Help... (Waking 4.5 hours into sleep every night).

I've never had this issue before.

I go to bed at midnight every night, fall asleep naturally then wake up at 4.30 and come out of dreaming fully lucid, awake and alert. There's no grogginess or physical strain to go back to sleep. I feel awake like you would in the middle of the day.

It happened one night after I woke up needing to piss after drinking too much water.

I then have a lot of difficulty getting back to sleep because I'm so awake and clear headed. I then either fall back asleep after a long while and then end up having to sleep in until like 10 am to make up for it (I'm self employed, so I can) - but it messes up my day.

I asked chat GPT what to do. It warned against just getting up at 4.30 and starting the day as it probably wouldn't break the cycle but just reinforce my body clock to wake up at that time, and it said that staying awake all night might do something similar.

Instead, it said to just get out of bed at the proper time at 8.30 whether I've gone back to sleep or not after waking, and that being tired will eventually force my body's sleeping window to causing me to sleep all through the night until that time. This sounded absolutely like the solution, and I've been doing so every night.

But it isn't helping at all. It's been going on for two weeks now every night. I get up at 8.30, start work and then spend the day feeling absolutely terrible, finding it difficult to stay awake while working, and then towards the evening, I start feeling more awake and alert until I feel completely normal again, then I go to sleep at 12 and then the cycle continues.

I really need this to stop... I have sleeping pills, but they aren't too much good because it means I'm just doing this shitty cycle of a few hours sleep + waking up + sleeping pills = having to wake up an hour later anyway.

I'm worried about ramifications for my overall health if I'm undersleeping like this every single night. I feel shit and overtired every day, and I have bipolar disorder and I'm absolutely on the way to triggering a massive episode if this stays up.

Your advice is most welcome and appreciated.

Thanks.