How well do you sleep?

[Progster]

I can normally get to sleep ok, taking melatonin and valerian, but then wake up during the night or really early in the morning. Blocking the light from coming in in the morning helps.

 

[SusanLR]

I fall asleep very easily.
The hours are just opposite from most people.
Worked night shifts mainly most of my life and my circadian rhythm stayed in that mode.

I go to sleep when a lot of people are getting up. Around 5 am.
My best dream time is 7-10 am.
Then I wake up between 10 - 11 am, hungry. So I eat a bite of breakfast and do some light house work
until 1:30 pm when I start feeling tired again. Back to bed, put on meditation music and sleep until
3:30 in the afternoon.
Wake up, have a small lunch and go to work around the house or if I need to shop, etc.
Dinner at 8 pm.
So 7-8 1/2 hours average. I'm wide awake by late afternoon and my day is the night again until 5 am.

That's just how my body seems to want it and now that I don't work, I can usually follow the
same routine every day unless some important appointment interferes.
Yep, just an Owl.

 

[Sarah S]

I had Severe sleeping disorders (incl VERY active = tear down the bed all my life & what sleep i loose i take back coming day (if i can of course and not on a job etc... ) . But i have learnt to adapt to it as best i can. & i also have my good nights as well as bad of course

 

[Suzette]

Your symptoms sound like nicotine withdrawal. It isn't exactly the same but try substituting coffee or energy drinks to wake you up.

My question is that why are you trying to walk around while you're semi-conscious? I love staying in bed with that half-asleep feeling, drifting in and out. It usually lasts an hour before I'm genuinely awake. It is when I have the most control over my dreams and everything is nice and warm and snuggly. If I don't do that, by mid-day I am falling asleep on my feet

Probably not nicotine withdrawl. I am vaping about 4-6 ml high octane niotine "ejuice".

And coffee....my first love and always my favorite lover! I currently keep 20 kilos of coffee onboard. My coffee stash is biggger than my clothes "closet". Call it my special interest. I have 5 ways to make coffee and 7 coffee makers of various types.

Anyway, I am not walking around semi-conscious but I detest lying in bed once I wake up. I am not concerned about my morning fogginess, just noting it. It is curious to go from sleepless to "sleep of the dead".

 

[Aneka]

My sleep is long but not deep.

 

[Richelle-H]

Retirement and advancing age have made an absolute shambles of normal sleep. Not only do I have trouble falling asleep, my bladder wakes me several times a night (or whenever). I am lucky to get 3 to 4 hours of uninterrupted sleep a day. On occasion, I have only achieved approximately 6 hours sleep in 48. Also, as it it turns out, bedtime for me has no fixed start on stop times anymore.

All that said, my persistent lack of eight hours sleep a day has so far not caused me any noticeable health problems. I used to get eleven or twelve hours of sleep on weekends when I was a teenager. Now I can wind up napping for hours in the middle of the day, most likely because of accrued sleep deficit. It does not happen often, but....

 

[jleeb05]

I can relate to some of your experience. If left alone, I can sleep 10-12 hours without much interruption. I recall my roommate telling me a year or so ago that our fire alarms malfunctioned and went off early in the morning (they're very loud). My dog, who sleeps with me, was crying and barking because the noise hurt her poor little ears. Despite the screeching alarms and frantic dog, I did not wake up. I was completely unaware until my roommate told me what happened the following afternoon. It was frightening. What if it had been a real fire?

Despite all of this sleep, I often wake up feeling as if I've been drugged. I'm usually groggy and only semi-conscious. My co-workers know not to bother me too early in the morning. Now that I'm working from home it's not unusual for me to sleep 10 hours, wake up for my morning meetings, and then go back to sleep for an afternoon nap. When I tell people this, they're usually envious but I'd love to wake up feeling well-rested for once haha.

 

[Gracey]

I could state my current pattern but that will have changed by next week, and again a few days later and so on and so on.
It's been this way for as long as I can remember.
Irritating, noisy alarm clocks were once the only way to startle me awake for the school run and work but I'd have to change them frequently or I'd learn to expect and ignore their noises.
Sleep deprivation versus expected alarm noise. Sleep wins.

Just this evening I unintentionally nodded off after dinner and woke at midnight, refreshed, restored and ready for the 'day'
It's highly unlikely I'll fall asleep again and wake at a more civilised or 'normal' hour so I'm guessing I slept very well for several hours and woke when ready.

I believe I'd have to cut myself off from civilisation, roll with nature,
to establish a sleep routine and reset my circadian rhythm which isn't practical owing to current responsibilities.

I once thought SSRI's would assist. Initially I slept like a cat (approx 15 hours a day on and off) for almost 10 days,
then nothing.
Right back to where I left off pre SSRIs.

I think I've accepted that while odd, this way is the norm for me (at the moment) and pick up work and arrange social contact around what's happening.

 

[SimonSays]

My sleep pattern has been split for ages. It doesn't seem to vary whether I’m using cannabis or not. I don't ever use nicotine or caffeine or alcohol, so there's none of those stimulants to interfere with it.

I fall asleep easily, around 9 o'clock, then tend to wake around 2am. I always get up to pee, then I read for a bit, and then I'll turn the light out and go back to sleep for a couple more hours. I'm done around 6 o'clock and don't just stay in bed once I am.

I never do my sleeping in one go, and haven't done for years, even if I stay awake longer (which I rarely do), I'll still wake up four or five hours later. I’m wondering if I had to go to work, and if that work involved physical activity or mental stress, my body/mind may need more continuous sleeping to recharge and recover. But I am generally very relaxed and this may have some effect on sleeping?

I do notice that occasionally there is some napping during the day, so there may be some ‘catching-up’ going on when required.

 

[Soleil]

I sleep well enough, I guess; I just have trouble getting myself in bed because there's always "just one more thing," and then I get distracted by another thing.

I used to have sleep apnea, where I would just stop breathing, so I would have a sensor attached to me while I slept. I'll have to ask my mom when I stopped wearing that, and why, but I think it's related to my physical biology and not my neurology.

I've been told that I always went to sleep pretty easily, but I think it's more that I'm not that fussy in bed. My mind may be racing, but I don't do a whole lot of squirming and rolling around unless I'm really having trouble sleeping, which isn't rare but isn't common either.

I'm a fairly light sleeper; it doesn't take a lot to wake me, but I am hard of hearing so it does take a bit of noise.

 

[BrokenNeedle]

I can usually sleep well once I am asleep, it's just falling asleep to begin with that I have difficulty with. As a child when I'd sleep over a friend's house they'd always fall asleep first and then I'd just lay there being bored until I was finally able to fall asleep. That kind of screwed me over in junior high and high school.

In mid-2015 I started relying on sleeping pills to put me to sleep. They're 50mg and I am kind of hesitant to go higher than that, but they still occasionally take 2-3 hours to put me to sleep.

 

[SDRSpark]

It varies. Currently, because of my work schedule and commute, I get about 6 hours of sleep a night. This isn't enough, but I don't know which of my few non-work hours to sacrifice in order to get more.

When I was a kid I'd wake up in the middle of the night and happily daydream. Now I wake up in the middle of the night and lie there ruminating on things that stress me out or upset me. The wakeup is the same, but the experience isn't. Happily daydreaming for a few hours in the middle of the night is restful/enjoyable. The ruminations are not.

I've had a lot of trouble sleeping over the past several years - I currently take a combination of magnesium, L-tryptophan, L-theanine (thanks to the forum member who suggested it) and time-release melatonin. That knocks me right out and I usually get a good 4-5 hours before waking up to use the restroom and maybe getting back to sleep (or not).

I've tried everything (except for prescription meds) over the past few years to get decent sleep. To the point that I'm most likely "trying too hard" at this point. I sleep OK. Not great. I wish it was better. I just don't have time now for the 8 hours I think I need, but that's my only real complaint at the moment.

Depending on where my mental health is generally, the answer to this question changes by a lot.

 

[Pieceofmind]

It depends on how much I have going on in my head, in gneral I sleep alright enough though to get through every night without waking up.

 

[Raggamuffin]

Sleep is one of the few things my stress hasn't affected. Might have 1 or 2 nights a year where I struggle to get to sleep. Usually on a Sunday when I know I have to get X amount of sleep. That plays on my mind and then my body/brain refuses to let me sleep.

If anything I sleep too much. Moreso in winter when I'm naturally more tired. 8-10 hours are standard for me. My sleep schedule is a lot more regular since I quit drinking alcohol.

I don't like lie ins though. Once I'm up, I'm out of bed.

I don't seem to dream much though. But when I do, they're extremely vivid and intense. But I'd say 3/4's of the time it's a blank and then I wake up.

Ed