How much sleep do you get?

I know this will sound a bit daft, but I'm quite thrilled to hear that I'm not the only person full of the joys of spring at 3a.m.

When you're alone and it's dark and quiet, and you can't see any other lights on, it's easy to think you're the only person in the world who can't sleep.

So I'm just going to finish my cuppa, check my emails and Fb and put some washing on.

Hopefully may grab another hour or so later on.

All my friends and family struggle with a good nights sleep. Having lived in Spain for about 20 years I got in the habit of a one hour nap. This enables me at 73, staying up until after midnight. Works for me. I’m on a ladies forum of 80 oldies and I’m the only one who naps. Must be a Spanish thing. They all struggle to sleep more than five hours. After my nap I usually manage an other seven hours after midnight. I realise it’s not popular here, even with doctors but without it I can’t envisage a really long life. If you are up for it, give it a go.

I don't get enough sleep, partly my own fault I think. I've been having problems for years. If I get five hours I think I've done well. There are some nights when I don't actually go to sleep until about 3am and then wake up at 5am and struggle to go back to sleep. Whilst I was still working I used to be struggling to keep my eyes open by 4pm. I do sometimes read, or social media until about midnight but then I can lay there counting sheep or listening to "white" noise and still can't drop off, so end up playing silly games on my iPad. One goo d thing about being retired now and on my own, is I can and often do have a nap around 2pm if I need to.

I’m 85, and was only sleeping for 2-3 hours, until 10 years ago when my GP told me about an experimental online programme called Sleepio. It’s available free on the NHS in limited areas, but otherwise you will have to pay for it. It’s really hard to do, but worked for me. Hope this helps you.

I had very little sleep, due to pain. Even when I dozed of, my sleep was disturbed.

All the sleep prep in the world makes no difference, because of the root cause.
I would give anything for a decent night's sleep.

I wake every couple of hrs during the night for a pit stop but then I nap in the afternoon, it’s really my best sleep I love doing jigsaws on my beloved I Pad every opportunity I get..

7 hours, I went up at 8 and did some gentle sewing for an hour. Then my sleep preps, slathered myself with black gram booster booster oil, put loose linen hand made pyjamas on and was in bed by 9.30. Listened to lbc on low, with a timer, for 30 minutes. I was asleep by 10

I have masses of energy, go cycling up hills etc but always before noon. After noon is wind down and I try to watch born and bred at 3. I eat my last light meal by 4. I need to stay awake, napping does me no good at all. If I feel dozy, I go and tidy the kitchen or do some sewing

I forgot to add that I'm only 56, so I've had this issue with sleep for a large percentage of my life than I had with reasonable amounts of sleep.

If I'm REALLY lucky, approx 6 hours per week, but I'd say my normal pattern is approx 3.5-4 hours per week.
This is (very occasionally) around 2 hours on 3 days (if I'm lucky), but never consecutive days, but more likely, I'll have one day of about 2.5 hours, then it'll be 3 or 4 days before I'll get about an hour.
I never sleep at night, my body just doesn't let me, so if I'm going to get any sleep on any given day, I'll usually nod off sometime between 9 and 10 am, but I can pretty much guarantee I'll be awake again within the hour, or if it's going to be one of those extremely rare days, I'll be awake by around midday.
My sleep has been like this for almost 3 decades. I've tried allsorts of things to get more sleep but nothing works.
The only times I've had more sleep have been when I've been in hospital on the operating table, but that's a different type of sleep, so it doesn't really count.

Six hours sleep only - normally 12 - 6am and feel fit as a fiddle on it. I agree with Georgesgran - the only other light sleeper that I can see. I’ve been like this all my life and I believe we make too much of a thing about it. Also fewer hours of deep sleep is probably better than more ‘light sleep’ hours.
Btw I never wash my hair either and I get loads of complements about it!!

I listen to the radio if I wake very early. World service bbc there is usually something interesting to listen to,

No problem sleeping. More a problem of staying awake since I reached my 80s. I've always been a night owl, read and put my light out about midnight. Usually fall asleep straightaway. On rare ocasions when I can't get to sleep I play word games in my head, choosing a word and making the last letter of that word the first letter of my next word and so on. Breathing exercises/nasal breathing also work well. I get up once or twice in the night for a wee, then straight back to sleep. If not woken by DH or alarm clock I can easily sleep until around 9.30 am. I also regularly fall asleep during the day and/or evening. Happily I still have sufficient energy to maintain my usual activities of walking, Pilates, housework... Hope others find a solution to sleepless nights.

suelld. I’m like that. It doesn’t help that my dog has taken to wanting to have her breakfast very early. I share her with my partner who is an early riser so he feeds her at the crack of dawn.I eventually seem to drift back into a deep sleep at @ 9 but I’m just losing half the day. I used to work mornings only so I got into the habit of having an afternoon nap so my sleep pattern has always been weird. I used to catch up with things late at night but now I’m old I don’t have any energy at night now. It only matters when I have to look after my grandchildren in the school holidays but that isn’t very often.

In common with several other posters, I get maybe 6 hours of sleep per night (if I’m lucky).
At 76 (soon to be 77) I am disturbed at least twice and often three times during the night for bathroom breaks. When that isn’t the cause, I will often be woken by pain in my hands, feet or knees (I have arthritis in most of my joints!) Generally, I wake ever couple of hours. I go to bed around 10.00pm, and will wake up around 12 midnight, then 2.00am and 4.00am. After 4.00, sometimes I can’t get back to sleep at all. I get up at 6.00am regardless of the day or season!

merlotgran

May I politely ask what those of you early risers actually do when you are awake at 4am? Doesn’t it make the day really long in winter?

I often peek at the Good Morning thread and the early birds post about what they will be doing from about 9am onwards but what about the four or five hours before that?

It’s the middle of the night for me. 😂

I’m a Night Owl and always have been, even when working and occasionally having had to get up at 6am. Now 78 with chronic kidney disease and other ills . But tho the disease is stable so far now, I seem to be permanently tired. I get to bed at around midnight or later… but even if I get to bed much earlier, I rarely sleep before 3/4 am! And I have tried! Then I’m usually fine and most nights sleep well but that means I don’t wake til mid or late morning… there are occasions I can’t get to sleep til 7/8 in the morning …so …then I sleep a lot of the day! I have tried and tried to beak this cycle, but oddly it seems to suit me…very antisocial, and I am semi retired from self employment, but it does mean that I can function well once awake and work my own flexi hours. On the days I HAVE ago get up for an appointment or similar it’s worse as I worry about getting up! So I have learned to take a Nytol early on then and sometimes it works but leaves me with after effects, so I don’t take it on a regular basis! Other times I take it but my subconscious mind fights it, and I end up falling asleep with exhaustion just before the alarm goes off! I have learned to live with all this happily enough, and am in the process of training family and friends to accept the way I am! 😎

All my life I have slept somewhere around six hours during the night, as whatever time I go to bed, or need to get up, I waken three or four times during the night.

Since this time last year, when DH was diagnosed with cancer my night's sleep has gone heywire. To start off with, because he rapidly started sleeping downstairs, as he could not manage the stairs, and needed help during the night, so I slept with one ear open. After his death, I spent three months sleeping when I felt tired, or rather exhausted. Now at last I am slowly getting back to my normal six hours.

I have always felt that sleep - how much we need, and when we need it, is highly individual, and that the insistance when we were children that everyone needed the same amount of sleep has done a lot of harm. I never needed the 12 hours children up to the age of twelve or so were deemed to need in the 1950s, nor the 8 hours recommended for adults from the seventies, when I was a young woman until now.

If I drink non decaff tea it keeps me awake in much the same way as non decaff coffee does. I have to avoid both.

I'm just coming out of an insomniac stage with hardly ever more than 2 a 3 hrs a night. Since the dr prescribed me hrt patches (first time ever and I'm 76) my sleep has vastly improved. However cple of things...windows always open, earplugs and mask. And i dont go to bed if not sleepy. If i find myself awake anytime f longer than 15mins i get up make a cup of tea and read in the lounge till i feel sleepy again. It doesnt work if i take my mug into the bedroom, it's usually too cold in there anyway to drink my tea sitting up even with jumpers on.
Read when going to bed betw 10 and 10.30, nowadays not longer than 10 mins needed, how good is that! Then sleep for 2hrs, loo break, asleep usually quickly, awake , repeat every 2 hrs and awake and up betw 4.30 and 5.30.
I do go back to bed with my kindle and mug of tea and watch the day break...then up and be grateful after so many years of feeling like a zombie.

I used to do between 4 and 5 hours a night plus a little nap after lunch, but after a trip to the doctor it was decided that perhaps some of my health issues and anxiety were due to lack of sleep so he gave me sleeping pills. With the pills I get around 8 hours but I am not thrilled to be taking them every night.

Have you tried listening to a podcast? When I can't sleep I put my ipods in and listen to Joe Marler 'things people do'. It's so interesting but some of the language can be a bit much for some people - after all he is a rugby player! I find I close my eyes when listening, relax and nod off.

Seven half hours go to bed at 10.30 up around 6.30/7 I could sleep standing up lol I’m 67

An interesting thread.

It’s easy to diagnose those of us who sleep little or need little sleep as insomniacs - but I think insomnia is only a problem if it affects one’s day to day living? It would seem that some shouldn’t be driving, or operating machinery if their brains and bodies are so tired?
However, for those of us who function perfectly well on 4 or 5 hours a night (like Churchill and Thatcher, I believe) that’s just us and we accept things as they are. I have never referred to myself as an insomniac, merely someone who needs little sleep.

Between 6 and 9 hours. I go to bed late around 1am then read until I'm tired, around 2am. Get up between 8.30 and 10.30. It's my normal sleep pattern and I sleep soundly every night. If I try to change it for an earlier bedtime I'm awake several times in the night.

Took a sleeping pill last night at 10, slept, but wide awake again at midnight.

My Fitbit tells me I don’t get enough deep sleep but I hear that’s common as we age and sometimes we don’t get any at all. Lots of REM though - that explains my crazy dreams!