Something that I experience reasonably often, and that I am exasperated with myself about:
Nothing remains to be done on the day (or I have already deferred what I could do due to fatigue)
I sit in the living room or our work room and read something.
Wife is not yet ready to call it a day (she can afford that - she is retired and I am not yet), watches TV or something. No problem; I would not wake up if she came to bed when I am asleep.
I yearn for bed - am tired and need that sleep
but I cannot muster the energy for getting over the hump of the going-to-bed routine.
so I waste precious time that I could use for sleeping in hanging around listlessly, unable due to fatigue even to really read
Do any of you experience a like situation, and how do you deal with it?
(Note: reading the above I suddenly realise that it reads like a parenting issue seen from the perspective of the small child - but small children have the advantage over me that can be made to go to bed)
Usually I’m on the bed already. But I can’t put the book down or discontinue the crossword. I generally look for some slow quiet old movie. And bore myself to sleep.
Here’s my suggestion for you. At the last hour of the day get to the bedroom. Take your book. Or maybe work on a meditation style that works. The key is to get to your sleeping spot before you’re too wiped out.
Get a routine going. Put on jammies, brush teeth. Drink water/or pee. Get on the bed. Lower lights except maybe a reading light.
I’ve fought this insomnia thing(I do believe that’s where you’re at) for years. Not an expert, because I still fail.
But I know a bedtime routine works enough that some nights it’s easier. Sometimes.
I can’t say I ever had. My going-to-bed routine doesn’t require much energy, and it feels so good to finally lie down since I have been sitting, standing, and working outside for the entire day (I’m retired). My problem is very different. I have to be in bed by 8 p.m. so I am asleep by 9:30 p.m. because no matter what time I go to sleep I’m going to wake up at 4:30 a.m. So going to bed early, and getting to sleep early, is a priority.
In my case it’s not insomnia - I am fortunate that way. Book and glasses to nightstand, saying good night - then I am out like a light. Apparently sometimes I begin to snore within seconds.
When I was 30s & 40s and my late wife was healthy, my getting ready process took about 47 seconds and hers took about 20 minutes.
Guess which one of us often suffered the OP’s problem. Hint: not me.
Now as a geezer in training mine is longer. But I know most of it is optional, at least occasionally. Absolute minimum is peel off clothes and crawl in; the rest is nice to have - at least occasionally.
That’s my cheat code to defeat the OP’s problem when it occasionally arises.
Same here. My getting to bed routine is generally just plopping down on my bed. Unless my pants are still on–then I usually take those off first. I’ve honestly never had more to my routine than that. If I don’t feel like going upstairs to bed, I’ll just crash on the couch with the dog. It’s just as comfortable.
I have this problem all the time. It’s not that it’s onerous to brush my teeth and remove my clothes (which is my bedtime routine). It’s that it’s onerous to get out of the chair I’m in. I find changing states to always require non-trivial energy.
The military taught me how to sleep anywhere and to get there quickly. Once I turn off the light, it’s about 30 seconds to snoozeville. I do wake up at times and have difficulty falling back to sleep, but it doesn’t happen often.
Yes I get this a lot and “too tired to go to bed” is an expression I’ve used a bunch of times.
Alas, while I don’t do this much any more, I’m not sure I have an easy solution. It helps to have a final activity of the day; something which either helps you get in the mood for sleep, or has a natural end point, ideally both. I enjoy watching a chess network video last thing; really interesting but also sleep-inducing (sleeping on the couch is fine; when my eyes open, then I invariably will go to real bed).
Hmm. Yes, but it’s usually a little different. Either I get this sort of restlessness on top of the tired and don’t want to go to bed, or I can actually force myself to get up and go lay down (even if I skip my routine) but can’t actually get to sleep.
But both only happen if I wait too long after already being super sleepy, after falling asleep a bit in my chair, then waking back up immediately because I’m not in a bed. So I see it as being too tired.
Related, but different, is making it through a bare minimum (maybe swish some Listerine) and plopping in bed … and then yawning so constantly it keeps me awake.
How is too tired to sleep a thing? Stoopit human bodies. (And brains.)
What’s your routine?
Or better Q, along the lines of @LSLGuy observations … what can be minimized, or moved to another time (morning, lunch break, etc) so it’s not this big end-of-day obstacle to he faced?
I may also have something trivial that I need to do before bed — a few dishes or something like that — but the main problem is that I’m too tired to stand up. Not that I can’t do it physically; I can’t rouse the mental energy.
yes, that’s exactly it.
I have sometimes been really tired and decided to, for instance, skip flossing. But then I lie in bed thinking my teeth don’t feel clean, and I get up and do it anyway. But that’s really not the impediment anyway. The impediment is rousing up the “executive function” to start the trip to bed.
At the moment, I’ve got the additional impediment that a cat just landed on my lap. But the reason that I was still sitting here to be landed on in the first place is that I’m too tired to go to bed.
Just to be clear, we’re talking too tired to go to bed, rather than too tired to fall asleep. I have a lot of experience with the later, not as much with the former.
Since it fully seems to be the former, on the rare times I’m having massive sleep issues leading to the latter, pre-preparing seems to help. Especially if it’s been an ongoing couple of days with the combined issues.
So well before I’m sleepy or trying to go to sleep, I’ll take the time earlier to brush my teeth and get in my mouthguard, and change into something I’m comfortable sleeping in anyway - some loose boxer briefs and a t-shirt as an example.
Then I can go back to the usual reading/watching mindless stuff on the couch, or the same in bed. If I find that the sleepiness is upon me, I’m ready to go - I can nap on the couch (cats permitting) if that’s where I am, or in bed. I’m also lazy enough to do that last minute “prep” of taking off my shirt and dropping it on the floor if I’m overheated. But that’s for an ongoing issue.
If it’s a one off, then you have my sympathy. Fatigue is real, lack of energy is real, that combination of mental AND physical exhaustion is very hard to deal with. Just don’t beat yourself up about it, or (speaking from personal experience) add it that entirely unneeded anxiety from that intrusive thought “I have to do this right now or I won’t be rested/able to work/able to have fun” which somehow makes everything worse.
I worry, because not only is it a major issue with me (sleeping pills help break it sometimes), but it was my big takeaway from your phrase “exasperated with myself”. That in and of itself can be making it worse.
My take is you need to reduce the friction between getting up and going to bed. Because while you’re sitting there you’re dreading the whole routine. Instead, do the routine while you’re still somewhat lively, then come back to the living room, and when you’re finally ready to go to bed, all you have to do is walk to your bedroom, lie down, and sleep.
Personally I do all that bedtime routine stuff in my actual bedroom before I lie down, then I read in bed or play a game for a while. It doesn’t work for everyone to do activities in bed before bed, but it works for me.
I think your issues are different from mine. I’ve never “dreaded the routine”. I find it peaceful and pleasant to brush my teeth. And now that I’ve taken up floss picks, i like doing that, too. And actually getting into bedclothes? I hardly give it a thought. If my husband went to bed before me, and i don’t want to turn on the light, my day clothes may just be dropped onto the floor, to be dealt with in the morning. No big deal. (And the PJs are under my pillow. No decisions to make.)
It’s the decision to go to bed now that’s hard. I really do think it’s an executive function deficit when I’m tired.
In contrast, I hate it. I don’t know if it’s a sensory thing or what, or intense sensory experience combined with mind-numbing boredom. But I hate brushing my teeth.
Oh and it doesn’t help that I splatter toothpaste everywhere. I have tried in vain to resolve this.
If I didn’t have to brush my teeth before bed it would be a lot easier for me to want to go to bed.
For me, a lot of my reticence is just that I want more time to myself.
I go through my bedtime routine pretty early in the evening-- around 8 pm-- washing, brushing, getting out of daytime clothes, feeding cats for the last time, turning down the bed, so I can go back to reading or watching TV and when I’m really sleepy, there’s nothing left to be done except go to bed. It’s not a matter of not liking to brush my teeth or whatever, but those things wake me up again. I want to be half asleep when I get into bed.
Brush your teeth early in the evening and remove that obstacle.
- but small children have the advantage over me that can be made to go to bed)