Sleeping

[Mechanic]

My working life I’d get 5 to 6 hrs of sleep. Retired and new liver my sleep is inconsistent. The surgeons took notice of this and gave me specific instructions and meds. I now get 8-9 hrs. And if there is any issue there is a cannabis edible alway nearby. I do still have some issues that interfere with my sleep, but they are minimal.

 

[Milspec]

Ever since I turned 22, I only sleep 4.5-5 hours per night. No matter how I try, I will wake up after less than 5 hours and not be able to return to sleep.

Then, much like a cat, I will have a night where I sleep for 15 hours.

 

[NoTeleBob]

>Likewise, I read a quote from Bill Gates who said once "Everyone has 24 hours in a day. It's all in how you use that time is what counts."

He left out the part about "and what flexibility and support fortunate birth and position provide you with".

 

[gimmeatele]

Working a three shift system all my working life seemed to have ruined my sleeping habits, sometimes I sleep four hours and am wide awake in the middle of the night or I sleep during the day when I need to do things, I just live with it and hope it settles down

 

[Stanford Guitar]

I only sleep 4-5 hours per night and usually one night per week I don’t go to sleep or only sleep a few minutes. Been this way my whole life. I rarely feel tired.

 

[Vibroluxer]

I get by on 2 to 3 a night unless I take sleep meds.

Ya my Doc isn't too happy about my natural sleep but meds help a great deal.

 

[Ricky D.]

I managed some two-driver long haul teams when I was in trucking. Five hours driving,one hour break, five hours in the sleeper, one hour break. Repeat seven days, then 24 hours off. When I asked how they could sleep in the noisy truck bouncing around, they said it wasn’t a problem after the first few days.

 

[Tele T]

Sleep...3 pils and out 8 hrs

 

[Duck Herder]

My fitbit say I average 9 hours but am awake 2 times and am restless 3 times. That's with a CPAP machine. I dream so I know I'm getting rest. When I was young and wrote applications software for a living I went several days at a time without sleep trying to make deadlines. Glad that went away in my late 30's as did the smoking and excessive caffeine intake.

I thought that deep sleep was indicative of getting good rest?
I dumped my Fitbit when gewgle bought them out.

 

[Duck Herder]

I wonder if since most of the respondents are male, if the ones that wake up a lot (aside from bladder relief) are doing so because they are the "man of the house" and they are periodically waking to make sure everything is OK? Possibly without even knowing that's why they are waking?

Interestingly, I recently read an article on BBC about split sleep. It's genetically present in Lemurs (which are primates) and very common before artificial light.
Doing small chores during that period like stoking the fire or chatting with the spouse were done during those waking periods.

 

[39martind18]

Asleep around midnight, usually awake around 7:30. My sleep-night will usually be interrupted 3-4 times by flipping, and, occasionally, a trip to the porcelain convenience. Lots of dreams, most unremembered.

 

[BigDaddyLH]

Interestingly, I recently read an article on BBC about split sleep. It's genetically present in Lemurs (which are primates) and very common before artificial light.
Doing small chores during that period like stoking the fire or chatting with the spouse were done during those waking periods.

No thanks! I can already imagine the list of things for me to do that she'll recite.

 

[Duck Herder]

No thanks! I can already imagine the list of things for me to do that she'll recite.

When I was working night shift I'd always wake up in the middle of the night during my days off. Crank the stereo and do chores for a few hours and go back to sleep. Get up at noon with the chores done and hit the beach!

 

[RoscoeElegante]

Mild narcolepsy here. When that wave comes over me, I surrender to it whenever possible. Otherwise my head spins, I yawn continuously, my eyes roll, it's all I can do to not drool and fall over.... I've thus had many fine naps atop many rest stop picnic tables, on the floor of our van, etc., just to be sure I'm not veering off a cliff. Hard to predict when a wave will hit, but it's a sure thing once a day, at least. A committee meeting, though, is sure-fire narcoleptic catalyst.

Coffee is my productive pal, but can do only so much against The Iron Curtain that befalls me.

In terms of nighttime sleeping, that's actually fine. If I limit my narcoleptic nap to an hour or so, and do enough during the day and evening, burning off any anxiety with exercise/guitar playing, and minimize caffeine after 8 p.m., I conk right out and sleep, amid many dreams, until dawn. Melatonin helps immensely if I'm still restless. I also take a magnesium pill, as my stomach med limits how well my body absorbs magnesium from my diet. Magnesium is often suggested to help induce sleepy calm, and it seems to do that for me.

My only real sleep disruptions are the uneven volumes of work I have--some weeks require 12-14 hours a day at the computer--and the yowling drunks battering our neighborhood. Life in a college town....

My sympathies to those with chronic struggles to sleep well or enough.

 

[fjblair]

Normally around seven or eight. I can tell when it's been about eight hours because my back starts hurting, and that's that.

 

[DekeDog]

7.5- 8 hours is about right for me. When I had apnea before my CPAP machine, I believe I was sleep deprived, and that affected me negatively in many ways. The CPAP has been really good for me.

 

[Toto'sDad]

I’m retired with a wife and two dogs in bed with me. Tiberias is a 41 lb Wheaten. Give her a shove and she moves over. Jacques is 16. He wakes up and needs to be taken to the wee pad, then downstairs for a drink, and then to his downstairs blanket. He can’t climb into a dog bed anymore. Tiberias follows us down if she wants a walk. Sleep? Sleep is discontinuous at best. I went back to bed at 6:45 this morning and slept until 9:45. My wife wanted to know why I can’t get up. I didn’t even get to sleep until 1:30 because of her incessant snoring. She doesn’t have sleep apnea and she doesn’t snore. Just ask her. I could scream but if I do that she starts screaming that I woke her up and even worse won’t stop screaming. Sleep? You’re kidding me, right?

Edit: Last night was worse.

Two very important choices in life. At the golf course ALWAYS request a cart with a windshield. If you are going to let a dog sleep on your bed, make sure it's a small one, house broke, and can hold it for at least twelve hours. On the other problem, I find that one of those little capsules with ear plugs in it is a handy nightstand accessory. (It is my personal opinion that women can snore louder than a freight train can honk its horn during the night)

PS:

You may have reasons not to have one, but with a small dog, a doggy door is one of the greatest life's accessories you will ever enjoy.

 

[Toto'sDad]

During my years driving truck, I slept very little because I was always on the road. Before the age of electronic logbooks, you could pretty much run as long and as hard as you were able to if you knew how to juggle written logbooks. Once in a while I might have to pull over a take a nap if an emergency road check showed up along the way, and I hadn't kept my log up. I always had my CB on and would know when to pull over. When I was hauling LPG plant to plant, I only got in bed about ever third day. You can always tell a driver that runs hard by the size of the bags under his eyes.

During my last working years at a normal job, I slept well, and enjoyed being on a schedule. Retirement for the most part has seen me sleeping well. When my son died, I had trouble staying asleep. If I woke during the night, I would often just get up and forget about sleeping because I would be thinking about him. I still have bouts of waking up and thinking about him, but they pass in a day or two, and I'm back to sleeping.

 

[Boreas]

I have sleep apnea (now treated) and for years didn't sleep for more than a few minutes at a time. I rarely became conscious when I woke up choking, and oddly wasn't overly-tired. Now that I use a BiPap, I sleep more soundly, but I don't feel appreciably more chipper the next day. But hopefully I will live a little longer with better oxygen saturation levels at nite.

 

[memorex]

I go to bed at 10 PM or so. If I didn't have to get up in the morning to walk the dog, I would sleep 'til noon. Have a couple cups of coffee, then start drinking.