Sensitivity to noises and sleep

Anybody else find that their sensory sensitivity means they struggle to sleep well? I seem to wake up to the slightest sounds. I suppose it classes me as a "light sleeper", but I'm unsure if it's separate to my general sensitivity to sound generally.

  • I have found that making my bedroom as dark as possible and wearing earplugs helps a lot .. (I use these - they're cheap and excellent https://www.toolstation.com/foam-ear-plugs/p60847) .. also I like to go to sleep with a smile .. so I spend a few minutes reading jokes pages on FB and that seems useful .. 

  • Yes the thoughts, the obsessive thoughts! Once I get past them it's then the external noises. Waking up every half hour or hour it seems after a few hours of deeper sleep. Bags under the eyes since I can remember. It's only now after accepting I'm likely to be aspergers that it is beginning to make sense.

    Reflecting on past and current events and behaviours in a new light is both revelatory and troublesome, but sometimes positively affirming.

  • I've struggled with it all my life. I remember being 10 years old and trying to find things I could stick in my ears, like nicking my mum's cotton wool, because I can't sleep if there is a sound. I use black out blinds as well. These days I use silicone ear plugs to sleep.

    Sometimes I even get bothered by sounds inside my head, like my pulse or strange sensations that I am somehow picking up transmissions from a very distant, crackly radio station.

    All that plus rabid thought loops running in my mind. 

  • It is for me, & I have heard similar from others on the spectrum, Not sure how common it is though..... I also get highly anxious if I can't identify the noise that has woken me up,

  • Thanks for the tip. I suppose it's common for people with autism to struggle to sleep because of sensory sensitivity?

  • I've started putting 10 hour sleep music on Youtube low when I go to sleep, It helps to block out some of the quieter noises that wake me up...... Some of the sleep music videos give me weird dreams, But there are plenty on Youtube to choose from.

  • My meds mean that I sleep longer than most people. Although some nights have little rest.

    Last night, I slept FIFTEEN hours.