Sleep habits

[Wintran]

Wintran, may it be that you dont like your current day job, in as much as you didnt like to go to school?

Yes, that is very likely - that pieces of my current life reminds me of the past, and my body enters some kind of defensive state and easier escapes into things.

I hear you, especially about the computer thing. Once I'm on it, I like to stay on it.

Yeah, exactly.

When you put your full focus on things it's hard to feel the complete spectra of needs and feelings in our bodies (such as sleep and hunger). There are many ways to reach this focused state, but computers are one of the strongest as it keeps you just active enough to make you feel stimulated and active, but without exhausting you (like physical training does), so that you don't really need to take a break from the activity itself.

The problem is not the computer but the situation itself, when it becomes an escape from your other needs and feelings, and from the rest of reality that you simply cannot live without.

[dadasarah]

1. I typically sleep 8-9 hours, but since a few days before the New Year, I've been getting 5 hours at the most. I've been trying to go to sleep at 9pm, when my son typically falls asleep, but I can't fall asleep very well. I'm a light sleeper, and my son's crib is right next to me, and he makes noises throughout the night. Last night I didn't really fall asleep until 3am, when I was exhausted, and I kept waking up every 20 min or so. I ususally get up between 7 and 9am, depending on how awake my son is.

2. My optimal amount of sleep is 8 hours, I think. It's the amount I usually sleep without interruption.

3. The advantages of a good night's sleep is not waking up cranky, which I used to be famous for, and now am once again. Disadvantages of not enough sleep: Indigestion, and my nose often gets drippy. And again, CRANKY! If I sleep too much, I'm a zombie the next day.

4. I usually can't take naps, unless they're 10 minutes or less. More makes me a zombie, and makes it harder to fall asleep at night.

5. Anyone?

[ganbare]

Sleep is the one thing I wish I could get under control. I can do this diet and control what I eat and when I eat, but I can't for the life of me control when I fall asleep, unless I use some kind of drug. I try to get about 7-8 hrs of sleep a night, but this happens at best three or four days out of the week. My main problem is not getting to bed, it is falling to sleep once I am in bed. Some nights I don't feel extremely tired around midnight and I try to fall asleep with no success; other night I am really tired and it still takes me a good thirty minutes to finally fall asleep. I think if I worked out more that would probably help as the physical exertion makes me fall asleep more easily. But sometimes that is just not an option. I know personally that the amount of sleep I get has a huge impact on my outbreaks of acne. I usually eat my yolks at night thinking that might help, but it doesn't seem to have that significant of an impact.

I think I usually make up the loss sleep on the weekends when I sleep sometimes 9-10 hrs because I don't have classes. But if I could I would prefer a more stable sleep schedule.

Any thoughts?

[RRM]

If you are ingesting all that you need (fats, cholesterol, other nutrients) and if you dont lack energy when you go to bed, I guess its a mental thing.
My mind can be too busy to fall asleep, and if that is the case, im always using a 'trick' to be able to fall asleep. I need to distract my mind from thinking about things that happened or im working on. This is how I create that distraction:

When you close your eyes, everything is black it seems, but not 100% darkness. Somehow, your brain creates all kind of 'shades' / 'lights' in that darkness, maybe as the result of brain activity.
I used to get disturbed by those effects, as I want total darkness / rest, to fall asleep. Now I use these effects to fall asleep. I close my eyes and try to find a 'light' that 'i dive into'; it becomes a tunnel and I fly through in with great speed with lots of twists and turns. (as those water slides they have in big swimming pools) And everytime i seem to start thinking again, I focus on that tunnel and start sliding / flying again.
It always does the trick eventually.
Im sure that meditation may have the same effect.
And, of course, sex is very effective.

[Oscar]

I'm not someone who falls asleep very easily. Usually I require 10-15 mins of 'settling in' before I fall asleep (unlike my girlfriend, who can drift off in mid-sentence). Since there are no distractions, the issue(s) my mind is busy with (if there are any) all come to the surface. If I 'give in' and start thinking about the issue(s), I'll get really awake and might be in for a long sleepless period.

I'm glad this doesn't happen very often, but the way to counter it is as RRM said: distract yourself in any way from those issues/thoughts.

Another thing to be careful about, is not making 'falling asleep' an issue in itself. If you're worrying about not being able to fall asleep, that in itself might be enough to keep you awake. Just relax and try to enjoy laying in bed, without the need to fall asleep.