that day. I don’t mind if my sleep is broken into two segments to get the sleep I need, I just take it in stride.

No drugs ever. They mess me up big time. I can go extra hours on adrenaline.

I would try Calms Forte, a natural, all-herbal anti-anxiety medication that calms you down so you can sleep.

I had really bad insomnia as a young teenager. I found that, strange as it sounds, taking all plugged-in electronic devices out of my room helped a lot.

Don’t stimulate your mind when it’s time to go to bed, like with video games or the internet. Read a boring book, something that you can just throw down when you feel tired. Drink some ‘sleepy time’ herbal tea (you can find these at any grocery store, containing any of the following: passionflower, valerian, chamomile, rosehips), and brew it real strong, like 15–20 minutes steeping. Take some valerian pills. I take a couple every night and they help me both fall asleep and stay asleep.

I would consider the Benadryl solution. Try a quarter of a pill if you are that sensitive. But don’t underestimate the power of your anxiety.

I hate plane travel or any kind of travel that involves being somewhere at a specific time. It’s the TSA that makes things really bad. You never know when the lines will be long and make you late. Once I get past the lines, I totally relax. I know I’m going to make the plane. But we have no control over lines, and that means the terrorists have won. They have increased the level of anxiety about travel by a horrendous amount. A terrorist amount.

I now know that if I have to get up early, I’m not going to sleep. That’s all there is to it. I give up. I try not to travel much, and when I do, I try to travel by car. I just had a trip yesterday that involved a time sensitive meeting, which, even though by car, made me anxious. It turned out it wasn’t nearly as time sensitive as they made it sound, but did they feel like telling us that? Of course not.

And I’m anxious today, too, because I have a presentation that I organized. I’m not even doing the talking and I’m anxious. But then, I’ve been anxious for a few days now. Probably my brain. Lack of sunlight. Hopefully it’ll go away before a few weeks have passed, otherwise, more drastic action may be required.

The unknown is scary, and even in our daily lives, we may be unable to control things. I don’t like surprises any more. I know I have to surf the wave of surprise, and I know I’ll do all right, but for the moment, my sense of humor seems to have deserted me.

I think that’s the other thing we need: humor. Try to laugh at ourselves for being so up tight. I mean, it’s absurd that we take these stupid things so seriously. Fuck! I’ve missed the last train out of the Soviet Bloc and lived to tell the story. ‘Course, I was a lot younger then. But just thinking about that makes my anxiety subside a little.

You take the benadrlyl before you go to bed. That will relax you If a whole pill is too much then use a half or ¼. They are easy to split and are well worth it if you have trouble sleeping. If you have allergies, your breathing will improve too. Give ti a try.
If you need to get up, set an alarm AND drink a full glass of water before bed.

I’m not a proponent of pills of any kind, so I recommend warm milk, warm baths, low lights from 7p until bedtime, a calm quiet atmosphere, and if you’re still not tired have sex/ orgasm or exercise hard earlier in the afternoon.

I can relate to what you say so much. I would take a sleeping pill and be done with it. Or,. at times I have used certain sleep hypnosis videos on you tube. I also do this whole meditation thing as I am falling asleep, which really is working for me as well, It is about visualizing my body, my breathing and for example you could add in, dream scenarios of how well the appointment goes the next day. If you need the links to the videos I PM me.

This very rarely happens to me but as I’m the sort of person who really cannot sleep if I go to bed earlier than usual (unless I’m sick) I would be more inclined to just stay up right through the night and catch up on sleep later.