Just curious if you don’t mind my asking… were you in the military? Every person I’ve known who was can do this.
For me, I turn into the princess-and-the-pea the instant I go to bed. I just hate it. I put my hair up in a bun so it can’t tickle my face. I never seem to have an itch until I’m trying to go to sleep. Then I have a dozen of them! If a single body part is uncomfortable for any reason, endless body and covers rearranging ensues.
Room temperature: Cold. But I love a heated mattress pad.
Light/darkness: Country dark, no ambient light. Except for the damn tee vee!
Sound/silence: White noise from the tee vee, I hate to admit. The perfect decibel is where I can hear it but can’t make out any of the words being spoken.
Bed clothes: Cotton sheets, 1 blanket, 1 comforter. Assortment of pillows. Usually thin, but sometimes firm. The bed itself is pretty squishy and soft. The blanket and top sheet must be pulled over my shoulders. I hate having cold shoulders! Small folded towel between my knees.
Me clothes: A t-shirt or nothing, depending on season.
Alarm or not?: No alarm. This is the only redeeming feature of my sleep routine.
Before-bed rituals that seem necessary to you: I try to watch a boring show, preferably something I’ve already seen so I don’t get curious about the ending. This is a terrible habit, but I think I’m stuck with it.
Thankfully, I have no one to bother and a big bed to stir around in. I wake regularly around 4 a.m. for a loo break and it’s the perfect time to take medications required with an empty stomach. I can then usually go back to sleep for a few more hours. Usually.
I have a laundry list.
Coolish, but not cold room, temps in mid-upper 60s F.
A steady source of white noise so I don’t hear the restless dog/people above me. Running the fan of my HVAC works.
Darkness, not total black, but very dark.
Percale sheets because coolness, fluffy comforter because warmth.
knee pillow
fluffy pillow, flatish pillow, offset
I really prefer the ability to roll up in the covers, but I do know how to share.
And in winter, a cool mist humidifier.
I was never in the military, but I had a similar disruption to my sleep schedule at around the same age one would go into the military.
I attribute it to, besides genetics, the period in my early 20s when the Safeway I worked at was short of nightstockers and they asked me to switch to the 2200-0600 overnight shift. I worked overnight for 6-7 years and afterwards switched back and forth a few times before leaving that job. When you work overnight, you still have stuff to do during the day, so you learn to just sleep whenever you can.
I have quite a few quirks. Chief among the ones you listed:
Temperature: Warm! I have a space heater going in the winter. Admission of a secret vice: on a hot summer day, when the A/C is blasting away, I will sometimes turn on the space heater in the bedroom! Yes, I’m normally quite environmentally conscious. I’m also a comfort-seeking hedonist.
Light/dark: I have one of those transformer-operated little desk lights on the headboard that I used to use as a reading light. Now that I mostly use the illuminated Kindle I don’t really need it but by force of habit it’s on all the time, but turned down to quite dim. Being an old fart, I tend to wake up a lot, surf the web or read, and then go back to sleep, so I’m quite used to having the light always on.
Sound/silence: Either absolute silence, or some kind of white noise, like the heater fan. Absolutely cannot tolerate even a hint of disruptive noise.
That should be enough weirdnesses! I’m almost normal in most other ways.
It can’t be hot. Cool is good, because I do like to be covered. I usually sleep backed up against Ms. P, but move around a lot. If noise is ambient I’m fine. As long as light stays steady I’m fine; I don’t like the light to suddenly come on. I’m also a notoriously light sleeper, but can usually go right back to sleep.
I sleep alone
in my Queen sized bed
with flannel sheets year round. Since it’s Winter
Break out the sheepskin mattress pad.
A comforter on top of flat sheet
and I’m cozy all night,
Natural heater so room is coolish about 60f.
4 pillows that prop me up for reading
before lights out then
I put one between the knees, one to hug
and 1 to prop up cat in toaster position,
Anotherbbehind my back
and one to cover my head
to block cat yowls in middle of night.
I like it dark, though moonlight does not bother me but if I see ambient light creeping in from downstairs U know the last person to bed is to blame.
I have water by the bed as well. Also advil due to sinus headaches, which is why the 3 alarms half hour apart. If I wake up with a sinus headache on the first alarm, take one advil, go back to sleep. Hope the advil kicks in. If not take 2nd advil at the 2nd alarm, go back to sleep, hope it kicks in. Usually it works.
Water is in covered container due to cats. There would be quite the scene if a bug was in my water. I do not do well with insects and stay in the northern climes. Still have nightmares about my brief time in the south and those crazy things that fly around down there.
Best temp for me is mid 70’s. I have radiant heat and the cat in the winter, and the cat and a fan in the summer.
Room temperature: Cold. I love burrowing under the covers or snuggling with cats to get warm, but if the room itself is warm I can’t sleep well. Our AC bill in the summer is usually quite a bit higher than our heating bill in the winter.
Light/darkness: Pretty dark. I don’t need total darkness, though.
Sound/silence: I used to need silence, but the spouse likes to sleep with the TV on (and the sleep timer to shut it off) and now I like that too.
Bed clothes – Mine: shorts and a T-shirt. Bed’s: Heavy comforter (lighter one in summer). I love my weighted blanket but only on my upper body. I don’t like to have my feet weighed down. I start with two pillows but usually toss one over the edge in the middle of the night.
Alarm or not?: I have an alarm that wakes me up at 6 a.m. every weekday. I usually snooze it two or three times. No alarm on weekends.
Before-bed rituals that seem necessary to you (i.e., TV, music, reading, prayer, tea, booze, medication): Bathroom trip, messing around on my phone for a while, whatever TV show we’re watching to go to sleep to.
I should add, water next to the bed. I’m on medications that give me dry mouth. I use a squeeze bottle for water. I got tired of having to clean up a big mess when I accidently knock a tumbler. When I travel, I buy squeeze water bottles and then I bring them home and refill them. Because reusing helps counter the fact that I buy the bottles in the first place. If they start looking ganky, into the recycle bin they go.
Not going into my pre-bed rituals, though they aren’t exciting.
I don’t wanna sleep in a freakin’ envelope! First thing I do in a hotel is untuck the bottom of the sheet so my feet can be free.
I sleep with the lightest blanket I can get away with, in the summer that can be just a sheet, in the winter it’s a (one, single) real blanket. Maybe, maybe a comforter once or twice a year in the really frigid cold nights, but usually not. I also have always slept with my own blanket because I like to mummify myself & wrap up in it. I get a blanket while she gets the comforter.
How do you ‘cold’ folks get out of bed in the morning? The fall/winter mornings that I get up early (while the heater is still set for nighttime temps) are kinda brutal until I’m outta the shower & dressed.
I too keep a bottle of water on in a headboard cubbyhole which I take swigs out of during brief times of waking and going back to sleep. A bottle of water with a screw on cap because it’s easier to sip from by just raising my head and upper body slightly than by using a tumbler, which would guarantee a messy spill unless I sit upright, which kinda’ kills the sleep “momentum”.
Here’s the thing. I use ‘Aqua Pods’ or the short 11 oz Dasani bottles. They’re short and squat, especially the former and tend not to get easily knocked over when I fumble for it in a somnambulist state in the dark.
I’m one. I can drop off most anywhere, lying down or sitting up. And I’m sure it’s from my military time. I like a cool, dark room with maybe a little white noise. I sleep nekkid and so does my wife. It’s not a sexual thing; it’s just our preference. I also fall asleep within about a minute, tops. Retired, so alarms are unnecessary. Prior to turning off the lights, we read a bit. Nothing quirky to see here.
My boyfriend plays sounds from his tv. Sometimes a train, which I like but when he played the rain one, it only makes me feel the Apt has sprung a leak. Disconcerting.
