Forum menu
Well, last night was a little better- didn’t have any caffeine after my morning coffee, stuck with decaf tea for the rest of day.
Still in bed by half 9 but as usual I read for around an hour before turning the light off. Don’t think it took me long to drop off as usual.
I put some white noise on the Echo, this may have helped a bit when I woke at 03:40 and went to the loo as when I got back into bed I didn’t hear the Mrs which is one of the triggers for me not getting back to sleep. I drifted off a bit and had some more sleep in short stints but was still up at half 5.
So around 5 hours of decent sleep followed by 90 min or so of ‘naps’.
Wife is on nights tonight and tomorrow for the first time in absolutely ages so it will be interesting to see whether I sleep any better with her absent from the bed.
It is interesting to read in between the various bits of advice (thanks guys) that there are also plenty of people whose sleep pattern is similar to mine.
First month on blood pressure meds and it has improved my sleeping a lot.
I still wake up at 3 sometimes but I’ve been reading books on sports physiology on my Kindle and barely manage a page before I’m sleeping again.
Although I can’t relate directly to the thread, I have found taking a magnesium complex supplement has done wonders for the quality of my sleep. Top quality magnesium isn’t cheap but it’s definitely value for money IMO
The idea of sleeping 10 till 6 seems to come from industrialisation and shift working. Much history suggests that people would break their night’s sleep for a read or whatever.
Yes, there have even been research papers published on the phenomenon.
Breaking sleep in the middle of the night was normal until fairly recently.
Interesting little article on the Beeb to start off.
BBC.COM I suffer quite badly with insomnia, have done for 30 years, so i've done a fair bit of reading on it.
Hasn't helped, i still have to survive on 3 or 4 hours a night at best...
I wake up several times most nights, seems to have started around my 50th birthday. Sometimes it is work and stress/worry so that’s easy to identify, but lately I just seem to wake up. I usually go to bed about 10-10:30 and will almost always wake at about 4am for a wee - I think this is habit as I could go through if I tried but tend to think I might as well go since I’m awake. Occasionally I need to clear my mind to get back to sleep but generally I’m OK.
If I’ve had a hard day of exercise, or 2-3 consecutive days, I tend to wake more through the night. This is generally mild hunger as a result of not refuelling properly and starts about 2am (or earlier if I’ve gone to bed earlier) and I’ll wake every hour or so unless I do something about it. I used to get up and eat cereal, which isn’t ideal, but now I’ll just have a few sips of water without getting up. This usually helps me feel full and get back to sleep quite quickly. Note, I usually don’t actually feel hungry (no hunger pangs) but it must be that as eating or drinking fixes it.
Trouble here as well.Neighbours have just started a new behaviour of banging around at 6.30am.No thought for anybody else.
Usually go to bed at around 9:30pm and read for up to an hour, before dropping off fairly quickly most nights.........
..........or around 6 months now though, no matter what I do I wake at circa 4am and rarely get much sleep after that.
If your intention is to sleep to a certain time then just don't go to bed until however many hours before then get up at that time every day (weekends etc. included).
I don’t find I sleep for any longer by going to bed any earlier. I wake up when I do through a habit of waking just before the alarm or after 6-7 hours – whichever comes first.
My role is also active and the need for sleep can fluctuate, particularly if I add in an evening ride. I am also fine with a post lunch nap to maintain a safe working environment.
^^^This^^^
Haven't read all the replies in detail as some are quite lengthy but it seems most are saying the same, and I did have a very quick scan through that Gaurdian linky.
I'm the same as most, at 53yrs I never seem to sleep for very long, but when I do it's usually good quality with loads of weird dreams. Usually go to bed around 11-11:30 and am up around 7am to start work at 8. I usually wake up two or three times in the night, not really sleeping more than a couple or three hours at a time. I've probably slept through the night once or twice in the last year.
What I do is put my phone over the clock so that I can't see what time it is when I wake up. I don't need to care what time it is because my alarm hasn't gone off so it's not time to get up. It takes a bit of will power not to check the clock but I've got used to it now. Sometimes I can lay awake for what seems like an hour or maybe two before dropping off again but I just don't care about it. It's dark, it's quiet and peaceful, lay there and enjoy it. Yes the mind starts to wander into thoughts of the day or the next day but I find the best thing to do is to stay in bed and do my best to just relax and enjoy the down time, even if I'm not asleep there's no need to get up.
An hours lie down/snooze during the day can sometimes help as well if I've been riding, circuit training or just been rather active for a few days.
Another point with waking in the night. People think they have been awake for much longer periods and sleep less than observational studies show iirc. Ie looking at the clock at 2am and again at 4am and believing you have been awake for 2 hours is possibly incorrect. You were awake for a couple of minutes at 2 and again at 4 more likely.
When Julie was unwell I was able to get up to tend to her needs in the night without ever fully waking fortunately thus never becoming sleep deprived
Also fretting about lack of sleep makes it worse.
Anyway im off for a nap🤣