Sleep Week - post to win prizes! ?

I sleep like the dead: nothing disturbs me once I am asleep. As soon as I get horizontal, I’m asleep within minutes. If I knew why, I’d market my tips and make a fortune, but I’m inclined to think it’s just luck.

I have a routine that appears to help. I try to be in bed, showered by 10.30 pm because I like to read. I try to switch off my light at midnight, turn over on my right side with my hot water bottle close to my back and I am usually asleep before I can count to 10.

I usually get up a couple of times to go to the loo but straight back to sleep. Not working and no major worries have helped I think.

If the light disturbs you try an eyemask - it helps me :-)

I do 10k steps per day and do everything recommended to assist sleep, no electronics, no caffeine or alcohol etc however, my sleep is totally erratic. I keep to the same bedtime 10.30/11 and some nights I am still wide awake at 2am: Other nights I go straight to sleep and then am wide awake about 3am and stay awake for a couple of hours. It just exhausts me. When it gets too bad I do take a phenergan but obviously I do not want to become reliant on pills.

I wear my Fitbit to bed and am always interested in the findings especially as I have only very rarely got a "Good" nights sleep. Usually my sleep score is "Fair". Its fascinating to see just how many times I wake during the night - even times that I'm not aware of.
My problem is either having trouble getting off to sleep or waking up to visit the loo in the early hours and then awake for a long time afterwards.
I keep a Rescue Remedy spray, a pillow spray and a roll-on relaxing pulse oil on the bedside table. These certainly help when I really struggle to sleep - (although its wise not to confuse the pillow spray and the Rescue Remedy in the dark.)

I sleep well during the week when I'm up at 6am for work usually fall asleep around half 9 10o'clock I wear earplugs and I have sleepy stories podcast playing in the background although I can barely hear it I prefer it to silence it's just annoying when I wake at 6 at the weekend when I could sleep in a bit longer

I have been sleeping much better during lockdown as I don't have to get up early. I used to get up at least once every night to go to the loo but have now stopped drinking coffee in the evening. I have a cup of Twinings sleep tea after my evening meal and now I am sleeping through!

I used to sleep well until I had a session of chemotherapy 16 years ago. After that I could never sleep well and I learnt to deal with it by reading late into the night and not stressing if I did not get enough sleep (easy for me to do as I was retired and did not have to get up at a certain time). Recently I bought a new duvet which is two duvets that fit together and during the winter you can use both but in the summer you can use the lighter one. I put the double one on and it felt like someone was laying on top of me! I felt sure I would never sleep but I was out like a light! Since then I have slept much better. I am thinking that this is also was weighted blankets do but I haven't tried one of them yet.

my sleep pattern has definitely changed as I've approached the menopause. I am now easily disturbed, have to get up to go to the loo and seem to wake every couple of hours. I'm usually still tired when it's time to get up. I also can't seem to get the temperature right, I'm too cold out of the covers and too hot under them. I don't have any caffeine after about 3pm, I don't have the telly on in the bedroom. I do think it's hormonal with me.

I usually go to sleep easily and wake feeling rested, but increasingly this is at ‘stupid o’clock’ in the morning; 4, 4:30, 5 and then not only do I feel that I have to stay still, which is not all that comfortable, to avoid waking up my OH, but also I am not quite ready to get up yet. Frustrating, but later nights - which might seem the obvious solution, really don’t work, I get grumpy and fractious if I don’t get to sleep by about 10 to 10:30, and often even earlier if I am really tired.

Just posted a sleep related message, but would also like to tell you what I like about Gransnet. I simply can relate to everything. I was worried at one point about a pending operation and needed advice. I wondered if anyone had been through the same operation and I found they had and they really put my mind to rest from a patient to patient perspective. I thought someone would laugh at me or I might be mocked for worrying, but that wasn't the case at all I just found like minded souls.

I used to sleep immediately my head hit the pillow, but since going through something traumatic two years ago, I find it much more difficult.
I can toss and turn for two hours sometimes, the longer it takes for me to go to sleep, the harder it gets. My eyes are wide open and I don't feel at all sleepy, although I know I'm tired.

Well I am worried, very worried as I could sleep 12 hours and into the next day. After 10 hours I make myself get up and won't allow myself to sleep in the afternoon under any circumstances. This could be because I get woken by my neighbours at least 3 times a night, usually at 3am, 5am and 7am. It could also be because I'm not working at the moment and so have few worries. When I was working I was very anxious I would sleep before the alarm went off as I live on my own.

Very variable , ranging from good lengths of deep sleep to very short . Depends if I feel relaxed or on edge with no cause . Have a Fitbit with sleep tracking

Tempur memory foam bed - so very comfortable, I sleep like a log and really miss it if I am away from home.

I usually sleep well - my trick is to put a few drops of lavender oil on my pillowslip and that seems to tell my brain that it's time to sleep! - but recently I had been doing the "awake at 3 a.m." thing.

I had a few nights of how-will-I-get-back-to-sleep panic, and then, on one occasion, I relaxed into the fact that I was wide awake and found myself counting my blessings in that how lucky I was to be in a comfy bed, that I have someone to cuddle if I so wished, and that I am safe and warm. With these thoughts in my head, when I looked again it was 8 a.m. .

Since then, that is my failsafe way of getting back to sleep.

Terrible insomniac posting here.

I have to have sedation most nights. If I don’t, then it’s possible I will lie awake all night.
The problem is, my mind churns over and over.
I can be dog tired and wanting, needing to sleep, but the minute my head hits the pillow, I’m wide awake.
I have tried sleep hygiene methods: nothing works.
It’s a good job I’m a night owl. Rarely asleep before 1am.
I seem to manage ok on around five or six hours of Zzzz.
Early waking up too. Very annoying. Learnt to live with it now.

It is unusual for me to sleep all night. Typically takes me over an hour to get to sleep - I go to bed about 11 and can still be awake at 1 o'clock. I will also wake at various times during the night. Guess I'm just used to it now.

I've been through phases of waking, wide awake, most nights at a specific time interspersed with the occasional full night's sleep. I've developed plenty of theories about what causes it including stress, late cup of tea, hunger etc. I've addressed it by getting up for the toilet then reading, going through karate kata in my head, among other things. These worked sometimes to get back to sleep but not to prevent the waking.

The situation is now reversed. I sleep well most nights, regardless of late cups of tea, with the occasional early hours wake up. Here are my strategies:

# No tech in the bedroom.
# An actual, physical book to read.
# Good curtains to block light from outside.
# I can't get to sleep if my feet are cold so I wear socks until the bottom of the bed has warmed up.
# As I switch the light off, I tell myself three times I will sleep now and wake up at a specific time. Amazingly, this works quite well! You don't have to believe it will work.
# Lately, a lavender pillow spray is working well for me. I don't care if it's a placebo or even a simple coincidence. It's very pleasant and I'm sleeping well.
# If I do wake and go to the toilet, I try to manage without switching lights on. Lights wake you up. When I get back to bed, I lie down straight away and tell myself I will sleep now.

I remember the days when I used to fall asleep and stay asleep for 8 hours...now just a distant memory. I think that 5 lots of motherhood, that feeling of being 'on call' 24/7, quickly followed by all the menopausal ups and downs, followed swiftly by retirement, has played havoc with my sleep life.

I love my bed - in fact most nights I'm sneaking looks at the time to decide when I can legitimately retire to my warm cosy 'nest' with a book! Usually about 2100 wins the day and I tend to settle down, light out about 22.30.

Falling asleep is rarely a problem - I read till my eyelids droop...but staying asleep all night till a reasonable morning hour is almost impossible. I'm a light sleeper at the best of times...being a little hard of hearing now has helped that a bit, but I'm very aware of any chink of light...living on a residential road with a new 'daylight' type street light right outside my flat on the roadside doesn't help matters.

Most nights I get 6 hours and count myself lucky - sometimes it's 5 and sometimes if there's something troubling me I can be awake around 0300. I try to do the right things - have blue light blocker on my phone and don't eat for hours before bedtime - no booze either - was married to someone with a severe alcohol problem for too long, so I rarely drink alcohol myself now.

Sleep just isn't what it was years ago. I seem to have too many limbs which don't exactly fit anywhere or stay comfortable ...sadly.

However, I shall look forward to this weeks threads and maybe I can learn something to my advantage - I would be so pleased if that happens!

l can go for several nights of sleeping well followed by several poor nights. l can see no pattern emerging, l do not watch tv in bed though l doo like to read, all curled up and cosy in bed. lt's probably an age thing with me

Always been a bad sleeper even as a child. If I go to bed during a 'window' between 10.15 - 11 I find I go to sleep quite quickly, but if I miss the 'window' it sometimes takes hours. Recently I resorted to the Calm app and listen to a story and so far that works, in as much as I've never heard the end of any of the stories. Still wake up for the loo but just re start the story.

If sleeping was an Olympic sport I'd win the gold medal. I usually go to bed around 9pm. Left to my own devices I'd sleep for 15 hours or more so I have a light alarm which wakes me up gradually just before 7am. I hurt my back a couple of days ago and it's affecting my sleep. I'm virtually incapable of doing anything now because I'm so tired. I don't know how people cope with no sleep on a regular basis..

I have found that listening to music or an audio book using headphones sends me to sleep.

I'm not afraid of the dark, but I like to sleep with some light coming in. I leave the bedroom door open and the landing light on, so there's no direct light. I remember the feeling of release when my mum took down the blackout curtains at the end of the war. Normally I do sleep well but if I wake up during the night, I read a chapter of my current book and soon find my eyes closing. As I tend to go to bed late - midnight is usual - I also tend to sleep late, but as I live alone, this is not a problem. On occasion, if fatigue gets the better of me, I have an afternoon nap too.