I Hate Mornings
 

The winter is the worst. Dark when I get up, dark when I get home--and I only live 1.5 miles from work.

I get up at 6:00 a.m.. (Begin movement might be a more accurate term, as my brain is not up and running yet.) It's not uncommon for me to dose off several times while getting ready in the morning. In the shower...when putting on socks...pretty much any time I'm sitting or leaning.

I get to work and I don't speak to anyone for at least the first hour. Everyone knows better than to try to speak to me. I buy a single Lipton Iced Tea somewhere between 7:00 and 8:00 and that is my only caffeine for the day.

I hit my stride somewhere in the late morning and this continues through the day (even after lunch, assuming I don't have a carb-laden lunch).

When bed time comes, I'm not ready to sleep. I'm a night owl. I go to bed and flip on the TV to drain my brain. I've learned if I don't have the TV on to distract my thoughts, I lay awake in bed with my eyes wide open. I think about things I need to do...right now! When I lived by myself, it wasn't uncommon for me to get out of bed 3-4 times to complete small tasks that I deemed necessary before morning. I can't sleep in a quiet, dark room--there's nothing to distract my thoughts. I don't have an alarm clock on my side of the bed anymore--I used to just watch the minutes tick by and I'd think to myself: "I'm only going to get six hours of sleep...I'm only going to get five hours of sleep..."

I fall asleep some time between 11:00 (on a good night) and 12:00. Sometimes (becoming rarer and rarer) as late as 1:00 or 2:00.

And then I wake up dead tired the next morning and the cycle repeats...

On weekends (when I don't have anything going on), I tend to fall asleep around midnight, and I might sleep until 9:00 or even as late as 11:00.

Sometimes I hit patches for a few months (usually after vacations or after time-changes--to or from daylight savings) where I fall asleep earlier and actually wake up and can hit the ground running in the morning. I actually made it all the way through the summer and into October this year before reverting to dead-tired-in-the-morning mode. I think riding my motorcycle in in October helped motivate me to wake up in the morning.

Anyone else hate mornings?

Dude, you need some Ambien!

I'm about as happy as I can be. Must be the meds. :)

Winter time is typically terrible on all of us that experience some form of winter.

Dark in the morning before going to work, dark in the afternoon \ evening coming home from work.

I am sure the cold, damp, grey of IL does not help any, one reason I left Toronto 8years ago.

Recently, I have been struggling sleeping at night, as well, so can relate and getting up early is the last thing on my mind. And to think that next week I am going to start my resolution to go to the gym at 5am before going into the office.

Coffee is my friend!

Yasin

I love mornings. When I wake-up I realize that I didn't die in my sleep.

so true

And see, that's when I wish I was dead...so that I could sleep.

My first suggestion is a "do as I say, not as I do" thing, but you need to get some exercise, do something.
Second, melatonin, very low dosage (can't remember right now, but not the commn 10mg), helps you sleep, works for me.

Jay

I hit the gym 3-4 times a week. I do 700 calories of cardio before weight lifting each time.

When I really, really, really drain myself at the gym, it helps me fall asleep maybe half an hour earlier.

I have to be careful though, I did overtrain for a few years in a row a few years ago. That makes sleeping even harder (as I'm not giving my body adequate time to recover between workouts).

I've been working out for 12 years with no more than two weeks breaks 2-3 times a year. I have a pretty high tolerance for exercise (I start to feel like crap if I don't hit the gym for more than two weeks) and I need to do a lot of it just to feel "normal".

I used to do the same thing. My doctor told me no food / alcohol ( only water) after 7PM no caffeine after noon. and go for a walk or treadmill about 1.5 miles a day. It really helps a lot.

crusty, that's generally my approach, except that I get in a 3-4 miles per day. It seems to work for me.

The only thing worse than morning is a Monday morning.

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Case of the Mondays?

Chris, try these two things.

1) Seriously, get some melatonin... I use it sometimes when I think I might have trouble falling asleep, and it really helps. A friend told me about it years ago, and it is available in the herb and vitamin section of any CVS, RiteAid, Walgreen's, etc. IIRC, when I first bought some, it came in 1mg tablets, which seemed about right. Now I'm finding it in 3mg, which is a bit stronger than I need, so I cut them into four pieces at .75mg. Take it about an hour before you want to fall asleep.

2) Read instead of watching TV. Also, I read using a fairly dim light, a 40 watt bulb... it helps me get sleepy by not having a real bright bulb going. This, in combination with the melatonin, will help you wind down.

As a side note, if you follow this several nights in a row, the melatonin will sort of get you in a sleep groove and help regulate your sleep on an ongoing basis.

I'm just the opposite. I love mornings.
Up at 4:30 even on weekends, at work by 6:00, rearing to go. I get most of my work done before noon. In the afternoons I'm not as productive and I usually have trouble staying awake after 9 pm. I work 11 hours a day (4 days a week) and the last 3 or 4 hours really drag.

WOW! Just WOW! This is me exactly! Well, except for the Lipton Iced Tea thing. I go through a half a pot of coffee between the time I wake up and the time I arrive at work. Water the rest of the day. But other than that, I swear, everything here describes me perfectly!

You're not alone, my friend! SmileWavy

Randy

I second the melatonin. Its not a drug, its a chemical your body makes that tells your body its time to go to sleep. I take it when my sleep clock is totally messed up. Take one around 10:30, and by 11:00 you should just have the urge to sleep.

I also bought a broad spectrum light this year. I'm not sold on it yet, but lets see where we are in Februrary.

I'll give the melatonin a try.

Based on what dosage you are able to find, get a pill cutter if the tablets are over 1mg... otherwise, you may still hate mornings.

Higher dosages leave me with a semi-hungover effect. Not like I drank too much... more like a Benadryl hangover.

You people are whats wrong with this country. There is NO reason to get up before 10am. Well, Ok, 9:30ish is my norm.

Thats the one thing I hate about my job. Some days I have to get up real early, (4-5am ish) due to an early departure. I'm a biotch all day becasue of that and I drag all day long. People were not made to function that early.

i hate mornings - but im honest about why. work. work sucks. i dread it. typically i go to sleep at 1am and get up at 7am very miserable and depressed about my day and then count down the minutes till i can go home

in contrast, i could go to sleep on friday night at 4am (saturday) and get up saturday morning with a nasty hangover at 6am and be alert and as happy as anything. do my chores, make my coffee, happy to be alive !!

thankfully i only have to work 40 more years

Jeez, that's no way to be. You won't live 40 more years if it's like that.

Now, basically retired due to the lack of work, I've developed a theory or two. One should plan on making a career no more than 20 years and be able to make enough money to retire modestly at that point. Then, on to career no. 2. Maybe 3.

The way I see it now, if you can't make the money and save/invest it in the first 20 in order to be financially secure, you need to do something else. Better if you could do the first stint in 15.

What do you do Scott?

I'm often bored with my job, but I don't hate it.

Hey Milt. I am trying to start on career number 2. My first was pretty good, I am comfortable now with needs taken care of but still have wants, career number 2 should take care of that ( plus I am bored sh^&less ).

Yeah, I read that you're now retired. The world of cars offers a lot of opportunities with low pay. :p

lawyer. i dont always hate it, and there were times in the past i really liked it. goin on 11 years of it though... its getting very old

its more that I hate doing office or "desk" work. what i dread is knowing that i have to be stuck inside an office all day. sitting in a chair all day is painful, physically and mentally. the days im in court all day, i really dont mind at all...but those days are not often enough

i envy anybody that is able to work from home. someday i hope to be able to

I hear ya. I remember living in Grand Rapids. It's just about as west as you can be and still be in the eastern times zone. Still friggin' dark at 8:00a.m. Dark again by like 3:30p.m. Didn't like that. Of course in the summer you'd still be golfing at 9:30p.m. :D
Here in Ct. it's the opposite. Light at like 5:15a.m. before DLST which I like. I feel for ya Legion, I didn't like it one bit. Move to the east coast ;)

Scott, maybe you ought to take a refresher course and change your specialty.

wish it were that easy milt. im required to take refresher courses every year

really no matter how you slice it, its still a desk job. sittin still all day is tough, thats all. feels like a jail cell. of course, i realize it could be much worse so i try to stay positive :rolleyes:

Do what we do in the PNW -- substitute caffeine for sunlight. It works pretty well.

Anyone who has trouble getting up in the AM, falls asleep during the day, feels like they need naps, etc. ... should check into whether they have sleep apnea. Esp. true if you snore.

Wow, we are very different.
My office is 6 minutes from home.
I'm up at about 4:45 am each workday. I hit the snooze a couple times most days but I'm in the office usually by 5:30 with my mind already to go for the day. I go, go, go throughout the day, seeing clients, driving to see clients, etc. Each day varies and really no 2 are exactly alike, which I really enjoy.

I'm normally home for supper by 5-5:30pm. Watch the news, play with the kids, etc. By 9:30, I am whooped. In bed by 10-10:30 and out quickly. If I sit down in a comfy chair I will fall asleep.

On the weekends, I do sleep in a little but if I sleep too late I find myself out of sync. Strange but I typically have lot done by 10 am at work and so if I haven't done anything productive by 10 on weekends I feel lost. Yeah, I know, it's silly but that's how I am.

Vacations are strange too. I usually don't get relaxed until the 3rd or 4th day of my vacation. :confused:

I've been taking melatonin for 15 years now. My wife & I take if each night before we go to bed. It never made me sleepy, but it makes me sleep better during the night. I take two, 3 mg. tablets and haven't experienced any hangover feeling. The thing that keeps me from getting sleepy is doing something mentally stimulating before going to bed.

Well, I tried the melatonin last night. I cut a 3 mg pill in half.

It made me feel tired about half an hour after taking it. I didn't fall asleep for another hour after than, but that's still much earlier than I fall asleep. I was more awake this morning though I still didn't feel "right" until I had my standard iced tea.

Sounds like you are s.a.d.. Classic seasonal affect disorder. Make coffee your friend in the morning, Vitimin D too, and Ambien at night. Better living through chemistry.

Coffee is great. Absolutely love it. Not that Starbucks swill either, but good home brew. I actually look forward to morning because of it. Ice tea usually has loads of sugar and fake sweeteners are poison.

Vitimin D is what you get from the sun. Some people think that the lack of it causes s.a.d.. I figure it can't hurt to take it.

Lots of people fear Ambien but it''s pretty mild. It doesn't knock you unconcious like some think. If you need to wake up (bathroom, house on fire, etc) no problem. It's a life saver for getting me back on track if my sleep cycle gets out of wack. I've never had to take it more than 3 days in a row.

Nope, I get my caffeine from unsweetened iced tea. No sweeteners whatsoever.

I've learned through the years that coffee is too strong for me. I can have it maybe once a week, tops, but anymore than that and I can't fall asleep until 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning.

I don't do mornings.