Sleep Patterns: How to Get Good Rest & Feel Refreshed

  • Thread starter Thread starter wolram
  • Start date Start date
  • Tags Tags
    Sleep
AI Thread Summary
The discussion revolves around various sleep patterns and experiences, highlighting the complexities of achieving restful sleep. Participants share personal anecdotes about their sleep habits, including the challenges of falling asleep upright, the impact of caffeine on sleep quality, and the effects of time changes on sleep routines. Many express difficulties with insomnia, tossing and turning, and the struggle to maintain a consistent sleep schedule, particularly after shifts or during stressful periods. The role of environmental factors, such as light and noise, is emphasized, with suggestions for creating a dark and quiet sleeping space. Some participants note the benefits of cutting out caffeine and establishing bedtime routines to improve sleep quality. The conversation also touches on humorous and unusual sleep behaviors, such as sleepwalking and the disruptions caused by pets. Overall, the thread illustrates the diverse experiences and strategies individuals employ to navigate their sleep challenges.
wolram
Gold Member
Dearly Missed
Messages
4,410
Reaction score
555
Some times i sleep best when or if i fall asleep upright in my chair, but that i think is not good sleep, i think the media says one needs rem sleep, so how do your sleep patterns make you feel good?
 
Physics news on Phys.org
Well, the 'myou' are a rare and unpredictable species. It has been found by biologist that they sleep between 2 to 5 hours a day, which seems little to us, but they do not need more sleep.
 
Last edited:
Depends on the night. Some nights I sleep very soundly, while others I toss and turn and stay awake practically all night.

- Warren
 
Sometimes I get so tired from work, I sleep on the floor with my uniform still on cos I am just too damn lazy to get my ass moving to the bathroom.
 
Oerg said:
Sometimes I get so tired from work, I sleep on the floor with my uniform still on cos I am just too damn lazy to get my ass moving to the bathroom.

You sleep in the bathroom?
 
chroot said:
Depends on the night. Some nights I sleep very soundly, while others I toss and turn and stay awake practically all night.

- Warren

And it seems I toss and turn more the Sunday night after the time has changed, just so the morning is so much MORE difficult for waking up that hour earlier. I think everyone was sleep-walking through the day today.
 
Sometimes well and other times not. I was quite ill from fatigue recently after having a few months of good sleep.
 
I haven't slept well in years.
 
  • #10
Moonbear said:
And it seems I toss and turn more the Sunday night after the time has changed, just so the morning is so much MORE difficult for waking up that hour earlier. I think everyone was sleep-walking through the day today.

http://www.napping.com/napping-day.html" Zzzzzzzz...
 
Last edited by a moderator:
  • #11
Depends on the time of year.
 
  • #12
I used to be the sort that could not go to bed before 2 am, and desired more than anything in the world to sleep in until 10 or 11 in the morning. It has caused me a lot of problems, like when I'd have to get to work for early meetings or go on group bike rides that started at 8 am, etc.

Recently, I did an experiment -- I just stopped using caffeine. I completely cut it out of my diet, and within a week I was on "old-man hours." I would get tired at 11, often go to bed before midnight, and find myself unable to sleep past 8 or 8:30 am.

I now believe that caffeine, even small amounts of it, is very detrimental to a normal and healthy sleep schedule. If you're routinely having trouble sleeping... just try cutting it out for a week and see what happens.

- Warren
 
  • #13
chroot said:
I now believe that caffeine, even small amounts of it, is very detrimental to a normal and healthy sleep schedule. If you're routinely having trouble sleeping... just try cutting it out for a week and see what happens.

- Warren

No need to rely on faith alone here...this is supported by scientific studies. A lot of people claim caffeine has no effect on them, but they don't even realize how dependent they already are on it, and how disruptive it is to their sleep patterns.

I know it disrupts my sleep. My problem is when my sleep is disrupted anyway, because of crazy experiment schedules and such, so I'm depending on the caffeine to STAY on a disrupted schedule. When I go on vacation, I can cut back my caffeine pretty quickly to just one cup of coffee in the morning (I can't stop completely that fast...too addicted and get headaches if I don't have any), and if the vacation is long enough, I can stop consuming caffeine entirely, sleep better, feel more rested, AND wake up early!

But, there's just no good reason to give the entire country jet lag with this time change nonsense.
 
  • #14
I sleep really well and I don't consume caffeine besides the occasional coke (no more than 1 day). I never drink coffee.
 
  • #15
If I get exposed to fragrance chemicals, I'll toss and turn all night and maybe get an hour or two of very fitful sleep. If I can avoid people (and their stupid perfumes, fabric softeners, etc), I can easily sleep 9 hours a night. Having worked rotating shifts for 10 years, I'm pretty flexible about getting to sleep rapidly. It drives my wife nuts. I'll be asleep a minute or two after my head hits the pillow, and she needs maybe an hour of reading, watching/listening to TV or something to wind down so she can doze off.
 
  • #16
Like the other posters here, for me it's all about caffeine. I cut back to one cup a day and now I sleep well.

Unless it's a Sunday night...if I start thinking about all the things I have to do in the coming week, I'll be lucky to get 4 hours !
 
  • #17
Also, I avoid reading, watching TV, and all that jazz on my bed. I find it so depressing to spend all that time on a bed. (I have no TV in my room or computer so it's not that hard.)
 
  • #18
I started a new shift at work. I get up at 2:45 to start work at 4 am. If I want to get close to 8 hours I need to be in bed by 7pm. I'm not doing very well, getting about 5 hours a night right now. I hope I adapt sooner then later.
 
  • #19
hypatia said:
I started a new shift at work. I get up at 2:45 to start work at 4 am. If I want to get close to 8 hours I need to be in bed by 7pm. I'm not doing very well, getting about 5 hours a night right now. I hope I adapt sooner then later.
Some advice from a former shift-worker. Make sure that your bedroom is dark, and use a white-noise generator of some kind - a small window fan or air-filter always worked for me. I had to work 12-hour rotating shifts, 3 days on and 3 days off and that was a constant, irritation. 6am to 6pm for 3 days, 3 days off (more or less) and then 6pm to 6am for 3 days, and so on. I was young and tough at the time. I don't think I could do that now.
 
  • #20
I usually sleep in a horizontal position. But sometimes I sleep in seminars as well, although never when I give them so far.
 
  • #21
Get a routine going. I always face the same way, have my hands in the same position and have my pillows arranged in the same way. It works a treat!
 
  • #22
I don't sleep through an entire night very often. I only drink decaf coffee and drink one serving of regular diet coke/pepsi per day. I fall asleep listening to TV (usually a Stargate SG1 or Star Trek DVD of some sort. Cosmos puts me to sleep quickly too.) I wake up about 4 hours later. If I don't look at the clock, I can go back to sleep most of the time. On nights I can't go back to sleep, I put in my ear buds and listen to a pre-recorded talk show about gardening. I turn down the volume very low so that it is distracting enough to keep me from thinking about all the stuff I need to do but not too loud to keep me awake.
I have a fear of oversleeping I think that causes most of my difficulties with sleep. I sleep much better on nights I know I don't have to wake up at a certain time.
 
  • #23
larkspur said:
I have a fear of oversleeping I think that causes most of my difficulties with sleep. I sleep much better on nights I know I don't have to wake up at a certain time.
There were times when I had problems with oversleeping. My solution was an alarm clock near the bed, and a very loud alarm clock set for 5-10 minutes later that I could only silence by getting out of bed.
 
  • #24
There are 3 things that mess up my sleep. I can sometimes avoid 1 or 2 of them, but never all. One is my lung problem. I have to lie totally still for at least 5 or 10 minutes for my metabolism to slow down enough that I'm not oxygen-deprived. The second is that W usually watches TV in bed until at least 1 or 2 in the morning. The light doesn't bother me, but the set doesn't have an earphone jack. Lastly, Lucy invariable wakes me up before the alarm goes off. (I was very glad for that this morning, though, when the alarm didn't go off; I would have been late for work.)
 
  • #25
I used to have very strange nights when I would toss and turn all night, the typical sleepless night. I would feel terrible the next day, of course. But often, my husband would say the next morning that he was awake most of the night but that I was sleeping. I finally had to conclude that I was merely dreaming that I had a sleepless night. Once I realized that, it stopped.

But I still sleepwalk from time to time. Mostly when I do, I disassemble things, like clocks and lamps. Once I took the marble top off of my bedside table (it's just a small table, the top is a circle with about a 12" diameter).
 
  • #26
I often stay awake, lying in bed, for hours before I fall asleep. My mother gets in a huff when I have the light on and am reading because she believes I am staying awake to read, when in fact, I am reading because I cannot fall asleep.
 
  • #27
turbo-1 said:
Make sure that your bedroom is dark...

This is a big one...with so many digital gadgets with LED lights glowing in the bedroom, or near it, it's hard to get a completely dark room anymore, and forget it if you live near a city. I had one phone I had to get rid of, because the charger stand had a blue LED light on it, and it was so bright I couldn't fall asleep with it on! I've been sleeping a lot better at night just by getting rid of everything that had little lights on it from the bedroom. (Once in a while I drag the laptop to bed with me, and forget about the blinking light on it when I close it and leave it on the nightstand, and definitely don't sleep as well those nights...but also usually don't feel like getting up to move it when I remember it's the source of the light keeping me awake...the worst is the Mac that "breathes" with the LED light...a blinking light is far worse than a steady one!)

Yeah, I have no control over the cat deciding that 3 AM is when she needs to walk across my stomach to sleep on the other side of the bed though.
 
  • #28
Moonbear said:
This is a big one...with so many digital gadgets with LED lights glowing in the bedroom, or near it, it's hard to get a completely dark room anymore, and forget it if you live near a city. I had one phone I had to get rid of, because the charger stand had a blue LED light on it, and it was so bright I couldn't fall asleep with it on! I've been sleeping a lot better at night just by getting rid of everything that had little lights on it from the bedroom. (Once in a while I drag the laptop to bed with me, and forget about the blinking light on it when I close it and leave it on the nightstand, and definitely don't sleep as well those nights...but also usually don't feel like getting up to move it when I remember it's the source of the light keeping me awake...the worst is the Mac that "breathes" with the LED light...a blinking light is far worse than a steady one!)
I have taped red filters over the green alarm clock LED to dim it so it stops glowing. I put electrical tape over gadget lights and I have room darkening shades over the closed blinds to block out all light. I now sleep in a cave. My cats get locked out of the bedroom if they start waking me up routinely. Sometimes that works but Aspen tends to meow outside the door through the night.:cry:
 
Last edited:
  • #29
I can't believe this! I just lost over 15 minutes of typing because apparently Jaguar has some keyboard shortcuts that I wasn't aware of and I hit the wrong thing. :mad: Now I have to try to remember what I was just posting and start over.
Light doesn't bother me, since I'm naturally nocturnal. (Okay, that was my previous opening sentence; I have no idea what came after that, so I'm going to go with the basics.) Moonbear, remember when I first started here and we'd be going from midnight to about 6:00 am? I really miss that, but circumstances don't allow for it any more.
We went to bed early tonight, because W has to leave for Lloyd again at 7:00. She actually turned off Law & Order at about 9:45 and we went to sleep. An hour later, the 4th thing that messes up my sleep, which I forgot about while making my first post, woke me up. I can't remember the technical term, but it's informally called 'restless leg syndrome'. A couple of ounces of Scotch as a shooter takes care of that nicely, but I had less than an ounce left, so here I am slurping back W's rum with Coke Zero. I'm on about 5 ounces right now, and about to pour another. (I think that the legs will be fine, as long as I can still convince them to carry me back to bed later.)
I made the mistake of logging in here, and now here I still am.
As for the cat thing, Lucy walking on me doesn't bother me at all. Her sleeping on my legs does if I'm awake, because then I can't move. If I'm asleep and she's on me, I move whether she likes it or not. When it comes to waking me up, she tickles my face with her whiskers, then breathes into my nose (purring, of course, so I can't get mad at her). If that doesn't work after a minute or so, she'll lick my hand or forehead. At least her disturbances are very quiet.
Funniest thing the other night; we tag-teamed her. Lucy was 'kneading' her claws on the bed, which you absolutely cannot break a cat of doing. W awoke to that with her usual 'Lucy! Quit scratching my covers!' and did a 'crack-the-whip' with the comforter. Lucy went straight up in the air and landed on me... right when my leg was beginning to twitch. As soon as she landed, I went into a muscular spasm and drop-kicked her across the room. All that I could see by the light of the clock was this big white ball receding into the distance with legs going in every direction. Then there was a muffled 'thud' when she hit the dresser. Next thing, she jumped back onto the bed purring her head off and went to sleep. :rolleyes:
 
  • #30
Werg22 said:
You sleep in the bathroom?

on the floor,
 
  • #31
lisab said:
I used to have very strange nights when I would toss and turn all night, the typical sleepless night. I would feel terrible the next day, of course. But often, my husband would say the next morning that he was awake most of the night but that I was sleeping. I finally had to conclude that I was merely dreaming that I had a sleepless night. Once I realized that, it stopped.

But I still sleepwalk from time to time. Mostly when I do, I disassemble things, like clocks and lamps. Once I took the marble top off of my bedside table (it's just a small table, the top is a circle with about a 12" diameter).

Wow, this is the best yet.
 
  • #32
I find it fiendishly difficult to get to sleep if there's any disturbance around me, but once I'm gone, I'm gone. I then wake up at sunrise whether or not I want to.
 
  • #33
Danger said:
Funniest thing the other night; we tag-teamed her. Lucy was 'kneading' her claws on the bed, which you absolutely cannot break a cat of doing. W awoke to that with her usual 'Lucy! Quit scratching my covers!' and did a 'crack-the-whip' with the comforter. Lucy went straight up in the air and landed on me... right when my leg was beginning to twitch. As soon as she landed, I went into a muscular spasm and drop-kicked her across the room. All that I could see by the light of the clock was this big white ball receding into the distance with legs going in every direction. Then there was a muffled 'thud' when she hit the dresser. Next thing, she jumped back onto the bed purring her head off and went to sleep. :rolleyes:


:smile::smile::smile: Awww, poor Lucy! Kitties are so forgiving!
 
  • #34
No problems here. I sleep when I'm tired, about 6 to 8 hours before I wake up. I am nocturnal by nature and the light does bother me, but I can sleep fine with a blanket, or pillow, or forearm over my head. The pillow blocks some of the noise during the day so that is what I prefer to use. The volume doesn't keep me awake, but individual noises can. I don't have much problem with traffic, lawn-mowers, rock concerts or jet engines, but barking dogs, people talking, babies crying, doors opening and closing all keep me awake. I seem to have more nightmares if I sleep on my back, so I usually curl up on either side.
 
  • #35
What's sleep?:-p

lisab said:
But I still sleepwalk from time to time. Mostly when I do, I disassemble things, like clocks and lamps. Once I took the marble top off of my bedside table (it's just a small table, the top is a circle with about a 12" diameter).

That's amazing... it would be hilarious to watch!

I sleep best when I go home for the holidays and reclaim my big comfy bed that my sister stole when I went to university! My sleep schedule is all over the place though, during the week it's usually up very late doing skulework, and then I can't get up in the mornings despite the 2 alarms I have, neither of which are beside the bed! (So I actually have to get out of bed to turn them off.) My body seems to have gotten into the habit of automatically getting out of bed and turning them off and then jumping back into bed. I wonder if I even wake up!? Weekends are even worse since I usually go out with friends pretty late.

But I find that no matter when I go to bed, I can't get up in the morning! I really need to figure out how...
 
  • #36
rocketboy said:
My body seems to have gotten into the habit of automatically getting out of bed and turning them off and then jumping back into bed. I wonder if I even wake up!?


Careful, rocketboy! You're taking baby steps to full-blown somnambulant disassembly!
 
  • #37
lisab said:
You're taking baby steps to full-blown somnambulant disassembly!

Speaking of which, I meant to ask before; you do unplug these things before gutting them, right?
 
  • #38
Danger said:
Speaking of which, I meant to ask before; you do unplug these things before gutting them, right?

No, which sort of worries me! The clock is apparently the favorite target of my sleeping self. It's battery-powered, so I don't worry about it. I wake up and the batteries are strewn around...sometimes the plastic face of the clock is removed.

The lamps...well, so far I just take the shade off and take the bulbs out. I don't dare leave tools, such as screwdrivers, laying around in my bedroom.

It tends to happen when I'm stressed...I don't know why I do it :redface: !
 
  • #39
I hope you haven't tried to disassemble any human or organic occupants of the room at night lisa.
 
  • #40
This has the kernel for a great horror movie.
 
  • #41
My ex husband was known to fry eggs in his sleep.
 
  • #42
Evo said:
My ex husband was known to fry eggs in his sleep.

I hope he had his eyes open! Closed eyes, hot stove and soft tender hands could end in disaster! :smile:

Out of interest, is sleepwalking sometimes done with eyes open? The person acts pretty normally but it is all sub-conscious?
 
  • #43
_Mayday_ said:
Out of interest, is sleepwalking sometimes done with eyes open? The person acts pretty normally but it is all sub-conscious?

Yes.
So, Lisa... let's hope you don't accidentally cross-wire your vibrator into the garage door opener some night. You could wake up to a nasty surprise.
 
  • #44
Danger said:
Yes.
So, Lisa... let's hope you don't accidentally cross-wire your vibrator into the garage door opener some night. You could wake up to a nasty surprise.

:blushing: Tell W you need a good smacking :-p !
 
  • #45
Wow Danger, that came out of nowhere.
 
  • #46
I sleep very soundly :

goto bed between 23-midnight, get up 7-7h30 ! I DO need that amount of hours as a minimum

the nights i don't sleep well in a year, i can count on one hand, really...

marlon
 
  • #47
The best solution when you cannot get asleep : having sex !
Afterwards, you sleep like a baby

marlon
 
  • #48
lisab said:
Careful, rocketboy! You're taking baby steps to full-blown somnambulant disassembly!

I had to google that one... I used to sleepwalk when I was younger, I guess I grew out of it (never took anything apart though... some engineering student I am!) I remember my mom telling me the story of how she woke up one night to see me walking down the hall, and she would call my name but I wouldn't respond, I was in a trance almost. Anyway, she followed me down two flights of stairs, where I walked over to our sleeping Labrador and I just sprawled across him. Apparently he just looked up at my mom like "help?". She said it was pretty creepy watching me sleepwalk.
 
  • #49
marlon said:
The best solution when you cannot get asleep : having sex !
Afterwards, you sleep like a baby

marlon

This is easier said than done. :rolleyes:
 
  • #50
I have a friend who used to sleepwalk as a young child and was known to get up and go and pee in the corner of rooms. He also says he was woken up by his father while taking a shower in the middle of the night.
 

Similar threads

Attempting a polyphasic sleep pattern
Replies
7
Views
2K
How did your teachers describe you as a student?
Replies
12
Views
2K
Cannot find a comfortable side-sleeping position
Replies
42
Views
5K
Scientific Songs for Playlist - Add to Your Favorites Now!
Replies
13
Views
2K
How can I stop my chronic sleep deprivation?
Replies
5
Views
3K
How Can You Get a Crying Baby to Sleep?
Replies
2
Views
2K
  • Poll Poll
Sleep and Academic Success: How Many Hours Do You Really Need?
Replies
38
Views
7K
I need a second opinion on a sanitation fixation I've been having (TW)
Replies
2
Views
994
Does our perception of time vary based on our location in the universe?
Replies
4
Views
1K
I've been feeling lost as of late.
Replies
6
Views
2K

Hot Threads

Recent Insights

Back
Top