I wake up in the middle of the night...?

idreamoftailwinds

Guys I found this on another Forum

I'm in my mid forties and have the same problem (Waking up in the middle of the night). It has something to do with energy levels and your life style. If you're a fitness fanatic and eat a lot of healthy and energy producing foods and drinks, then this is one problem. Another is the oxygen levels in your blood. Fitness fanatics pump and recirculate their blood much quicker sending more oxygen through the body.

Quite often the only answer is to go to bed later or eat carbs in the evening. These can make you more tired?

Can anyone substantiate this, or in fact going through the same.

Percy Vera

I am going through the same, but my reason is an 8 month old!

I've never heard of this. When I was training properly many moons ago I would always sleep soundly. In fact I would be in bed within 30mins of my last training session and fall straight to sleep until the alarm!

Is it happening to you?

Cressers

Is it anything to do with strees or depression?

Percy Vera

Cressers wrote:

Is it anything to do with strees or depression?

Yeah, sounds more like this!

afcbian

I am forty and getting back to reasonable level of fitness. It should be noted that I am NOT a fitness fanatic and until 6 months ago I was accutely out of shape and overweight. I am 5'8" and weigh just over 12 1/2 stone
I wake regularly every single night without fail.
Some nights it feels as if I have had a series of half hour naps.
I can't remember the last night I slept the whole night through.
Alcohol makes it worse, as does dehydration after riding or running.
It is something I just live with. I usually go to bed at about eleven and read for an hour or so and am tired when I turn out the light, but still wake regularly.

idreamoftailwinds

@Percy Vera, Yes it's happening to be, I was up at 0300hrs this morning (not he first), wide awake, stimulants are not the issue, neither is stress, depression not sure (not happy unless I’m on my bike), however self diagnosis of depression is not so easy.

idreamoftailwinds

You see I fall asleep straight away head pillow sleep easy as, 22:01 asleep. I have lost 4 Stone since March, and ride every day 20 - 40 miles (less Saturdays) aged 41.

Percy Vera

Might be worth finding a sports doctor and see what he says.

Are you a light sleeper?

idreamoftailwinds

Like the dead by all account;

alfablue

The theory goes that we only really need 4.5 hours of sleep, and the remainder is "behavioural" i.e. to protect us from predators in the hours of darkness (according to Prof Jim Horn). Those 4.5 hours will contain most of your deep (stage 4) sleep, the remainder will be made up of less deep sleep and we are therefore more easily roused. As we age we sleep for a shorter duration. Much dissatisfaction with our sleep is probably because of this mismatch between our expectations and our actual need for sleep. My recommendation would be to stay up until midnight, then your waking is likely to be at possibly more acceptable 5 am.

idreamoftailwinds

@alfablue, I have tried that and I still wake up at my Normal time, off shot is the day is longer, however your point on only needing 4.5hrs sleep, may have some mileage, thanks

Percy Vera

That explains why OAP's are up at the crack of dawn!!

idreamoftailwinds

:shock: I'am only 41

Percy Vera

idreamoftailwinds wrote:

:shock: I'am only 41

I wasn't meaning you!

I meant old people in general, the ones who get up put their teeth in then do some knitting.

alfablue

idreamoftailwinds wrote:

@alfablue, I have tried that and I still wake up at my Normal time, off shot is the day is longer, however your point on only needing 4.5hrs sleep, may have some mileage, thanks

Oh dear.

When people get sleep reversal (sleep during the day, happens some times with older people - not meaning you ), the approach is to keep them awake progressively later day by day until the normal sleep pattern is resumed. Apparently, without external or environmental cues ("zeitgebers") the natural human circadian rhythm is 25 hours, not 24, so by moving sleep forward, success is more rapidly achieved as it uses this 25 hour cycle. (Research has been done in deep caves with zero environmental cues such as light or temperature changes).

So, you may be able to reset your sleep pattern by staying up much later than midnight. Also, consider what zeitgebers may be at play in the environment (like the milkman at 04.00 for example, the heating going on or off, neighbours etc).

There are also some genetic mutations that change the timing of the circadian rhythm, or shorten sleep duration by two hours.

You will see from the distribution, below that whilst 6 hours of sleep is below the "normal" range, a reasonable proportion of people sleep less than this amount.



You will also see from the hypnogramme below that the deepest sleep (phase 3 and 4) occurs only during the first 2 cycles, after which you will be more rousable.



Another (lay) theory might be that as intense exercise raises cortisol levels this may be affecting your sleep (I certainly had trouble sleeping when taking steroids on prescription, I was permanently in a state of excitement and exhaustion!).

Anyway, just some thoughts of a lay person. . .

alfablue

I suppose the question of concern: does your sleep duration represent your actual requirement (and is therefore less likely to present health consequences) or is your sleep being artificially curtailed in some way?

Lazarus

idreamoftailwinds wrote:

@Percy Vera, Yes it's happening to be, I was up at 0300hrs this morning (not he first), wide awake, stimulants are not the issue, neither is stress, depression not sure (not happy unless I’m on my bike), however self diagnosis of depression is not so easy.

Also suffering badly from waking up in the night

The fact is that i am waking up and worrying about it also contributes the the sleeplessness :roll:

Happy to see i'm not alone with this, because i'm beginning to worry about it.

Smokin Joe

I'm another who wakes up several times a night. On occassions I feel wide awake and just can't get back to sleep, the only cure being to get up, have a smoke and something to drink then I am ok for the rest of the night.

It doesn't worry me because I do not feel tired during the day. I put it down to just being the way my body works.

alfablue

Smokin Joe wrote:

I'm another who wakes up several times a night. On occassions I feel wide awake and just can't get back to sleep, the only cure being to get up, have a smoke and something to drink then I am ok for the rest of the night.

It doesn't worry me because I do not feel tired during the day. I put it down to just being the way my body works.

It could be nicotine withdrawal (its okay, I have the T shirt).

skyd0g

...and the clocks are going to go back an hour on Saturday night.

deptfordmarmoset

skyd0g wrote:

...and the clocks are going to go back an hour on Saturday night.

Chin up, lad, it's nowt but an hour of extra midnight fettling.

skyd0g

deptfordmarmoset wrote:

skyd0g wrote:

...and the clocks are going to go back an hour on Saturday night.

Chin up, lad, it's nowt but an hour of extra midnight fettling.

I thought that made you go blind? :shock:

pottssteve

I'm 41 and I get up 'cos I've got a bladder the size of a cashew nut...

freehub

I find I'm in that 8% that needs 9 hours of sleep, but I find that no matter how much sleep, I find sometimes in the day I feel tired and falla sleep, at college in class I'm fighting sleep, I wake up from say 9 hours of sleep and I feel crap and most of the time tempted to go back to sleep, but then I sleep for like 10-11 hours a night if I do that and find I wake up with a headache, having a sleep in the day I wake up sometimes with a headache, dizzyness and weakness. It really annoys me how crap my sleep pattern is, I was to go to sleep at 12-1 and be able to wake up at 8am happilly.

Gotte

I've had it for about 5 years. Started when I went through an intensely stressful period. Would wake after about an hour and a half, awake for about another hour and a half, sleep for an hour, etc.
I was lucky in that my doctor prescribed me a limited course of sleeping tablets, which would give me some let up for a couple of weeks, then back into it again, but with maybe half the waking.
I still get it, usually waking about 3ish, but I usually get back to sleep after10 mins or so, now.
Of course, if I get stressed, it starts up again.
I've tried everything - meditation, white noise (which does help some). I use earplugs (which I think also helps if you tend to be a light sleeper.
I personally believe it is due to over production of cortisol. I forget the exact details, but whichever gland produces cortisol (hyperthalamus?) does not switch off properly at night, and starts producing adrenalin when you wake temporarily, when it should in fact be switched off till morning light awakens it. You can take things which are supposed to smooth it out (l-thianine, H5TP, GABA). I'm personally not sure how effective they are if you are stressed. It may take the edge off, but for me didn;t really stop me waking and fixating on my problems.
Alcohol definately doesn;t help, as it may get you to sleep, but actually causes you to produce cortisol when asleep.
I also tried some self-hypnosis exercises, like imagining yourself walking slowly down a darkened staircase, counting the steps backward from 100, slowing down, pausing, and that would actually sometimes work.
The most effective thing I found, though, was to decide that if Iwas awake, I was awake, and that I would just catch up on sleep during the following day. I was always dog-tired around 3 in the afternoon, and could get a couple of hours if I wanted. Luckily I work from home and can fit it in. This is not recommended a lot of the time, with sleep disorders, but when you are only getting 3 hours sleep a night and simply cannot function the day after, for me it took the mental pressure off not sleeping when I woke in the night. So long as I knew I was getting anything over five or six hours, I could function.
One other thing, I personally don't use the getting up technique. I have a feeling that I actually sleep for more than I remember, dozing in the periods of wakefulness, maybe only for ten minutes at a time, but enough to add valuable gas to the tank for the next day.

Bottom line, try not to fixate on it. Don;t exercise at all from about six onwards, no alcohol, no coffee, no chocolate (At all. it stimulates the production of cortisol, and just encourages your hypathalamus not to switch off later).

Oh, one last one that I found really successful - I could always fall asleep to the TV, especially if it's something slow and wordy - a documentary, often on something not too stimulating, or a slow BW film, preferably subtitled. I found the light from the TV kind of hypnotised me, and reading subtitles or following the vocal took my mind off things and slowed it down. I had a video with six hours worth which I left on in the background, and have some Bella Tar DVDs which are great, East European and deathly slow. They work like a dream, if you pardon the pun.

Slow Downcp

freehub wrote:

I find I'm in that 8% that needs 9 hours of sleep, but I find that no matter how much sleep, I find sometimes in the day I feel tired and falla sleep, at college in class I'm fighting sleep, I wake up from say 9 hours of sleep and I feel crap and most of the time tempted to go back to sleep, but then I sleep for like 10-11 hours a night if I do that and find I wake up with a headache, having a sleep in the day I wake up sometimes with a headache, dizzyness and weakness. It really annoys me how crap my sleep pattern is, I was to go to sleep at 12-1 and be able to wake up at 8am happilly.

Bloody lazy students

It could just be that you sleep too much - gradually go to bed later and decrease the sleep you get.

flite

You guys shold be grateful you will never get menopausal!
Sleep for about an hour - wake up cos you are sweating buckets. Throw off duvet and crawl to side of bed to cool down. Just getting drowsy when you wake up freezing cold. Back to the middle of the bed. Repeat all night, every night. Get up tired and be ratty all day
Thank god for HRT

Gotte

I imagine I'll be thaning God for HRT, as well, when my wife gets there.