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Your body clock

09:47 / 03.11.05

To what extent is your sleep ruled by a body clock? Do you wake just before your alarm goes off because your brain has been trained to wake up at that time? Do you wake up at the same time on weekends out of habit?

Do you go through periods where for no apparent reason you wake up at 3.17am every night?

And is it possible for you to re-train yourself?

I don't think I have a particuarly strong body clock but very often I find I wake up just before my alarm is about to go off. On weekends I sometimes wake up at my weekday time of 7.30, but just as often I don't, usually depending on how much I've had to drink the night before.

However it is quite usual for me to go through periods of a week or two when I'll wake up at the exact same time in the middle of every night, and just as mysteriously it will go away.

How about you?

Scrambled Password Bogus Email

09:53 / 03.11.05

Children.

Children change everything when it comes to sleeping patterns.

After 3 years of basic torturous agony, I now get up at 5.45 am every morning, greet the sunrise with my little boy and do yoga for an hour.

Obviously, I don't drink much anymore.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

09:54 / 03.11.05

Mine's shagged.
I work nights (11 till 7) and do 7 nights on, 7 nights off, which has played merry hell with my internal chronometer. If I don't sleep at just the right time at the beginning and end of each shift, it means I'm doomed to 4am starts and a four-hour nap in the evening (sitting down to listen to PM is usually my downfall).

This week it's been especially fucked for all manner of reasons- yesterday I was up at 5, and slept from about 7 till about 11:30 in the evening, then went back to bed around one and managed to stay asleep until about six. I'm on holiday at the moment, so I have another week and a bit to get into daylight, before it's all back to working at night.

When I'm working I tend to sleep as soon as I get in, get up around midday, then back to bed about 5ish.

Basically, I'm confused, and either spend my time full of nervous energy I can't get rid of, or incapable of getting it together to do anything.

10:05 / 03.11.05

We have an alarm but very rarely use it - our blind lets in a lot of light, so I frequently wake up at 6 and then doze until getting-up time. There are occasions when I wake up at three and have to scramble for the clock to check that it's not later - this happens more often as it gets darker, for obvious reasons.

So I'd say my body clock is programmed quite well, to wake up regularly by 7.15 on weekdays. I rarely sleep in nowadays - I usually wake up by half-past eight, even when still tipsy from the previous evening.

10:10 / 03.11.05

I'm finding as I get older (late 20s) that I need more and more sleep. The main bummer about my sleep is that every night at least once, I have to get up to pee. It wrangles cos I know I'm missing out on quality down time and I hate my body waking me up an hour or two before my alarm as it means I won't get back to proper sleep before it goes off. Grr.

When I did shift work I turned into a zombie - so it's obviously important to be good to yourslef as much as you can.

I seem to remember reading somewhere that you had three internal body clocks, one to do with the how much light there was, one to do with your normal routine, and another one which I forget.

10:19 / 03.11.05

maybe it’s two cyles…. Interesting article from the National Sleep Foundation

10:22 / 03.11.05

Jub - I find if you're strong and you don't get up to pee for a couple of nights running then usually your body will take a hint and not wake you up again, so you can sleep straight through. However if you give in just once then it'll start happening every night again.

And rubber sheets aren't so hard to get used to.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

10:24 / 03.11.05

I've also found (well, kind of obvious, really) that since I about halved my alcohol intake my sleep's better and I get up less.

10:45 / 03.11.05

both excellent points! I'll try to give it a go.

09:49 / 04.11.05

I like waking up in the middle of the night and staggering to the loo, so I can stagger back and cuddle up in the warmth and snugliness again, knowing it's hours till I have to get up and do stuff.

What pisses me off is that I crawl reluctantly and miserably out of my lovely, lovely bed about 8 a.m. through the week, having been awakened by a brutal cacophony of four or five alarms in sequence.

Then comes the weekend and I can stay up late, like a big boy, and sleeeeeeep in! Only I'm wide awake at 8 a.m. without benefit of alarm. I usually have to have sex with Ganesh before he wakes up just to pass the time.

Goodness Gracious Meme

09:57 / 04.11.05

If only we all had that option.

My body clock is a joke. I think it came free with a packet of Rice Krispies. Eg, this week, I have had three days of utter insomnia, getting into bed at midnight/1am, unable to sleep until 5-7am, then alseep until early afternoon, and two days of naturally waking up at 9.

This is extreme even for me, but if anyone knows how to wind/charge a body clock, please let me know.

(no, not children. I'll deal with insomnia, thx)

10:12 / 04.11.05

GGM, I find that a good gym session or a vigorous swim helps with a bout of insomnia.

I've got quite a good body clock, I can normally go to bed and wake up 10 minutes before I need to in the morning. Of course it takes me two or three Snooze Alarms to actually get the energy together to get out of bed.

There are a couple of things that affect my sleep patterns. I find it very hard to sleep in an unfamilier place for the first few days, which can be a real pain when I go on holiday. I find it hard to nod off when there are certain noises as well. Music and people talking nearby always disrupts me.

Goodness Gracious Meme

10:25 / 04.11.05

ooh, true, thanks for reminder I stopped swimming regularly recently, which probably has alot to do with it.

10:38 / 04.11.05

my body clock fucking hates me. My natural waking hours are during the night. If I don't have anything to get up for, I easily fall into the rhythm of being awake all night and going to bed around 8 am. I was doing that before I started working night shifts (that's why I started working night shifts) and I still do it now. Thing is, I'm supposed to wake up early in the morning for school now.

Right now I'm having a damned hard time sleeping when I'm supposed to be asleep. I used to be able to stay awake for days at a time, so I could be awake when I needed to, but now I can hardly stay awake, either. I sleep 12 hours a day on a normal day now. Alarms don't wake me up anymore.

My life's going down the shitter right now, and I think my sleep problems are partly to blame.

10:46 / 04.11.05

Fuckbaked, it's tough to get to sleep when you're worried about stuff at the best of times. It's murder to get to sleep when you're worried about getting to sleep. You have my sympathy, (and surgically-sterile huggles if they're any help).

As I understand it, the actual amount of sleep needed varies from person to person. Six hours is mine. But sleeping for twelve hours solid on a regular basis might be part of the problem. It is possible to oversleep and wind up even more exhausted and woozy.

wembley can change in 28 days

11:47 / 04.11.05

Don't forget the seasonal. In February here I can barely get myself out of bed into the chilly darkness before 10:am, but in the summer, it's hard not to get up when it's 3:30 in the morning and the sun is blasting through your window. Everybody here has total Seasonal Affected Arrrgh Sleep Winter / Summer Must Party Now Now Now Disorder.

And another thing: the yoga. I know it depends what kind you do, but when I was more regular with my astanga practice, I actually started to notice I was sleeping 6 hours a night, getting up sans alarm, and feeling perfectly fine with that. So I think you can retrain it in strange physically mystical ways.

Tryphena Absent

11:48 / 04.11.05

Fuckbaked, this trap is very familiar to me, my sleep patterns try to push forward an hour a day and when I'm out of work I'm not motivated to try and keep them at a normal time so I end up going to bed at around 6 am and sleeping at about 8. Once it's rearranged to that I stop letting it go forward because I worry so much about seeing daylight or, you know, other people. I think the only thing you can do is push it forward until you've reached normal time again. I've never done this but that's because I only actually pull it back when I work and I don't have a few days to spare. Money, of course is the motivator, lectures never worked.

Stay up all night, don't let yourself go to sleep until the early morning, sleep until you wake up, tell everyone you're "ill" and keep doing it until you wake up one morning at 7am. I think it will take about five days. You'll be less depressed once you've done it.

If it's worth anything it's probably lack of light and company that's fucking up your life. I never want to see anyone when my sleep schedule gets so off course.

11:55 / 04.11.05

what she said.
let your body do it for you.
also, chill the chronic.
it keeps you awake.

13:33 / 04.11.05

Agreed when I worked nights it did seem to majorly fuck with my head. I had a job something akin to warehouse packing between the hours of 12-9 everynight for a year a while back, not only was it physically exhausting but I found the sleep I got during the day was transitory and broken and never reached the deeper more beneficial levels. I felt constantly fragile and scattered and narcoleptical (I know not strictly correct terminology) episodes were abound; visits to the hairdressers became a battle of will, for as soon as a sat down in those comfy chairs my eyes began to droop. One thing I did find beneficial was rather than hitting the hay directly after returning from work was waiting to sleep until later in the evening at around 6-7 which gave me a couple of hours rest and left me refreshed and awake for work i.e. not lagging and already pretty much tired again.
Even small things like not complying with usual eating times. Breakfast when you leave for work at 12 rather than an afternoon snack and a beer, dinner when you return home rather than breakfast. It sounds stupid perhaps but it helped regulate when energy became available to me.

At the moment my sleep is in constant flux, I usually hit the hay around four up at nine with catnaps later in the day. Awfulness abound when I smoke too many cigarrettes and am up until eight though.

13:39 / 04.11.05

My body clock has a depressed phase and a manic phase. In the depressed phase, I'm always asleep --so, no problem there. In the manic phase, I always want to be awake; but my body can't take this, and it leads to breakdowns. Which leads to depression. So it's like this huge project to harness all this energy --which is okay, because I actually *have* the energy for this at this time. This involves setting up and following routines like mad, everything has a time & everything flows from each other. As a side benefit, I'm actually taking care of business --uses up energy, leaves less to worry and stay awake about. Even if I'm not tuckered out by this, I'm not allowed to stay up past eleven ...and it's just my mind that doesn't want to sleep, my body is plenty tired. If I can make myself lie still for five minutes, then I sleep through the night.

Guess which phase I'm in now.

I know I'm always mentioning this, but I started using a light alarm clock --it's really great. Though actually now I can anticipate the light.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

15:47 / 04.11.05

Right now I'm having a damned hard time sleeping when I'm supposed to be asleep

That's the problem I found for the first year or so of working nights. I thought not falling asleep at work would be difficult... not so. Sleeping when you have to- that's the killer.

Now I'm used to working nights (five and a half years), I have a whole host of other sleep-related problems instead. I love winter... it's dark at all the right times.

But yeah, fuckbaked, what everyone else said- lack of sleep may not necessarily make problems in your life worse, but it'll definitely make them SEEM worse (I speak from experience here... I began the week on a major fucking "I want to die" downer... the last few days have gradually seen me normalising my sleep, until this morning I actually managed to sleep until nearly 7, and there's definitely been a correlation between that and my mood. I felt vaguely human today).

21:26 / 04.11.05

You get better at the sleeping thing as you get older. Maybe that will be a comfort.

And then, I gather, when you get really old, it all goes to fuck again.

To sleep, perchance to dream.
Aye, there's the rub...

Lilly Nowhere Late

21:46 / 04.11.05

Children indeed. Mine is great and has slept through most nights since aged 3 months. I'm grateful, don't get me wrong. But 4 years in and I would kill, or worse, to have one uninterrupted lie in, just one morning ever, before I'm too old to like it. The kind where you just sort of wake slightly about 11am, perhaps somnambulate to the loo, food source or to turn on something screen/radio like and then go back to dozing, dreaming and not getting up. Every morning at around 7(plus or minus 15 mins or so) I get the call: "Mommy I'm awake!" and that's it, I'm awake too. There have been the feeble atempts by dad to take on the duty but daughter only wants mommy first thing in the morning and the shouting and pleading match wakes me up anyway. On the odd and rare occasion that her childness has not been in my vicinity in the morning, I still wake up same time anyway but do get the lovely fall back to sleep in peace thing briefly. Because I own my tiny little business I usually have to get up anyway so don't fall back asleep for long. Anyway as a result I nearly always need to go to bed at early hours just from exhaustion and the whole routine has given me a precise body clock to the extent that I don't actually need an alarm. Witnesses to my former life and sleeping habits would be amazed.

23:26 / 04.11.05

You deserve a medal, Lilly.

23:37 / 04.11.05

My body clock is shit. I can't relate to people who wake up in the morning without an alarm. I find it quite hard with an alarm. Twice in the last month I've slept through it on a weekday morning and not woken up until gone midday. I don't want to rub it in, Lilly, but most Saturdays I doze in bed until 4 or 5.

23:44 / 04.11.05

God I sound like a waster.

23:56 / 04.11.05

The studies I've read suggest, completely intuitively, that it's possible to establish a diurnal or nocturnal habit, but the people who do worst of all are those who have to adhere to a non-permanent shift system.

This makes sense to me, because I reckon my years as a junior doctor on-call completely fucked my body clock. Worst of all was probably the first year, when I live on-site and the boundaries between at-work and not-at-work were impossibly thin. I'd stay beyond my paid hours as a matter of course, would use days off to catch up on sleep and would regularly wake up not knowing if it was 7am or 7pm. Used to react to bleepy noises (supermarket checkout was a bugger) as if my pager had gone off. Worst point was when I fell asleep, standing up, on an escalator in a shopping centre. Slumped over the handrail and actually fell over when I got to the top - embarrassing.

Aaanyway, I think those years encouraged bad sleep hygiene habits, but also a degree of flexibility which has sometimes proved useful. I'm able, for example, to survive on 3, 4 hours' sleep per night for up to a week, so long as I catch up at the weekend. Problem is, I then can't sleep on Sunday night, so the cycle repeats itself. 'Course, I'm technically able to prescribe for myself, and keep meaning to go to the chemist and pick up a week's supply of Zolpidem or Zopiclone or summat, to try to reset my pattern. Must try to remember to give it a go.

Lilly Nowhere Late

05:42 / 05.11.05

Nevermind the medal just get me a cozy hotel room with everything I need in it for a 72 hour sleep fest. Oddly enough this morning I was woken as usual by little miss sunshine, took the dog out for her constitutional then returned to find little miss sunshine has fallen back asleep! I want to go and shake her awake! What justice is there, eh?

Lilly Nowhere Late

05:45 / 05.11.05

What of the practice widely used in amerika of melatonin/seratonin supplements which I've know people to use to alleviate jetlag and deal with shift work and sleep? Never tried it myself as I've never had any trouble falling asleep(anytime, anywhere) apart from during the last bit of pregnancy(ironic isn't it?). Anyone ever tried these for resetting the old inside ticker?

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

05:55 / 05.11.05

When I first started doing my weird hours melatonin was indispensable. When I couldn't get that it was a combination of sleeping pills and alcohol (don't try this at home, kids) which let me sleep but left me feeling like shit when I woke up, and had the added problem that it can kill you.