Sleep Patterns

[Revolver]

How many hours of sleep do you generally get a night? And do you stay up late and get up late? Early to bed and early to rise? Do you need sleeping pills or any other form of aid to fall to sleep?

When I was unemployed, I was awake until 3 or 4 every night, and sometimes later. If I tried going to bed any earlier, I would just be unable to fall asleep for the longest time so there was no point in trying.

Now that I've been working again for about a month, I'm still very much a night person but not to quite the same crazy extent. Earliest I might possibly go to sleep is 1, but usually not until 2. I work at different times on different days (usually either 11:00 A.M., 1:00 P.M. or 3:00 P.M.) so what time I wake up varies but usually around 10 A.M. giving me a good 8 hours of sleep. Even then though, I have trouble falling asleep. I've never been the type of person who can just turn off the lights, close my eyes, and drift off. Usually takes me at least an hour and if there's some reason I need to be up early, I know that's going to mess me up and keep me awake for hours.

 

[DayVBayB]

my body clock seems to have a set alarm for 8 hours, which can be good but also really bad if i decide to pull a late nighter and need to get up early in the morning. i just have a super annoying and loud alram clock to wake me up on those occasions, but i feel like absolute crap when i get out of bed.

 

[Revolver]

That's another thing. Generally I don't need my alarm clock. If I have to get up at a certain time, I set it anyway but my internal clock is good about waking me up about ten minutes before my alarm is set to go off so I don't usually need to hear the annoying noise of it. Now, if I was up half the night drinking, the alarm will probably get me...

 

[white avenger]

From the time that I went into the Navy in 1969 up until I was relieved from work in January 2007. I was up every morning between 5:00 and 5:30 AM, and went to bed around 11:00 PM. Now that I no longer have to get up so early, I'm genrerally up until around 2:00 AM and up around 7:00.

 

[StuckinTraffic]

I'm an 8 hour person, if left to my own devices. But, since I'm a night owl, and I have to get up for work which starts at 8 (dammit!), I rarely get 8 hours sleep during the week. I usually go to bed around midnight, sometimes as late as 2 am, and get up about 6:30 or so. This has the consequence of causing me to sleep 9 to 10 hours on the weekends, to catch up. When I'm on vacation tho, or otherwise don't have to get up for work for 3 or 4 days in a row, I get caught up in the first couple of nights and then I'm on my 8 hour thing. I have to have an alarm clock, tho, or I won't get up....AND it has to be the most ANNOYING, loudest one I can find and I have to put it where I have to get UP to turn it off. My internal alarm is broken and has been for years.

 

[Airam]

I tend to be pretty insomniac. I usually never go to bed before 3am. To go lie in bed though I HAVE to be sleepy, I need to know that I will fall asleep within 10 minutes, I cannot handle just lying in bed TRYING to fall asleep, it makes me crazy. For work I never have to be up before 9:30 sometimes later. To function though I need to have at least 6 hours of sleep otherwise I get the itchy eyes thing which is SO annoying. And i'm a BIG snoozer. I set two alarms, a clock radio and my cell. My clock alarm is set to about an hour before I have to be up and cell 30 minutes before. Its hard for me to get to bed at a decent hour but once I'm asleep its really tough for me to wake up.

 

[StuckinTraffic]

^^ I'm like that, too. I think part of the reason I stay up so late (and then feel crappy when I get up in the morning!) is because I have to be TIRED when I go to bed. I'll lay there for an hour trying to go to sleep and I just hate that. My hubby falls asleep as soon as his head hits the pillow (or the back of the couch, lol!) I always envied that! When I was in the Army, I so wished I was one of those people who could fall asleep anywhere, it would have come in so handy. Instead, I'd be awake for 30 hours straight, then fall down half dead from staying up too long.

I can function on less than 6 hours, but not really well. Don't ask me any questions you want the right answers to when I haven't had enough sleep, LOL! And caffeine is SO my friend!

 

[November]

My sleep patterns are out if whack too. I'm a insomniac and cant sleep without meds. I used to ride trackwork 6 days a week so I was up at 3.30am to go and ride the horses and then home by about 10am, and had a nanna nap till the arvo. I didnt take meds thru that time cos I would have had to have taken them at 3pm to be able to wake up and when I took them at that time it was like a mind wipe, I couldnt remember a thing. Also over summer with daylight savings its too bloody hot to go to bed and light until friggin 9pm which is absolutely ridicules to me. My quality of sleep was very poor without meds so I burned out. Physically I was working really hard, I was fit and healthy yet the sleep still was still crap. I maybe got around 4 hours a night if I was lucky then and spent more time laying in bed than actually sleeping but was too tired to get up and do anything else.

Now Im not really working but by next week I will be again so Im trying to get back into a routine. Im heavily medicated so its making it hard. I have been staying up till late at night, like all night if I go out and to about 2am if I am home. If I take the right meds I sleep for about 6-8 hours, but sometimes I take more and stay in bed for days. My body clock thingo is pretty spot on, if I do have somewhere to go then I set my alarm (even if Im not sleeping because I am so forgetful) but usually if I need to be up at a certain time, I am. My friends call me the walking clock cos Im really good at guessing what time it is anytime of the day (although again dls messes that up). Im hoping to get back into a early to bed early to rise routine over winter... we'll see how that goes haha. Im still trying to work out the right doses of the meds Im on now so Im not so drowsy in the morning.

 

[BuffyElevated]

I am and have always been a total night owl. When I was working, I'd get to bed by midnight for sure, but usually around 11 or so. Now that I'm not working, it's not abnormal for me to stay up til 2 or so. 😛 I'd stay up later if I didn't have kids to take care of the next day.

 

[Fusions2]

I have very random sleep patterns, before I started working I could stay up until at least 2.30am chatting to people online. Now that Im working its more like 11 - 11.30pm at night. But if not Im usually in bed by 10pm and sometimes thats not even enough to refresh me in the mornings. Im still tired. On the weekends though I stay up extremely late and get up at like 10pm the following morning and Im ok then.

Also if Im really stressed I won't sleep at all or I'll start sleep walking which I hate. Either way I just sleep at random times and try to get as much sleep as possible, it doesn't help when Im not a morning person either. 😀

 

[ItMustBeBunnies]

My sleep patterns are all screwed up aswell. I dont sleep very well during the week, I go to bed around 10.30 - 11.00 because I have to get up for work the next day, but its a good night if it takes me an hour or so to fall asleep, on average Id say I fall asleep at about 2am, and I have to get up at 6.30am. Then I spend all day Saturday in bed catching up. Im a really light sleeper aswell, I use the alarm on my phone to wake me up and just having it on vibrate does the trick.

 

[InsaneMystic]

I average about 9 hours per 24 hour interval (why I don't just say day? well, see below ^^ ), though exact mileage can vary between 6 and, yes, 12 hours of sleep.

I don't have any regular cycle whatsover, either - currently, I happen to be as close to "normal" as it gets, but ask me again in two weeks, and you may find me waking up around the afternoon and going to bed somewhere around Joe Average's breakfast time.... or even having to put my alarm clock in order to wake up for an msn movie sync date with Shempy around 7 PM. 😀

Good thing is, as a pensioner, this random sleep-wake pattern causes me no problems, as long as I'm at least once or twice per week awake during the supermarket's opening hours. 😛

 

[Bluebird]

My sleeping patterns aren't too good. I always stay up too late. Sometimes until 4am when I have work the next day. But I know I'll never change, cos it just feels weird being in bed before midnight. I'm a light sleeper though, and have a habit of waking up 10 minutes before the alarm goes off. I think the average hours of sleep I get are between 8-9 hours, and that still doesn't feel like enough to me. 😛 At the weekends I can sleep for 12 hours easily. I guess I just love ma sleep. 😀

 

[anyatara]

My sleeping patterns are very random and irregular. Most school nights I get about eight hours - from 11 to 7. Then Saturdays I usually get 8 again - from about 12 til 8. But usually on Sunday's I tend to get like 1 - 8. And sometimes it's from about 10 - 9. It varies.

 

[Nix]

I need my sleep. I take pills for my Bipolar at night and they knock me out. I normally go to bed around midnight and i'd like to sleep till 10am but my daughter on a good day wakes me up around 8.30 - 9am. On a bad day she wakes me around 4 - 5am and then again around 7am and again at 8am.

 

[JenniferAlice]

My sleep is all over the place!
I stay awake way too late, or is it early? I dunno. I'm usually awake til it's bright outside, and I'm used to that now, so I find it hard to get to sleep at a decent time. So if I have something to get up early for, it's a pain in the ass, I basically get no sleep.
I think I'm going to start excercising alot more, make myself tired! Rather than passing out from drinking/drugging too much..

 

[luckystar]

Its always the same for me takes at least an hour to fall asleep i toss and turn a lot, the slightest sound could keep me awake and if i have to get up really early i sleep even less but my brains always awake so sometimes i would wake before the alarm. I have a lot of nightmares to which makes me wake even more tired.

 

[Sweetescape]

I don't really have a set pattern, I sleep when I want to and that varies day to day. I can't sleep in the day time I never have been able to there's something wrong about sleeping when its light! lol

 

[sk]

I almost which I had problem sleeping that so many seems to have.

My problem is rather that I can't watch any movies or TV show on a weekday night.
I immedietly fall asleep and wake up in middle of the night ready for another day.
Usually I don't have any problem to just continue sleeping until it's times to go up though.
But for some reason I often feel more tired during the day if I have slept to much.

So the trick for me is keep active during the evening so I don't fall asleep to early.

/SK

 

[Perny]

I have a hard time sleeping at night. I am a night person, and I am most awake when it's dark. I will most likely go to bed a couple of hours after midnight, and wake up at noon....Still feeling tired. I like to sleep in 😀