How do you wake up, quick, slow, gently

[wdfifteen]

Originally Posted by jcommin

The biggest change for me was removing the TV from my bedroom. When I was married, we had the TV in the room and my wife fell asleep with it on. I would wake up 2 - 3 in the morning because I could hear the sound from the TV. I would turn it off and she would wake up to tell me she was still watching. Very frustrating. When we split, the first thing I got rid of was the TV in the bedroom.

I've never had a TV in the bedroom. Always liked it dark and quiet. But while trying to improve my sleep I stumbled on listening to podcasts on my iPad. Something about the voice sometimes helps me get to sleep.
Mrs WD has picked it up and finds it helps her too. It doesn't matter what we listen too. On the nights it works we both fall asleep quickly. I think the light of a TV would be very distracting.

[JJ 911SC]

Some of my best "sleep time" are in front of the sunroom TV and yes my wife learned to just turn it down as oppose to off... as she would get "I'm watching this".

[wdfifteen]

Originally Posted by cstreit

FOR THOSE THAT JUMP AWAKE: How many hours of sleep are you getting?

The last time I jumped awake I'd been asleep about 5 minutes.
We had a toy poodle that we let out for a few minutes to pee just before bedtime. I had been asleep, and I got up, groggy and half asleep, to let her out, then fell asleep again. A few minutes later I sorta heard what sounded like coyotes right outside the house. My eyes slammed open when I realized my little dog was still out there - with the coyotes! I jumped out of bed to go save her and just then the car alarm went off. WTF? There are wild coyotes, car thieves, and my terrified dog right outside my door and I'm stumbling around naked trying to figure out what to save first. And is the house on fire too?
Then I realized I don't have a car alarm!
I let the dog in and got my pistol to see what the hell was going on with my car.
Turns out there were no coyotes, the sound was my dog howling to let me know she needed in, and when I went to bed I had dropped my pants on the floor right next to the bed. I had set off the panic alarm when I stepped on the key fob getting out of bed.
What a way to wake up.
It took some time a couple glass of wine to get back to sleep that night.

[legion]

Originally Posted by JackDidley

Most of my life, I struggled with insomnia. Got up a the last minute. Inhaled some coffee and out the door. The last couple years I have not had to to get up at a certain time. I found that I could get to bed after midnight and actually sleep. Around 7 or so I will sort of wake up, open one eye and look at the clock and go back to sleep. After 3 or 4 times, around 8, I drag myself to the shower and then sip some coffee. May be functional by 9.

I'm kind of in the same boat. I've found limiting caffeine and being on a schedule helps tremendously.

The problem with caffeine for me is that I can consume a lot in one day and sleep fine. It's after 3-5 days of excess caffeine consumption that I find myself in a vicious cycle where I don't sleep well, end up drinking a lot of caffeine, which makes me not sleep well... Eventually, I start having anxiety about my lack of sleep and even cutting the caffeine takes 3-5 days to get me back to normal. It's best for me just to avoid the cycle to begin with and stick strictly to a sleep schedule.

That said, I sometimes have to work at odd hours. I had to be at work this past Sunday at 3:30 a.m. That really messed me up. I limited caffeine all weekend and I went to bed at 7:00 p.m. and took a melatonin. I ended up being so anxious about not getting enough sleep the night before that I woke up at midnight and never got back to sleep.

[impactbumper]

Originally Posted by wdfifteen

My sleep habits began to change at about age 60. I used to go to bed & fall asleep quickly. I would wake up hungry and horny every morning, eat breakfast, have sex, get to work.

Now - sleep is unpredictable and unreliable. The line between awake and asleep is blurred. I fall asleep slowly and sporadically, somewhere between 8 and ten. I often wake up at 2 AM and I'm up until 8 or 9 that night unless I take half an Ambien, then I'm good for 4-5 hours of sleep. About one night a week I can't get to sleep until one or two AM. I cannot take an Ambien on nights like this. If I do I'm up all night.

On the nights I sleep all night I wake up slowly, it takes an hour to get moving. I use a CPAP machine which helps me get into deep sleep when I do sleep. I'm seeing a doctor about it again this week. It's driving me nuts.

Tamezapem. Ambien hooks you up more and becomes les effective.


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[BlueSkyJaunte]

3 kids ages 3 through 11. I don't sleep.

[wdfifteen]

I'm having one of those nights. It's 10:20 and I feel like I'm just getting wound up. I can tell this is NOT a night that zolpidem will help. Ironic that you can take a "sleeping pill" that will keep you up all night, not to mention make you post on PARF and get you arrested on sex charges. I would like to sleep, but I don't want to do it in a jail in Tijuana.