Complicated sleep problem

I do know how to get a really good nights sleep ...

I have worked shifts including overnights for the last 14 years and it has played havoc with my sleep pattern. I used to need my 8 hours a night and found it difficult to cope without it. Although I am now used to these hours I feel permanently jet lagged and quite often wake up with a start wondering what time of day and even what day it is. It is quite a frightening and disorientating feeling.At other times I lie tossing and turning unable to sleep even though I feel dog tired. I have been given a lot of information about sleep deprivation in the course of my employment and I agree that it is a serious problem. As an example, it is recognised that driving with a sleep deficit is the equivalent of driving under the influence of alcohol.

I agree, bikergran, lack of sleep can cause all sorts of problems, both physical land mental, and can even shorten your life! I don't know what the answer is for those of us with sleep difficulties - I don't want to resort to sleeping tablets as I'm sure that would be a slippery slope.

I used! to sleep from around 9=30 till atleast 7-30...then as DH become more ill... my sleep pattern was disturbed (a lot of it listening to see if he is still breathing)! almost like having a new born in the house....the times I did! sleep,the times he was taken in hospital, when I would wake up feeling guilty because I had slept! so I still wake up and listen to him..quite few times during the night, I never a full nights sleep..but seems that this is a lot bigger problem, and apparently docotors do not take lack of sleep seriously!

I come from a long line of insomniacs - my Grandmother didn't get to sleep much before 3 am and slept late the next morning. We lived with them between postings and I remember being threatened with all sorts if we were noisy in the morning.
I take a tablet and horlicks and read until I nearly drop off. If I awake later it is usually to go to the loo - if I can't drop off more reading - sometimes a page does the trick. I have a friend who wakes up at 3am and makes herself a cup of tea then wonders why she has problems getting back to sleep. We all have out methods

What a relief to realise that so many of us are in the same boat with waking up through the night. I used to think it stemmed from having children and listening out for them -"sleeping with an ear open". DS had asthma as a baby and young boy and I was always listening for him in case he started to wheeze. Now DH's snuffles and snores keep me awake quite often but he sleeps like a log every night. I agree that worries seem much more stressful in the small hours so I try to make a mental trip back to my girlhood home, imagining walking up the path and in the front door etc. Often helps me drop off again and takes my mind of things.

I have often got up and done my housework or walked the dogs because I have woken up in the early hours and couldn't get back to sleep.

I now find that if I go to bed a little bit later around 11 ish that I do tend to sleep for a longer period. I also have a small bowl of porridge before I go to bed and I find that this also helps.

I have always had quite vivid dreams and these either stopped or I wasn't remembering them when my sleep was disturbed. Now I am sleeping a little longer I find the dreams are returning. For me I think this is my way of dealing with problems that occur in my daily life.

When I was in my thirties having left dreadful first husband for gorgeous/nice/kind/sensible second I couldnt settle into a consistent sleep pattern for a while. I read somewhere about having a good book or magazine to read for those sleepless hours in the middle of the night. Going to sleep was fine after lots of good loving from Mr Second Flower. Sorry if you didnt want that bit.

The nub of the story is that if I made sure that there was something intellectually stimulating to do or read in the wee hours then I didnt wake.

Sorry this is probably nothing to do with the first problem. That is my PROBLEM.

Since death of lovely Mr. Second Flower I too find sleep difficult or is it old age.

I have terrible trouble getting to sleep. Sometimes I lay there tossing and turning until about 3-4am. and I still wake up at least once after that to go to the toilet! It's no joke!
I was on sleeping tablets for a while which worked well, but as they are habit forming I could not continue taking them.
I have been to a Sleep Management group and they advised going to bed at the same time and getting up at the same time. This does help but they also said to clear your mind - something I can't do no matter how hard I try and it is this continuous "thinking" which keeps me awake.

I try singing 'the Twelve days of Christmas' and 'I'll sing you one-o' ALL the way through, when I know I am getting tired again in the early hours...mostly I don't make it! The slight concentration needed does it.

When I wake up in the night I often find it hard to get back to sleep because I suffer from tinnitus and it is very difficult to "tune out" the noise at night (it's getting more difficult to tune it out during the day too). I don't very often dream but last night I had the most awful dream that shocked me awake and I just lay there trying to work out what it was all about and trying to blot out the images. It has stayed with me all day. Dahlia, like you, I sometimes fall back on the NATO alphabet, and the shipping forecast!

Like so many of you, I, too, have trouble sleeping but fortunately not every night, though usually awake before 6 a.m. however much sleep I have had the previous evening. Since taking up the habit of a cup of "Milo" (like Ovaltine but a lovely flavour) made with full-cream milk, I do seem to slip off to sleep much better, with the occasional awake-until-2 night but not so often. I don't like to get up as we have a very small house with creaky boards, so hubby would be disturbed. Try remembering the NATO alphabet,
US states, etc., though doubt if this really helps as my brain becomes more "switched on"! Mum had the same problem, perhaps we just don't need the sleep, but if this were the case why do I always feel ready for a siesta about 2 p.m.? Try not to give in to this, but when I was working it was quite a problem, especially taking minutes for an afternoon meeting - the eyelids began to close as soon as the meeting began!
You are certainly right about worrying at night. My money problems loom large in the wee small hours, yet in the brightness of day they don't seem too bad!

Oh, you've just reminded me, Maggie - I've got the monotonous hoot of the collared doves to look forward to from 5 a.m. soon . Even earplugs can't drown them out, it seems to be a particularly penetrating pitch.

I go to sleep easily but wake at the same time each night, usually 2 a.m. If I am lucky it might be 3 a.m.!
However we have a local peacock or two, who has strutted around the local houses for the last few years, and between end of March and July, he and sometimes the other one , both males, roosts every night in our huge oak tree and starts 'calling' from 4 am every night......
No one has ever claimed him, we are all fed up with the noise and destruction to our plants but it is a beautiful sight with full feathers ..... RSPB and other orgs are not interested and no one could catch either of them.You can imagine how excited our dogs get when they see or perceive what is in the tree!

I don't think I could actually get up and do things during my wakeful periods! Mostly my body likes just lying there, but it's my mind that won't relax. I have tried reading, and it does work eventually, but by then I start worrying that I won't get up for work....

I also wake up at all sorts of time in the night. Its not unusal for me to wake thinking I have had a good nights sleep only to look at the time and find its only 1.30 am and I only went to bed at 11.30 !
I woke this morning at 4ish and lay there for a while and then got up and went down into the kitchen got the slow cooker out of cupboard and raided the fridge, so now there is a beef stew on the go !
Went back to bed and lay there for about an hour till sleep took over and woke at 8.30 am, but at least lunch is sorted !

This is such a relief to find other people having just the same problems as me - I have found that if I slightly restrict fluid intake after about 5pm I sleep longer - We have radio 4 on when we go to bed and instead of timing the alarm to wake us up we have it timed to go off just as Sailing Away begins - I usually never hear the end of the book reading and sometimes even fall asleep during 'Today in Parliament'
It is the going back to sleep after waking in the early hours I find hard and if I don't get enough sleep in the early hours I go into a deep sleep just before I should be getting up and then drop off whenever I sit down in the day and I hate that.

After what, Charlotta?
I do recognise the 'after' bit, as I get silent migraines when I relax after tension, and realise that there is a pattern.

I have had migraine for 50 years and these last ten years don't get much pain but a real group of feelings and sensations, giddiness, lack of concentration, feeling down and dog tired. I recognise them as a migraine reaction and they always come two to three days afterwards. That is typical for migraine in older people.
I was a member of 'Migraine Action for over 30 years and they do help and recognise migraine symptoms where the normal GP ( who never as headache) is stumped. Yours did give a diagnosis and perhaps Migraine Action ( I hope that is the name now)can help you further. The yearly membership is not expensive and you get a lot of information.
A mild herb to help sleep is Valerian. Known for 100s of years.
Good Luck!

Annobel I would be so well informed by now, if I could only remember any of it!

I suspect it is quite normal to sleep fitfully, since so many people seem to do so. We are conditioned to believe that eight hours' continuous sleep is the norm, but perhaps each of us has her own 'norm'. It's probably presumptuous of me to comment because I have no problem sleeping up to seven hours with - usually - a loo break between 3 and 4am when I go straight back to sleep. If I have a rare sleepless spell, I put the radio on, set to go off again in 45 minutes, and can never remember what I was listening to.

My doctor advised me to not go to bed too early. I find now that if I put the light out at 11.30 I do sleep better. Trouble for me is getting up!

I don't think I ever get more than 6 hours a night. I try to be in bed around 10.00 during the working week. I usually awake around midnight and then again between 2.00 and 3.00. I finally wake up around 5.00ish.

If it's really bad getting back to sleep I turn the TV or radio on very low and then sends me back to sleeip. I think it stops my brain working!!! If I don't do that, I start thinking about things I have to do at work or other chores. What does that say about TV and stopping my brain working!!?

Yes it does seem to go in cycles. I have times when I can sleep through for about a week. What a relief........then it goes again.

I've never been a good sleeper, it seems to go in cycles, and of course is much worse when I am worried(normal state these days!).
I cannot nod off in the afternoons though, I think I'm scared of missing something!