The short explanation
Trouble falling or staying asleep for weeks at a time is called insomnia, and it is very common. What helps most people is a steady routine rather than a quick fix: getting up at the same time every day, keeping the bed for sleep, avoiding tea, coffee and heavy meals late in the evening, putting the phone away before bed, and getting up to do something calm if you have been awake for a long while instead of lying there worrying about it. If it has lasted more than a few weeks, a structured therapy called cognitive behavioural therapy for insomnia (CBT-I) is the treatment with the best evidence, and it works for many people without tablets.
What depends on your situation
The parts of this that change from woman to woman. Uncertainty is stated, not hidden.
- Insomnia often has something behind it: worry or low mood, pain, hot flushes, needing to pass urine at night, a thyroid problem, a baby or a family member who wakes you, shift work, or a shared, noisy home. Treating what sits underneath often helps sleep more than treating sleep itself.
- A short sleep diary — when you went to bed, roughly when you slept, when you woke — for one or two weeks makes an appointment far more useful.
What this answer cannot determine
The boundary of online education. These need a clinician who can see you.
- This cannot tell you why you are not sleeping or whether something medical is involved. It also cannot tell you whether any tablet is suitable for you.
Questions for your clinician
Take these with you. You can add any of them to an appointment card.
- Could anything physical, such as my thyroid, pain or hot flushes, be behind this?
- Could my mood or stress be part of it, and is help available for that?
- Is CBT for insomnia available here, online or in person?
- Could any medicine I take be affecting my sleep?
When to seek help
Clinician-approved guidance for this topic. When in doubt, being seen is never the wrong choice.
- Get help now if poor sleep comes with thoughts of harming yourself or ending your life: call Tele-MANAS on 14416 (free, any hour, several Indian languages) or 112 in an emergency.
- See a clinician within days if you are so sleepy you nod off while driving or working, or if sleeplessness came with a big change in mood.
- Book a routine appointment if poor sleep has lasted more than a few weeks and is affecting your days.
Sources
The evidence this explanation is built on.
Who wrote and reviewed this
Every AskHer answer names its author. A clinically reviewed answer also names the clinician who signed it off — if no clinician is named below, it has not been clinically reviewed.
- Author
- AskHer Editorial (AI-assisted draft) AskHer's editorial team — not an individual clinician Works in English, தமிழ், हिन्दी
- Clinical reviewer
- Nobody yet No clinician has signed this answer off, and no person on the editorial team has read it yet. That is what the “Written with AI assistance” label means. It is queued for an editor to read, and then for a clinician who works in this area. The sources it was drafted against are listed above.
- Review status
- Written with AI assistance — not yet reviewed by a person
- Last reviewed
- Not yet reviewed by a person
- Version
- 1
Correction history
Substantive changes are listed, not quietly edited away.
No corrections have been made since this answer was first published.
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