Late night early morning thoughts

Good article in The Mail today on waking up at night worrying. Best advice was to imagine a mango, really look at it then imagine it changing colour then slowly peel it, all designed to break negative thoughts. xx

I wake up every morning feeling 'sad' always about things that have happened in the past. I can get myself very depressed. I guess I have been dreaming and these thoughts are the remnants of my dreams. I convince myself that I hate my life. After I have sorted myself out washed and dressed I become 'normal' again. I put it down to the fact that I shouldn't eat anything prior to going to bed. I have had a lot of sorrow in my life and these memories just will not go away.

I also have strange thoughts in the night. But I have also sorted out problems too when all is quiet that I couldn't get my head round during the day. I have a little book that when I have an idea or positive thought I write it down for further perusal the following day.
I often make a cup of tea and put the tv on too. I soon get tired then. It's much better though when you can sleep through.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-16964783
This is an article about the "Two sleeps a night" phenomenon which was apparently accepted as normal until the 1920s. People naturally woke and sometimes even socialised in the middle of the night. Small consolation to those of us taking out our worries and polishing them in the wee small hours

When I wake, I keep the light off and turn the radio on very quietly (Classic FM or Radio 4), the slight effort of listening to a very quiet radio calms the mind and gets me off to sleep.

Thankfully, I do not wake and worry, but I do wake up and get in to deep thought threads that may be about anything from planning the next days activities, to solving global warming, or planning how to help to finance our DGC's university education (they are 6 and 9)

Maggie and everyone - what a great and truly comforting thread Bartonlady has given us!
Gransnet at its best!
?for all contributors!

If I wake very early and have negative thoughts etc then I either read, listen to Rado 4 extra or have a cup of tea and maybe a slice of toast. Love the summer early mornings though so perhaps something to do with the longer, darker nights.

I am so glad you started this thread Bartonlady , I thought it was just me ! I hate the 4 am waking which is almost everyday now , I have to get up and do something so I don`t dwell on things I have little control over consequently am often tired later in the day .

Always have something to listen to. Nothing too exciting or gruesome
Always wear bed socks even in summer! I sleep much better with them on.

May I suggest that perhaps you early wakers listen to Steve Allen on LBC 4 - 7 am

Yes I do too, often awake then and think about my son who died my parents who are gone too. Sometimes I drift back off to sleep again.

A warm drink and a (refreshed) hot-water bottle often works for me.

You have all been so lovely my GN friends! I thank you again with all my heart for taking time to reply and share. When I wake up in the early hours i'll think of you all doing the same and send you comforting thoughts knowing I'm not alone
xx

Another one to add to the list! 3 - 4 is the 'witching' hour. All thoughts and worries are magnified, the brain goes into overdrive but the next day the problems and worries seem minuscule compared to the problems of the world. I try not to get up and 'do something else' which was always the advice. The latest is to sit tight, not put on the light and to concentrate on your breathing, the idea being presumably that boredom will set in and sleep will overtake you. Still waiting for it to happen

Another night time worrier here. My problem is dropping off to sleep, start thinking about every thing that is wrong and then there's no hope of sleeping. I switch on the light to read again sometimes 4 or 5 times. As soon as I read I start falling asleep but when I turn the light off I'm wide awake with brain going round in circles

Don't fret, BartonLady.

I do it, and we all do it.

It's literally all in the mind....we must learn to live with it. These thoughts won't harm us, and may even make us better human beings.

Elrel, you and I have the same sleep problem. When I start worrying about the "should haves and could haves" I am so unhappy it takes ages to get to sleep, and here we are, thinking that it's just us with this problem. We know it's too late to change whatever has gone before but it doesn't stop us fretting. If we think about our actions at the time we know whatever we did was right at the time. Reading before bed-time probably helps, it certainly makes me more sleepy.

I read at bedtime and usually sleep well for a few hours, but I also have that ' wake up and worry ' time clock. Then I tell myself there is nothing I can do about it at that time of the morning, so I pick up the book again, read a chapter, then when I turn the light out I try to work out how the story is going to end. It takes my mind off the original worry and usually sends me to sleep.
I'm glad I'm not the only one with this problem!

There is a reason why, when the secret police call to arrest a political dissident, they do it between 3.00am and 4.00am. It is because the cycle of sleep means that we are psychologically at our most vulnerable and I think this is why if we wake at that time we tend to end up with woory thought patterns about the real and the irrelevant.

Great thread for me I had no idea this was such a common thing, I've always thought of myself as a 'worrier' but perhaps I don't worry anymore than anybody else. I read the other day that out ancestors got up in the night for a couple of hours and worked or busied themselves so maybe this 3/4 o'clock waking is a hangover from that and quite normal.

Your brain chemistry is doolally at that time of night. How many times have you worried yourself sick at four in the morning only to dismiss the fears as groundless when the morning finally arrives?

Most people get these night fears but, when you wake, you should tell yourself that they are a product of chemicals and hormones and that you need to 'change the subject'. I find it hard myself as they seem so real but I have got better over time at saying 'Stop this now, it isn't real.'

My DH says he makes himself think of a journey he has done and it usually sends him back to sleep. But that's men for you. Simple and easily made happy.

I read somewhere once that this sleep pattern, falling asleep easily but waking in the small hours and being unable to drop off again, is a typically female form of insomnia. I certainly suffer from it, and any worries seem enormous. I have the radio on with headphones which helps a bit.

I'm a three a.m. one churning things over. Never listened to Desert Island discs before I started waking early. So, earpieces on my phone ready to tune in to BBC I Player. Heard some really good episodes from people I've never heard of. Then there is Sounds of the sixties if I've missed one and oh all sorts of programmes to discover. If I'm awake at 5 I start the day with radio 2. No wonder I don't sleep, too much excitement on my phone! !

It is a comfort of sorts, to know how normal this is, please remember, that whatever you did, at the time, was what you thought was for the best. 'The past is a foreign country' and we view it through an anxious lens at times.......

I was always a good sleeper. My Dad used to say I went on a short course of death ! That was until about 2 years ago. I first posted on here then asking for advice on how to help GD1 who was having trouble with friends(!) At school. I would be awake much of the night worrying about her. Now any little niggle or worry about anything will wake me at silly o'clock. I suppose it is now a habit. Sometimes I quite like the peace of those hours.