Find it difficult to wake up in the morning

Off Topic
21

to get sleeping, i found out by accident that a tiny bit of alcohol (even up to an hour earlier) and half a regular sleeping pill will make you feel extremely drowsy. tho this is probably dangerous. 1/2 sleeping pills (alone) were helpful for changing my sleep pattern so that i could be more awak during business hours.

i was a subject in a sleep study (take home device).
they found that i was a heavy snorer, but JUST below the apnea line. if any of you are like me, it just means add on a few more hours, since you get slightly less oxygen.

22

One of the most interesting books I ever read (so much so that I’ve passed it around to friends and suggested people buy it) is “Sleep Thieves” by Stanley Coren. Applying what I learned in it helped me a lot. For instance:

It is a fact that our bodies sleep in 90-minute cycles, going from a light state to a deep state and back 'up" to light. When you spontaneously awaken in the middle of the night (I mean, with no loud noise disturbing you), like when you get up to pee, it’s because you have completed a 90-minute cycle and are in a light enough stage of sleep that a small stimulus (like bladder pressure) is sufficient to rouse you.

Ever awakened a half hour or more before the alarm goes off, thought to yourself “Gee! I feel wide awake! But it isn’t time to get up yet, so I’ll just lie here and daydream that Britney and Christina and Jessica want me to judge their “Who’s Dirtiest in the Sack” Contest”? (OK, maybe that’s just me.) Then when the alarm goes off, you’ve fallen back to sleep and you feel groggy as ever? That’s because you’ve fallen back to sleep and descended into a deeper part of the cycle. When you are forced awake during a deeper part of the 90-minute cycle, you feel awful.

The trick is to try to get sleep in multiples of 90 minutes. I try to do 11-5, or 10-4 if I ant to get to the gym before work. If I don’t fall asleep until, say, between 11:30 and 12, I KNOW I won’t get 6 hours before I have to get up. So if I find myself awake a half hour before the alarm, I don’t risk the groggy stage: I get up, make the morning tea, and start doing things.

Another thing: whatever schedule you create, stick to it. If you have to get up early during the week, and try to stay up late and sleep late on weekends, come Monday you are messed up internally and will have a hard time adjusting again. So don’t sleep extra late on days off unless you have a sleep deficit to make up.

(For example: It’s 7:00am, I’ve been up for 2+ hours, and my school has declared a Snow Day–temps below zero and wind chill WAY below–and I’m not going back to sleep. Spending the time catching up on TMag, and will hit the gym in a few hours. If I tried to go back to sleep, I’d mess up my schedule and make it harder to get to slkeep tonight, and probably wind up getting too little sleep before the alarm goes off tomorrow.)

An important factor: age. Research shows that adolescents need more sleep (probably to allow their bodies to deal with all the physiological changes). Incredibly, the adolescent circadian ALSO shifts: during your adolescent years, your body/metabolism functions optimally if it wakes up later in the morning and goes to bed later at night! (And we thought teens were just lazy and crazy!) Seriously, high schools should start classes at 9:00 or later if they want the students sharp all day!

The truth is, sleep is a need that is as crucial to health (and as complex in the way it functions & affects us) as food. And we need to pay attention to how we use sleep.

Bored yet?

Tim

23

When this topic comes up, my question is always: But what about LIFE? Real life?

I’m sure our bodies LOVE getting 10 hours of sleep per night, but who the hell has time for that??!! If you work 8-hour shifts at an automotive factory, and get to leave at 15:01 sharp, maybe this is possible. If you are lucky enough to live close to work, can eat quickly, and are a non-metrosexual, I guess you could go to be at 21:00 (pathetically early), and get up at 06:00 in order to start work at 07:00.

This means that when work is done at 15:00, you would have exactly 6 hours for travelling time, eating supper (and any other possible snacks), and training. If you actually have a family, this leaves little time for havin’ fun with the wife/GF, or making sure your kids are still virgins/not addicted to crack/etc.

I consider myself to have good time management, etc., but right now I am in grad skool, and sleep is a scarce commodity. I’m doing well if I can go to bed at 12:00 in order to wake up at 05:00 or 06:00 to get to the lab in time to prepare for my subjects. My day is not over until 18:00. Guess what? I am now left with the same amount of time as the hypothetical factory worker above…to travel…train…eat…and have a life…oh, this doesn’t count keeping up on readings…analyzing the data that were collected, etc. Short of dropping out of school, I can’t think of much that I could do to improve this situation.

The result?

  • 2 to 3 coffees per day
  • 2 to 3 teas per day
  • 200 to 400 mg of caffeine in tablet form
  • 25 to 50 mg of ephedrine in tablet form

JUST TO FUNCTION/STAY ALIVE.

Needless to say, my goals in the gym are simply to maintain what little I have…I do 3 1-hour workouts per week.

Any comments/suggestions?

24

Sure, I’ve got some comments.

You’re at a place in your life where 8-9 hours of sleep every night just isn’t possible between all your commitments.

Maybe there is a way to let some of the commitments go or reduce them or do more multi-tasking to make more efficient use of your time. It’s a vicious cycle, because the less sleep you get, the less efficiently you are able to function the following day.

It’s hard to feel like yourself on 5-6 hours of sleep.

Like I said in my articles, sleep is vitally important to the human body for many, many reasons. Lack of sleep causes a whole host of problems that affect every area of your life from your health to your marriage, to your relationship with your kids.

So let’s cut to the chase. Sleep is like gas in the tank of your car, you got to have it if you’re going to go anywhere and do all the things you need to do.

For me, sleep is the key to everything else, so I go to bed every night between 9 and 10. I get 8 hours of sleep 99% of the time. Then, I worry about fitting the rest of the stuff into my life. Because if I’m short on sleep I start hating life and life is way too short to feel like crap.

Make time for what is important. If the end is in sight at school maybe you can hobble the rest of the way on your caffeine crutch. But if it’s a long way, learn how to run.

25

Christopher, since you said you never needed this amount of sleep before, would you elaborate on your situation? If you used to feel fine and wake up easily after 8 hours sleep, but suddenly seem to need 9-10, there probably is a cause that would be worth tracking down. Most obvious probably causes would be

  • change in sleeping conditions (noise, etc.)
  • change in stress level
  • more irregular sleep times
26

What a lot of insomnia workshops make you do is force you to wake up at a certain time in the morning. It’s hard at first, and that’s why there’s a workshop for it. The idea is, by waking up everyday at a certain time, let’s say 7:00 am (even on weekends), your body will adapt to a rythem where it knows when to sleep and how much. It is very hard at first because you’re tired all day and the time you need to go asleep (let’s say 10 pm) just doesn’t sound natural for you. And yes, it’s hard, but if you keep doing it everyday, eventually, you’ll adapt after a few weeks.

Another method you can try is through hypnosis. With hypnosis, you’re allowing your subconscious mind to receive suggestions that will get your body to sleep enough, when you need to sleep. Also, listening to the hypnotists voice will knock you out faster than taking a whole bottle of tylenol PM. A good hypnotist that sells hypnosis CDs is Steve G. Jones. If you do a google search on him, you’ll find his website.