Why can't I sleep between 22:00 and 01:00?
July 29, 2015 12:05 PM Subscribe
No matter how tired I am I find it impossible to sleep between about ten at night and one in the morning. If I feel sleepy all evening come ten I'll get wakeful and won't be able to rest until about one. If I have fallen asleep earlier in the evening I will inevitably wake up about ten. Why is this and what can I do about it?
You may want to do some reading on segmented sleep. This BBC News article is a good starting place that gives some background, but basically, the theory is that before artificial light and the eight-hour workday, humans tended to sleep for a few hours, wake up for a couple, then go back to sleep.
posted by Automocar at 12:48 PM on July 29, 2015 [3 favorites]
posted by Automocar at 12:48 PM on July 29, 2015 [3 favorites]
There are dozens of things that can cause sleep issues. Some of them are fixable, some of them might just be ingrained in who you are. I'm a lifelong insomniac and I found this book to be fantastic in helping me identify some of my own issues (and absolve myself of a sense of guilty responsibility for most of them. Sometimes people are just shitty sleepers and it's not their fault).
posted by something something at 12:52 PM on July 29, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by something something at 12:52 PM on July 29, 2015 [1 favorite]
I'm just like you -- I get wide awake from 10pm to 1am. I've started to embrace it and just get stuff done during those hours. I've tried sleeping pills, but they don't really work. Even if I fall asleep earlier, I don't wake up any earlier -- I end up ignoring my alarm and waking up at normal time. So then I get extra sleep, which makes it easier to stay up the next night, and it sort of makes it worse.
I'm guessing you're a bit of a night owl? I got myself to break out of this when I traveled to the Eastern time zone after living in the Pacific time. Once I returned to Pacific time, I just kept living as if I was on Eastern time. I also had a standing appointment I set up for 6am (which would've been 9am on the east coast) so I was able to keep it going. I started to go to bed at 10pm relatively successfully. I stopped my 6am appointments, and now I'm back to my old ways.
Other things that could help is exercise. Some people sleep better if they exercise before bed. Some say it keeps them awake. But exercise at some point in your day may help. Laziness and staying up all night are things that seem to go hand-in-hand.
posted by AppleTurnover at 12:55 PM on July 29, 2015
I'm guessing you're a bit of a night owl? I got myself to break out of this when I traveled to the Eastern time zone after living in the Pacific time. Once I returned to Pacific time, I just kept living as if I was on Eastern time. I also had a standing appointment I set up for 6am (which would've been 9am on the east coast) so I was able to keep it going. I started to go to bed at 10pm relatively successfully. I stopped my 6am appointments, and now I'm back to my old ways.
Other things that could help is exercise. Some people sleep better if they exercise before bed. Some say it keeps them awake. But exercise at some point in your day may help. Laziness and staying up all night are things that seem to go hand-in-hand.
posted by AppleTurnover at 12:55 PM on July 29, 2015
I'm exactly like this as well. I feel more alert and energetic during this period, when most people are getting to sleep, than I do at any other time of the day. Even if I've gotten three hours of sleep the night before and came home from work half-awake, I will feel more alert during these hours than I did at any time in the day.
I think it may be a hereditary night owl tendency. Have you heard of delayed sleep phase syndrome? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delayed_sleep_phase_disorder
posted by armadillo1224 at 1:06 PM on July 29, 2015 [2 favorites]
I think it may be a hereditary night owl tendency. Have you heard of delayed sleep phase syndrome? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delayed_sleep_phase_disorder
posted by armadillo1224 at 1:06 PM on July 29, 2015 [2 favorites]
Response by poster: Just to clarify, I've read a lot about insomnia and tried various things including reducing caffeine, increased exercise etc. No matter what I try and how tired I am e.g even while on multi-day hikes, while working intensely physical jobs and while sick I find it almost entirely impossible to sleep between those hours. Moving time zone does make a difference but only until I adjust.
posted by roolya_boolya at 1:10 PM on July 29, 2015
posted by roolya_boolya at 1:10 PM on July 29, 2015
I've been like this for my whole life. I get a second wind at 10pm-ish and that's when I crank into high gear and get things done. I'm 50 and I never made a meaningful dent in the problem, so I stopped trying to sleep before then and I've just adjusted my life so that I go to bed later and go in to work later. I have to be utterly exhausted or on heavy pain killers to get to sleep before 12:30-1am. My natural sleep time is 2am-10am, but I usually get up on work days at 8:45a.
I wish you luck! I'd love to be a shiny morning person, but I can't do it.
posted by clone boulevard at 2:13 PM on July 29, 2015 [4 favorites]
I wish you luck! I'd love to be a shiny morning person, but I can't do it.
posted by clone boulevard at 2:13 PM on July 29, 2015 [4 favorites]
This has been the status quo for my whole life. I can't tell you why it happens but I know exactly how to fix it: go to bed as soon as you get sleepy. I used to push through the evening fatigue to go to sleep around 10-11 PM because that was a "normal bedtime" and had terrible insomnia followed by problems getting up in the morning. Now I go to bed when I feel sleepy, usually between 9 and 10 PM, and wake up refreshed at 6 AM. Anything I would have done the night before is done just as easily in the morning and I feel better too.
posted by telegraph at 2:18 PM on July 29, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by telegraph at 2:18 PM on July 29, 2015 [2 favorites]
If I'm tired but don't go to sleep, I get a second wind and can't sleep for a few hours. If you go to sleep before 10 when you first start to feel tired, do you sleep through?
posted by metasarah at 2:24 PM on July 29, 2015
posted by metasarah at 2:24 PM on July 29, 2015
Yeah, segmented sleep. It's more common in women past menopause, and some evolutionary biologists think it may be an adaptation that makes women past their childbearing useful to the tribe, by allowing them to do middle-of-the-night child care and protection from tigers. I don't know if this is true, but I know that when I'm wide awake in the middle of the night due to segmented sleep, I find comfort in thinking, "YEAH I'M ON TIGER PROTECTION DUTY TONIGHT." Just one more service I provide to humanity.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 3:30 PM on July 29, 2015 [23 favorites]
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 3:30 PM on July 29, 2015 [23 favorites]
The body quickly conditions itself to whatever's happening. If you eat something sweet at 2pm for three days in a row, on the fourth day you'll be assaulted with sugar cravings right on schedule. Take a nap at noon several days in a row, and you'll barely keep your eyes open at that time for a couple days thereafter. This is a basic mechanism which never fails to surprise most people, and makes them try to seek explanations for apparently strange behavior.
For whatever reason, intentional or not, conscious or not, you were awakened at those hours, for a couple times in a row, and became conditioned (just as you're conditioned to wake up at the usual alarm clock time, often before the clock goes off). The only fix is the opposite conditioning. Just keep trying.
The other issue here is possible general insomnia (almost surely due to the usual familiar causes) which has established this precedent. If so, treat the usual familiar causes per the usual familiar remedies.
But the main thing is not to reinforce the conditioning. Don't get out of bed during that time. Don't turn on lights and read. Just stay down. Unless you have some overarching insomnia issue, after 2-3 days of bucking the conditioning, it'll pass. Or the insomnia will manifest more randomly.
My insomnia trick: let all your intelligence flow down into the pillow. Any thoughts you have, any self-reflection or worries or memories, just surrender it all into your pillow. Let the pillow get intelligent as you get dumber. Anything that comes up, mentally, just feed it into that visualization (including any observations or musings about the psychology being applied)
posted by Quisp Lover at 5:47 PM on July 29, 2015 [1 favorite]
For whatever reason, intentional or not, conscious or not, you were awakened at those hours, for a couple times in a row, and became conditioned (just as you're conditioned to wake up at the usual alarm clock time, often before the clock goes off). The only fix is the opposite conditioning. Just keep trying.
The other issue here is possible general insomnia (almost surely due to the usual familiar causes) which has established this precedent. If so, treat the usual familiar causes per the usual familiar remedies.
But the main thing is not to reinforce the conditioning. Don't get out of bed during that time. Don't turn on lights and read. Just stay down. Unless you have some overarching insomnia issue, after 2-3 days of bucking the conditioning, it'll pass. Or the insomnia will manifest more randomly.
My insomnia trick: let all your intelligence flow down into the pillow. Any thoughts you have, any self-reflection or worries or memories, just surrender it all into your pillow. Let the pillow get intelligent as you get dumber. Anything that comes up, mentally, just feed it into that visualization (including any observations or musings about the psychology being applied)
posted by Quisp Lover at 5:47 PM on July 29, 2015 [1 favorite]
If you go to sleep at 1am instead of earlier, do you feel well rested in the morning? I've heard (though I haven't tried this) that it could be helpful to temporarily try going to sleep later than you usually would, so you can get used to sleeping straight through, and then slowly start adjusting your bedtime backwards.
posted by three_red_balloons at 6:08 PM on July 29, 2015
posted by three_red_balloons at 6:08 PM on July 29, 2015
Partly, you're a normal human being. Some of the links above allude to this, but before industrialization forced us all onto an unvarying clock and crowded sleep into a narrower window, it was normal for people to sleep in two shifts and wake between them.
posted by Miko at 6:59 PM on July 29, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by Miko at 6:59 PM on July 29, 2015 [1 favorite]
Best answer: Totally different opinion here:
I'm guessing your normal sleep onset is 1am?
Sounds circadian. So you would expect sleep requirements to be at a minimum first thing in the morning, then increase over the day till bedtime, right? But that doesn't follow our actual tiredness/sleepiness, which follows an internal clock, and to compensate for physical tiredness (homeostatic sleep pressure) you get a period of peak wakefulness around two hours before your normal bedtime.
For you, it is obviously high enough to affect you 3 hours before your normal sleep time.
If you Google, this is actually known as the "forbidden zone" for sleep. Ominous, eh?
So, totally normal. Trying to go to bed early is hard, most people have an easier time if they try MORE than three hours before their normal bedtime, but they don't usually wake up again during that period, you are unlucky.
If you are trying to shift your bedtime earlier, try dim lights or amber safety glasses for the hours before bedtime, melatonin .3mg at least 30 mins to an hour before, and a hot bath/shower right before sleeping, then bright light first thing in the morning.
The melatonin is the main one.
Links:
http://www.sleepnet.com/definition.html#F
Google book result
posted by Elysum at 6:01 AM on July 30, 2015
I'm guessing your normal sleep onset is 1am?
Sounds circadian. So you would expect sleep requirements to be at a minimum first thing in the morning, then increase over the day till bedtime, right? But that doesn't follow our actual tiredness/sleepiness, which follows an internal clock, and to compensate for physical tiredness (homeostatic sleep pressure) you get a period of peak wakefulness around two hours before your normal bedtime.
For you, it is obviously high enough to affect you 3 hours before your normal sleep time.
If you Google, this is actually known as the "forbidden zone" for sleep. Ominous, eh?
So, totally normal. Trying to go to bed early is hard, most people have an easier time if they try MORE than three hours before their normal bedtime, but they don't usually wake up again during that period, you are unlucky.
If you are trying to shift your bedtime earlier, try dim lights or amber safety glasses for the hours before bedtime, melatonin .3mg at least 30 mins to an hour before, and a hot bath/shower right before sleeping, then bright light first thing in the morning.
The melatonin is the main one.
Links:
http://www.sleepnet.com/definition.html#F
Google book result
posted by Elysum at 6:01 AM on July 30, 2015
Best answer: It is also known as the 'wake maintenance zone' or, as posters above hit on, the second wind.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_wind_(sleep)
Standard advice if you aren't trying to shift your whole body clock (as I suggested above, but I have a long cycle body clock, so that is what works for me), is just to go to sleep before it hits.
posted by Elysum at 6:15 AM on July 30, 2015
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_wind_(sleep)
Standard advice if you aren't trying to shift your whole body clock (as I suggested above, but I have a long cycle body clock, so that is what works for me), is just to go to sleep before it hits.
posted by Elysum at 6:15 AM on July 30, 2015
Go to sleep earlier and take some diphenhydramine (Benadryl) to help you stay asleep through it.
posted by Jacqueline at 9:52 PM on July 31, 2015
posted by Jacqueline at 9:52 PM on July 31, 2015
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by oh yeah! at 12:39 PM on July 29, 2015