sometimes it's just the eyes that are tired and it's the worst
When you're literally falling asleep on the couch, finally decide to switch to the bed and your body goes: Nah, I don't want to anymore.
Sometimes just some mildly swollen nasal passages will make you feel an effort to breathe, so you can't zone out, so things start getting emotional and you start breathing more agitatedly, the senses become more acute... you get caught in a loop that spirals into something that it wasn't when it started.
At that point, I know it's an uncomfortable but wise strategic move to get up, go to the bathroom, feed the cats, do something or even just stand up, erase the mental/emotional whiteboard and start again.
I'll turn on something mellow but arid on tv - like a BBC documentary on the Byzantine Empire - and keep an eye on my breathing, slow it down. At some point I can feel the nasal swelling subside by itself, and I try again.
Last week I had to leave on a road trip. I had to drive 11 hours somewhere, and to make the best time, I was leaving around midnight. So I was going to bed at 5 pm to be well rested. Now, any other day of the week, I have no problems falling asleep at this time if I have the chance. Normally, I can barely keep my eyes open since I have 2 young kids and work till 5 pm and will fall asleep easily if given the chance. This time? Nope, nothing, just me staring at the ceiling for 5 hours, realizing I was screwed... luckily, I had another driver and was able to cover 5 hours still before getting too tired... I even tried playing a phone game that puts me out if I play it for longer than 10 minutes. Let's just say I never played it for over an hour before! The body sucks sometimes!
Kind of a classic stress response. I'm like this if I know I need to get up early.
Or I'll just get up, wide awake, at 0430h. My body is like I know we're nervous about having to be somewhere early so I spent all our energy getting us up and super alert really early with loads of nervous energy to help us process lots of thoughts!!! (meanwhile I'll feel like a boiled mushroom for the actual appointment in 3 hours)
Somehow Last Podcast on the Left consistently puts me to sleep within a few minutes to the point where I just listen to it with a 45m sleep timer when I go to bed, which means I’ll need to rewind and listen to the same episode for over a week until I finally get through it.
I thought I was the only one who could fall asleep to the anti-soothing voice of Henry Zebrowski & company, lol
Yeah it sucks, but this is when I get to go a lot further into my current bedtime novel, so that's a bit of a silver lining.
I try to remind myself that just laying there, relaxing, is still a form of recuperation, even if I don't actually fall asleep. If it happens, it happens.
Source: decades of insomnia
I forget what its called but basically it's unconscious revenge on feeling like your life isn't your own, so you 'take back' time by delaying sleep.
Revenge bedtime procrastination is the term you're looking for. Although I'm not sure that's actually what the OP is describing
Or when you finally feel yourself start crashing down down into that deep deep sleep, like feeling so rough and groggy and maybe even a little nauseated like you're dizzy, but it's finally happening, your bed feels perfectly comfortable, you're too tired to even be stressed anymore, just letting it all go, ohhh here I come Morpheus, I'm falling aslee---
#alarm clock starts ringing
Also sucks when you finally get to sleep and 20 minutes later one of your idiot housemates decides it's appropriate to yell about some stupid thing they saw on the news at 11pm and wakes you back up. Not that I'm still salty about that happening last night or anything....
