Early Retirement Extreme Forums

in the name of science, if somebody has time, you can contribute:

https://www.mycircadianclock.org/

I would be willing to do so, but I needed some more automated version of tracking of my habits.

As this thread is more than a year old I wonder whether thrifty++ took some of the advice and whether his sleep has improved?

I'm pretty sure there's a scientific consensus that the human body has evolved to:
1. get sleepy and then fall asleep when light levels start to dim, and
2. wake up when the temperature starts increasing

Most of the advice in the thread was focused on providing solutions to this. I've got lots of experience noticing that cutting out evening screen use helps with the falling asleep part, and although we don't generally have aircon in the UK, when I've stayed in hot countries it made an enormous difference to my sleep quality whether or not I had that switched on. Having cool nighttime temperatures isn't a big problem for most of the year in the UK, but for the majority of the year when the heating is on, it does make a difference what time it's set to fire up in the morning.

Personally I always wake up around 4.30am to 5.30am these days and then I snooze a little until 6.00am when I always get up, without fail, 7 days per week. I do set an alarm as a back up but I'm almost never woken up by that. If you don't have the same sleep routine every day then it's basically self-inflicted jet lag.

I don't know if getting older or having kids has changed my sleeping patterns, as I used to be a night owl and always struggle with getting up in the morning. For me it's now really important that I get to sleep by around 10pm. If you can't control what time you wake up then change the thing you can control, which is when you go to bed. The OP didn't seem to have much trouble falling asleep, but had lots of trouble with waking up too early. Although "too early" was described as between 4am and 6am, which doesn't seem that early to me if you go to bed at the right time. Maybe he was staying up really late on the internet and then going to sleep easily because he was plain exhausted, but with little chance of getting enough sleep through the night.

Two bits of folk wisdom that spring to mind are:
- Early to bed, early to rise, makes a (wo)man healthy, wealthy and wise.
and
- An hour (of sleep) before midnight is worth two after.

..

Do you feel like you're out of breath when you wake up in the middle of the night? Also, I heard lavender essential oils can help with sleep.

I know this is late, but I have a question--do you do stuff in bed before you go to sleep? I know you said you WERE using the computer. Hopefully you stopped. But for me, I really have to end ALL stuff in bed or I don't get much sleep. If I want to read, I do it in the other room before hand, etc. I find it really takes me a while to mentally unwind before bed.

I have restless leg syndrome, which is genuinely horrible but fortunately only hits a few times a year, and restless-dad-mind syndrome (where I dwell on all the times my kids were almost hurt but weren't but it was just luck and not me protecting them) that keep me up. Both of these have gotten better (but not completely eliminated) when I completely gave up caffeine a year ago. I did alcohol too, but I'm back to drinking and still think I sleep better than when I was drinking coffee.

sorry about your sleeping problems

a couple of times a week i get massive insomnia (e.g. tonight, here i am) but it’s more exciting than frustrating, i.e. i can make up for it the next day or something and i don’t seem to carry sleep debt, my sleep is just irregular but not lacking.

i feel it’s usually metabolic, i.e, from exercise late in the day that keeps me running hot or from too many carbs at dinner which keep me wired.

in this house however 10 hours are reserved for bedtime so there is room to play with a fluid schedule.

I understand your problem and also feel the pain of unable to get a calm and consistent sleep. I think it's much related to negative thoughts and subconscious stress throughout the day. The best way to overcome these situations is to practice meditation and yoga in the morning. It will keep your mind relaxed and fulfilled throughout the day.

I heard a weighted blanket can help you with your sleep.
It is said to provide a pressure that mimics the feeling of being held, which increases serotonin thats improves sleep.