Bad sleep patterns

[Martyn]

Is anyone like me having a bad sleep pattern? Here I am banning spammers at 4am GMT and I've been up an hour . I go to sleep very quickly at around 10 -10.30pm but if I wake(I usually do around 3am) my brains kicks into gear often on technical issues I'm dealing with and I can be up for around 2 hrs before going back to bed. Anyone else or do you go off and out solid for your 8hrs?

 

[Xander]

I must be pretty lucky. I taught myself to sleep within minutes of laying down and, if I am awoken in the middle of the night, can roll over and go back to sleep within seconds.

My natural sleep cycle, though, is 2am-10am. Always been a night owl and can't always sleep a full eight hours. I probably average about 6.5-7 most nights and my dogs usually wake me on days I have off so sleeping in is a rarity.

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

Yup....0300 is about the time for me if I'm going to wake up early. I didn't this morning..made it til 0530....but often I wake at 0300 or 0330. Depends on work load.

Relatively new thing too....only in the past year has this started.

 

[katz]

I must be pretty lucky. I taught myself to sleep within minutes of laying down and, if I am awoken in the middle of the night, can roll over and go back to sleep within seconds.

My natural sleep cycle, though, is 2am-10am. Always been a night owl and can't always sleep a full eight hours. I probably average about 6.5-7 most nights and my dogs usually wake me on days I have off so sleeping in is a rarity.

Care to share any tips, Xander? I would love to know how to teach myself to sleep within minutes.It takes me a good hour at least to get to sleep, & then I sleep very lightly - the least thing wakes me.

 

[Kitten Kong]

I usually go to bed around 10.30, watch tv till around 11.30 or so, then try and sleep. (by this time, Claire is already asleep 9/10 times).

I have been known to still be awake at 1-2am, then get up, get dressed, and go downstairs, and sit on the couch, and watch tv, or even come back down to the workshop, till 5am (when claire gets up for work).

Then at 6, when she leaves for work, I start work again, and work right through till x time. That same night, is when I really do sleep.

I usually average around 6-7 hours pr night (on a good night), on a bad one, I don't sleep at all.

But in saying that, I do have a lot of mini spasms in my back, and throughout the day, they do cause me to become extremely drowsy. (I have no idea when these spasms will occur). When they do, I go up to the house, sit on the couch, and 5 mins later, I could be asleep for x length of time, then suddenly, my arm, leg, head, practically any part of my body will twitch, and I am fully awake again. This only happens when I'm resting. Can even occur, whilst im lay in bed. Very weird when it happens..

 

[Cambridge PC Support]

I'm an early riser too, wake up about 5am-6am and will never be able to get back to sleep again.

I've found the Pzizz app on Android (there's an Apple shaped one too) is pretty good for getting a nap during the day, works every time. Have never used it at bedtime as I don't have an issue with falling asleep then.

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

I must be pretty lucky. I taught myself to sleep within minutes of laying down and, if I am awoken in the middle of the night, can roll over and go back to sleep within seconds.

It's nothing to do with "learning to sleep"....you're saying it like we never learned a critical task like being potty trained. Used to be a solid sleeper myself...asleep shortly after laying down, and sleep like a log until 5 minutes before I had to get up. I had an eerily accurate internal alarm clock...would wake up just minutes before I needed to.

But stuff happens like...getting old. The first 47 years of my life I slept great!

Or stressed from work. Or stress on the body, like a bad back that aches at night. Or perhaps ones wife is going through menopause and becomes a light sleeper herself...and gets up..which has a side effect like waking up the husband.

...happens to a huge percentage of the population as they age.

 

[cypress]

I try to be in bed my 11:00pm because I have to be up by 6:00 most days.

I end up waking up up around 3 or 4 am and rolling right back to sleep. Sleep in priceless!

 

[Xander]

It's nothing to do with "learning to sleep"....you're saying it like we never learned a critical task like being potty trained.

Hadn't thought of it that way but that's not far from it. I used to not be able to turn my brain off to sleep; I'd play and replay the day's events, I'd make up imaginary conversations about things that might happen the next day. I'd waste a lot of time and energy and lose a lot of sleep. So, yes, it's "learning to sleep" in that one might have forgotten how to do it properly.
We say "go to sleep" - if sleep is a destination, we've forgotten the quickest route to get there. You can decide to take mass transit, loud and slow, meandering around town ... or you can take a silent little hovercar for one on a direct trip.

Sure, biology can and will play a factor. Late night pees become more frequent as we age. It happens. That doesn't mean that once we wake we need be prevented from returning to sleep.

Care to share any tips, Xander? I would love to know how to teach myself to sleep within minutes.It takes me a good hour at least to get to sleep, & then I sleep very lightly - the least thing wakes me.

I started this by accident and then heard it referenced a few years ago as a recommended technique. In short, it's pseudo-meditative and centers around doing nothing more than listening to the sound of your own breathing. Push out any thoughts and just.focus.on.the.sound. Make it into a white noise

 

[SilverLeaf]

I often fall asleep before I go to bed. I'm not disciplined enough to hit the rack at a consistent time every night. Usually I find myself waking up on the couch watching late night TV or sitting in my desk chair, usually around midnight or so.....at which point I'll get up and go to bed. I usually get around 7hrs though, depending on what time I actually dosed off.... before I went to bed.

Adequate sleep is consistently being recognized as essential to both physical and cognitive health, so I'm trying to get into a regular "wind down" routine at night as opposed to my current haphazard approach.

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

We say "go to sleep" - if sleep is a destination, we've forgotten the quickest route to get there.

Yup..but...notice the OP, as well as myself..are saying we have no problem "getting to sleep". Senility hasn't let us forget how to get there. It's the waking up early that gets annoying.

Everyone has different reasons...can't explain the stress and aches and pains and other environmental factors in each persons life.

One step we took that helps...time for a new mattress. Researched the heck out of them and ended up buying one from "BedInABox.com". Got a tranquility gel top memory foam one. They are made in the US....I flat out refused to purchase a mattress made in China. Being a business person myself...naturally I am aware of local and national economy and refuse to be hypocritical and purchase overseas product as best I can.

Read about them at a great bed research site, http://www.sleeplikethedead.com/

 

[angry_geek]

We got a new mattress last year as well. Made right over in southeastern Missouri. Memory foam with a gel top.

I've suffered insomnia for my entire adult life. Multiple sleep studies have determined it's a problem. Lol. The only suggestions were meditation and medication. The meditation works somewhat for me, but only sometimes. I stopped taking the pills as I just don't like that idea. What works best for me is hot earl gray tea in the evening, or, after a stressful day, a nip of scotch. Sometimes with the tea. I have to force myself to stop work at a given time. Unless it's a time-critical project, I simply stand up and go home at a given time. Doesn't matter what's on my desk.

 

[Montrose Computers]

For most of my life I had problems getting to sleep. Then a few years back I started taking melatonin before bed. Took a few weeks but I did see it noticeably helping. Then I read somewhere about stacking it with magnesium and zinc tablets. That really did the trick. Cheap and I am out like a rock within an hour. Also a vitamin D deficiency can cause insomnia so make sure to take a vitamin D supplement if you don’t get enough sun.

 

[SilverLeaf]

For most of my life I had problems getting to sleep. Then a few years back I started taking melatonin before bed. Took a few weeks but I did see it noticeably helping. Then I read somewhere about stacking it with magnesium and zinc tablets. That really did the trick. Cheap and I am out like a rock within an hour. Also a vitamin D deficiency can cause insomnia so make sure to take a vitamin D supplement if you don’t get enough sun.

+1 for melatonin. I don't take it currently, but plan on adding it to my very selective supplement regimen. I've read a lot of the research (as I do with every supplement), and it has benefits in addition to a good nights sleep, and very few negative side effects.

Virtually everyone, especially in the more northern areas, would probably benefit from Vitamin D3 supplementation. I could go on at length about this, but I am a strong advocate of this particular supplement.

 

[TechLady]

Also a vitamin D deficiency can cause insomnia so make sure to take a vitamin D supplement if you don’t get enough sun.

Yes, THIS ^

A variety of vitamin deficiencies can cause insomnia and that is definitely one of them. I myself have a rather sensitive constitution and I have found that I run into trouble if I take vitamins late in the afternoon--D somewhat and B12 BIG TIME, so if I miss the cutoff for taking them I have to skip it. So if you're taking vitamins--even cheapo multis--maybe pay some mind to when you take them. You never know.

Coffee is another problem. They are not all the same. The Tonx homebrew I make wakes me up in the morning but as long as I drink in moderation doesn't mess up my sleep. If, however, I go grab the same amount at a coffeehouse it's a whole different caffeine level somehow and I'm usually screwed for the night even if I drank the last bit at 11am. Recently one of my favorite clients gave me a cup from her kitchen and wow, it blew up my sleep two nights in a row. (I should find out what brand she's got!).

I could go on about this topic at quite some length, as sleep has been a struggle for me for many, many years. You name it, I've tried it...

Something that appealed to my geeky/gadget nut side helped, however. I was the world's biggest fan of Zeo before they shut down this year. Wore the sleep monitor for years to help me figure out with actual data what was giving me problems. Fitbit does sleep monitoring too and I found it to be accurate though not nearly as detailed. If you like the scientific approach, some kind of gadget to help you with tracking might prove useful (and fun).

And finally, yes--meditation. It's genuinely useful and it works.

"Meditation is the ultimate mobile device; you can use it anywhere, anytime, unobtrusively." ― Sharon Salzberg

"Mindfulness is simply being aware of what is happening right now without wishing it were different; enjoying the pleasant without holding on when it changes (which it will); being with the unpleasant without fearing it will always be this way (which it won't)." – James Baraz

 

[Xander]

Yup..but...notice the OP, as well as myself..are saying we have no problem "getting to sleep". Senility hasn't let us forget how to get there. It's the waking up early that gets annoying.

No, we're not talking about "getting to sleep" but "getting BACK to sleep". Same thing; same principles. We can do without the "whippersnapper" attitude.
The difference being that if you rely upon medications/vitamins/external influences to get to sleep in the first place, they will usually be gone by the time you awake so you must rely upon yourself.