Bedtime
 

What time do you go to bed?
What dictates your bedtime?
Do you find it easy to get to sleep?
Has it changed during your adult life?

I guess this could be in the health forum, but really I'm just being nosy. I'm up kinda late tonight (11pm) because there was a late meeting at the school. I need to chill a little before I go to bed. But I can't leave it too long. It changed with my kids' routine. I used to stay up past 2 most nights and went to bed when I started falling asleep.

Generally I try to go to bed by 10:30. But I'm usually futzing around on my phone for another 30 minutes or so. Exactly like right now.

Like you said, it's the kids' schedules. They get up at 6:15 every single day, so I have to, too. But I've never really been a night person anyway. Generally it's been before midnight most of my life.

Usually, despite my efforts to the contrary, 2am and I get up at 6am. Around 1pm in the workday I drive home for 'lunch' and take a 20-30 minute nap. This sustains my cognition though the afternoon, and I generally work until 6-7pm.

Sometimes I sleep 4 hours with a 20-30 minute nap, sometimes two 3-4 hour shifts, sometimes I sleep 2-3 hours for several days, then 'catch up' with a 12-hour sleep. My sleep patterns are extremely erratic, possibly contributing to my being almost completely unhinged much of the time lately.

To further explain, I'm living in an apartment completely in isolation, there are no other living beings to help regulate my cycles.

i sleep like a baby, whenever i want to. mostly. every now and then i'm sleepless but i could lie on a rock in the desert during a snowstorm and find a way to sleep. ;)

oh hell, what time is it?

I try to be in bed by 10pm so 5:30 doesn't come too soon.

In my 20's, I was unemployed for a few months and also lived alone in an apartment. I wound up on a 30 hour day schedule. A normal person might have slept for 8 hours and stayed awake for 16. I would stay awake for about 18-20 and then sleep for 10-12. I would see my friends in the evening, but depending on how our cycles were lining up, it might really be morning for me.

Now, I wake up at 6am during the week, and without setting the alarm, about 7am on the weekend. I go to bed at 10 pm during the week, and usually am in bed before 11pm on the weekend. I've been in this routine for the last 10 years, so it's pretty carved in stone.

I've been an insomniac for most of my life. When I was a small child, I couldn't sleep. As an adult I still rarely sleep for more than an hour or so at a stretch. I wake up dozens of times in any given sleep period. When I've worked third shifts (10-11pm - 6-8am) I only slept every other day/night.

I hate going to bed period. I always think I'm missing out on something but if I have to be up for work, 10:45-11 is the latest for me. If not I'm dragging my ass all day and I've got absolutely no patience for anything.

How do you do it, though? If I ever make it to bed that early I lie there thinking about what I should be/would have been doing. I know I have to get up at 5:whatever, but it doesn't help me fall asleep any earlier. Ugh. nearly 11 again. really. Must. Go.....

Lack of willpower in some fields. But even immediately after the stroke when I knew I needed as much sleep as possible to heal fastest and had the willpower to force myself to go to bed early..... I just lay there.

Reading the comments here, it would seem that the more level headed, less emotional posters have better sleep habits.

I wonder if there's anything in that. :rolleyes:

nice.

I try. :)

And when you've finished in your glass house.....
 

:rolleyes:

Wtf now monster? Honestly, you're a fucking bitch sometimes. Who gives a fuck anyway. Obviously I need to go to bed earlier!

I am no way more level-headed or less emotional than anyone who has posted here and i posted that i sleep very well.

maybe that's the disconnect. :rolleyes:

It was mostly a joke, but clod, griff and glatt all pobsted about good.sleep habits and they were mainly the ones i was referring to.

Anyway, who cares. Its just the usual shit.

My bedtime ritual is to start out reading switching to something calming, maybe some Thích Nhất Hạnh, if I think sleeping will be difficult. He is particularly good for putting the mind in the right place. It isn't easy and it takes patience. I try to empty my mind focusing on nothingness. Inhale count 1 exhale count 2, inhale count 1 exhale count 2...

The breathing thing is very good, sort of breathing out more than in as Griff describes.

I used to have serious trouble falling asleep, but then I eventually found myself in a boring no stress job. So there's very little to think about for the next day, like there used to be. Now I fall asleep easily, but my problem is I don't stay asleep. I wake up numerous times during the night and toss and turn. If I get up to pee, then that has a really good chance of waking me up for a good 2-3 hours of tossing and turning. I sleep through the night maybe two times a week. The other 5 nights, I'm tossing and turning for much of it.

It helps to not drink any alcohol. And don't do anything active late at night, like running errands. But you gotta live life.

All that said, I go to bed at 10 and get up at 6. Like clockwork.

i try to get at least 6 hours. usually no more than 8. if i'm run down from too many 5-6 hour nights in a row, i might go 10 hours..... but then my fucking back hurts all morning.

7 is probably ideal... so i go to bed around 1am and get up at 8.

you and your 3 minute commute
[/envy]

dude, i paid my dues for 8 years. and it's 8 minutes!

I go to bed at 9:00 PM and am awakened rudely at 5:00 AM. "MEOW, MEOW!!!"

I do that...Learned about that on 'The Mentalist'.

I do that, too.

I've slept badly all my life, but with this job I can seriously zonk out with 10-15 minutes.
I've learned to read the signs, having been caught nodding off in the living room with half a glass of squash in my hand (got a rocket for that one, because of a spill that didn't actually happen) or coming to in front of the 'puter.

I get myself to bed irregardless* of the time because I know what's going to happen.
And I don't wake with the same stress and wide-eyed stare I used to have at 03.00, I just turn over and think "Mmmmmm, 'nother two hours...."

It's more exercise, better food and less alcofrolics. But none of those have worked before. Something about this job and the early rising just has my system shutting down at any time after 19.30. No tricks, no advice for anyone, it just happens. Oh and Diz now sleeps with me all night rather than jumping on my face or hair - he's adjusted really well. He gets to snuggle with me til 22.00 then have access to the house. The 'rents open the bedroom door; I'm sparko. All I know is I wake up cuddling him at 05.00.

I have managed later bed times. But almost always Thursday - Sunday when I start at 09.30 or have two supposed days off.
So that depends on how much overtime I have done.
On the night I didn't get home until gone 23.00 (day off, called in for overtime as counter glass was smashed and all stock needed to be removed and replaced) I didn't actually fall asleep walking home. But I marvelled at the people walking into town to start their nights out. And said that once was me.

* that one's for you, Infi

I generally go to bed around 2130 or 2200, mostly because I know my daughter'll get me up 3-5 times during the night and I need to cram as much sleep in as possible before 0730 when she wakes up for the day.

Lately my phone has been my worst enemy in falling asleep. My mind wanders, then I reach over and grab my phone, then end up playing a few games of solitaire...

I slept like crap before I met my husband and had a knack for pulling all nighters. After we met, I started sleeping like a corpse. I'll sleep through thunderstorms and even, on one occasion, a fire alarm. Back to being a light sleeper thanks to motherhood.

If I'm having a hard time settling my mind, I focus on my breath like others have mentioned. I don't count, because counting actually keeps me up. Instead, I imagine myself inhaling a misty white light, and exhaling a gray fog. All the stress, worries, and grumps of the day slink out and dissipate. The white is peace and quiet.

Also -- we have a white noise machine. HIGHLY recommend it.

Chemo destroyed my ability to sleep for several months. I could fall asleep anytime but only napped 30-40 minutes at a time. No dreams ever.

I've just started sleeping as long as 5 hours and have started to dream again. So I go to bed by 10:00 (earlier if I'm really tired), fall asleep by 11:00, wake at 4:00 (ideally, although lots of nights I wake repeatedly). I'm hoping it continues to improve.

Even a broken watch is right twice a day.

Yep, and theres more than one of them around here.

Such is life, eh?

Some folks just go with the flow, others are total cunts. It takes all types, They say. Even, for some reason, the types that go out of their way to talk shit for no reason. Who can say why they'd want to do that? It is what it is , I guess.

Seems to me it's a lot like people who jump in to poo-poo and chastise folks. Stones and glass houses, and all. The Do Good Be Good, gosh how I admire you!

Oh Flint, you got me again. NOW I see what you did there, you rascal. :rolleyes: