Do you sleep well at night? Fall asleep easily and wake refreshed? Don’t have to get up during the night?
Did you sleep better/worse at a different time in your life? What keeps you up or wakes you up? Bladder, dogs, dogs’ bladders, dreams, anxious thoughts, something else?
What helps you sleep?
I didn’t put in anything about napping, but I’m a great believe in naps. Saturday afternoon, under the covers with eye mask and earplugs… ahhh.
This poll doesn’t cover all options, by any means, so feel free to elaborate/explain.
I’m 44, male. I usually get up once sometime between 2:00 and 4:00 to pee. Maybe one or two nights a week I have trouble getting back to sleep after that.
When I was under 30, I typically slept through the night without issue. My problem these days isn’t really reduced bladder capacity, it’s that my body doesn’t seem to retain water like it used to. If I don’t drink enough water before I go to bed, I’ll wake up hot and thirsty in the middle of the night. If I do drink enough to stay cool, then I have to get up and pee in the middle of the night, and it’s a large quantity of urine. Doctors looked into it about ten years ago, but couldn’t find a cause so they basically said “sorry, live with it.”
When I have trouble getting back to sleep after waking up in the middle of the night, sometimes it’s because my brain is wound up thinking about something. Generally not bad stuff or anxiety, usually it’s some interesting hobby project that I’m working on, and I start thinking about what the next step is, or how to overcome some challenge associated with it. Not stressed out, but certainly engaged. My brother is similar. He’s a full-time day trader and is fascinated by finance, and he says he often wakes up in the middle of the night and has trouble falling asleep again because he’s looking forward to reading the financial news of the next day.
My mother, brother, and sister (75, 52, and 50, respectively) all suffer from insomnia that’s severe enough to warrant prescription sleep aids. I think Remeron is their weapon of choice. Maybe that’s what’s in store for me in a few years…
I picked “I fall asleep instantly and sleep through til morning”, which is true about 98% of the time.
Once a month or so, I’ll have a problem falling asleep, almost always because my mind is working on something, and I can’t get it to shut down.
About the only time I couldn’t consistently sleep through the night was when I was an undiagnosed / uncontrolled diabetic (~10 years ago), and would have to get up once or twice to go to the bathroom. Now, my blood sugar is under control, and I nearly never have to get up. Which, as a man who’s nearing 50, I count as a win.
I’m putting down the book and turning off the light…
<blink>
…it’s morning now, and the alarm is going off. I’ve probably hit the snooze button at least once, too. I may or may not recall a particularly vivid dream.
I sleep less than average, I think, but not as little as the “don’t sleep much” option in the poll.
I usually take quite a while to fall asleep…I’d say that in my life, the average time is 30 minutes. Sometimes it’s more. I don’t fall asleep right away unless I’m absolutely exhausted.
I usually wake up around 2:00 to take a leak. If I’m very lucky, I fall asleep again right away. About half the time, I can’t get back to sleep until 3 or 4.
Been an insomniac since puberty (age 9), don’t fall asleep easily and if I wake up I’m up for the day. Three - five hours a night of sleep is not unusual with an occasional eight hour night in the mix. I’m used to it by now (53 year old female).
Most nights, I sleep four hours. I will take a nap during the early part of the day, if I start to feel really run-down. That’s not always the case, though. I’m female, and soon to be 52 years old.
Falling asleep is a real chore for me. Typically, I expect it to take an hour to fall asleep.
Reading helps my brain wind down, but it doesn’t take much to wind me back up again. In fact, it’s not unusual that I’ll be watching TV and start nodding off. By the time I can get up, go downstairs and get into bed, I’m wide awake again and still need an hour to get to sleep.
Repetitive noises are murder to me. Clocks ticking, water dripping or other people snoring, for example. It’s like Chinese water torture - it’s not just the sound that bothers me, it’s the anticipation of the next one. After fifteen minutes of that, my heart is racing and the only word to describe it is that I’m stressed out; my body is literally in fight-or-flight mode. I’m not bothered by all noise - wind, rain, and ocean waves are all nice - it’s just those repetitive things that drive me nuts.
Fortunately, I stay asleep once I get there and if I wake up to use the bathroom or something, I can generally get back to sleep quickly.
I’ve always been a champion sleeper. If I need to, I can sleep anywhere under almost any conditions. It doesn’t need to be quiet, dark or or even comfortable. I once went to sleep during an arena-style rock concert. I can also fall asleep easily after interruption.
However, I can’t nap at all. If I sleep during the day I feel really unwell; headachy, feverish., and more tired than I was before the nap. The whole idea of a restful nap is foreign to me.
I picked “I fall asleep instantly and sleep through til morning”- which isn’t always 100% true. Sometimes I wake up in the early morning for a few minutes and fall back to sleep. I very rarely actually get up to use the bathroom or anything like that though. I just wake up out of the clear blue and fall almost right back to sleep.
I’m a pretty light sleeper- things tend to wake me up that my wife will sleep straight through. I also don’t do well sleeping in things like cars, trains, airplanes, etc… and napping is something I very rarely do, unless I’m so tired I just nod off while watching TV or something. I can’t make myself nap though.
I marked the 2nd choice, but my case is a little different: I get up around 4 times per night. My sleep cycle is so marked that I usually have to get up to pee every couple of hours, not because my bladder is so full, but because in my sleep cycle I almost wake up anyway and can’t go back to sleep until I empty myself out. I don’t have any problem going back to sleep then (most of the time).
I hate it when this happens 20 minutes before I have to get up anyway. I go right back to sleep and then the alarm goes off just when I’m getting into a good sleep pattern.
On weekends, I generally sleep one whole sleep cycle more than I get to do on workdays. Then I feel “caught up” for the week.
Roddy
I found out that if I get 8 hours of sleep a night, I have trouble being sleepy on time the next night. Eventually I figured out that around 6.5 hours is my sweet spot - 16.5 or 17 hours later I am sleepy right on time, get ready, go to bed, and sleep pretty well. When I’m not sleepy I tend to start overthinking pretty much everything under the sun and make it even harder to go to sleep. If I am then too tired from overthinking, I cannot sleep either.
I am a sort of light sleeper. After an hour of being asleep, I’m hard to wake up as I’ve entered deep sleep. After 3 hours of sleeping have passed, sound and movement can wake me up easily.
Naps are pretty awesome too. I can nap almost anywhere if I want to. I’ve napped at two rock/metal concerts so far.
For some reason I wake up every day an hour and a half before my alarm goes off to stare at the clock, then fall back asleep. No idea why.
I sleep best on my stomach and like to have an object under one of my arms so that one side of me is tilted slightly higher than the other.
The worst sort of sleep is the sort where it’s like blinking and you don’t even get to remember sleeping. The longest I’ve ever been awake is three days. I remember sitting down looking at the clock, blinking, and seeing that 8 hours had passed.
For those who are light sleepers and are bothered by noise, try foam rubber earplugs. I know, I know, “I don’t want anything in my ears… they’re uncomfortable…blahblahblah.” Like tampons, if you can feel them at all, you’re not doing it right. They need to be waaay in your ear, flush with your head. If they stick out at all, sound will get in. Foam rubber, not the hard wax ones.
I am also bothered by every little noise. “White noise”?? No such thing to me.
Also get an eye mask, something like this. I prefer the molded “Bucky” eye mask they used to have at BB&B. Because whenever I like a product, they immediately stop making it, I stockpiled these babies (which BB&B doesn’t carry any more, but you can get from amazon) and have about 20 on hand. I’ve tried all kinds of eye masks, but these are the best because they don’t touch your eyelids. I gave one to a friend who had trouble sleeping and with the earplugs, she sleeps like a top. She calls it an “eye bra.”
In order to make melatonin, the body needs profound darkness, which doesn’t exist in any urban setting, what with street lights, lighted clockfaces, car lights, the lights on our gadgets as they charge during the night, and just ambient city light. The foam, molded eyeshade will make everything black as camping in the deepest canyon.
With this combo, it’s like being back in the womb. Darkness + silence = good sleep (sometimes).
I take about 20-30 mins to fall asleep, wake up at least 2-3x per night and take a few minutes to get back to sleep each time but I’ve managed to arrange my schedule so that I stay in bed long enough to get 8 hrs sleep despite that. On the downside that takes about 10 hrs.
