Dealing with a sleep disorder

After dealing with a sleep disorder for the past 2 1/2 years where 4 hours sleep is heaven I think I finally hit the right button. I tried coffee moderation, drinking coffee at night , Tv on, TV off, 1 pillow 3 pillows etc. nothing worked.

About 2 weeks ago I went back to having my early evening cup of coffee and it seemed to help. I am thinking now it wasn’t so much the coffee that actually helped me sleep as much as it was the coffee sharpening me up just a tad so I could plan tomorrow better. I just realized I have always had a plan for the next day which I usually settled on early the evening before. I find now I can relax, watch a movie and then drift off to sleep and sleep for 6 hours or close to it. I have removed some complicated unneccessary clutter from my day to day activities and make it a point to tie up what I consider loose ends even though I am not being pressured by anyone.

I never realized how much it bothered me just knowing I had to get a box out to someone even though time was not really an issue. From this point forward I plan to stop volunteering for commitments that are not really important.

Being recently retired I tend to over estimate how much time I have on my hands. Thought I would post this in case anyone else might be experiencing a similar thing.

Interesting thought. Maybe… just maybe… I should try that myself and see what happens. It does sound counter-intuitive at first, doesn’t it?

I tend to be a split-sleeper. Commonly, I only manage to get about 4 hours of sleep a night (amidst many additional hours of laying in bed, just waiting patiently – or not so patiently – to fall asleep). Then, sometime in the afternoon, I get sleepy again and take a nap for another 2 to 4 hours or so.