This right here.
Pretty sure I haven’t been nibbled on by any passing werewolves. But one thing I’ve never gotten used to about the high altitude desert is how damned intrusive the moon can be. From full to last quarter, it spends every minute of every damned night trying to tell me it’s time to wake up. It’s just that bright.
Plus over the past several years I’ve developed a sleep pattern that might be related to the above or might just be part of getting older – I’ll lay down, go right to sleep, and for five hours sleep the sleep of the just and the innocent. But then I wake at 2 in the goddam AM and for a while I don’t think I’ll be able to beg or buy another minute of sleep. Eventually, if I stick with it, I’ll fall into a broken set of dream-filled snoozes until dawn but that’s as good as it gets. Sometimes I think I’d be better off if I went ahead and got up, made a cup of tea or something and read for an hour. But between the loft and the amputation that’s always way too much trouble to go to so I just lay there and fume until eventually drifting back off.
Much worse when the moon is bright. But I tell myself, if your worst problem is too much consciousness you have no problem worth the bother of worry. I’ll sleep far too long when I’m dead.
I had broken sleep for may years doing shift work and being “on call.” Sleep deprivation was one of the main things, I believe, that finally broke my health and forced me to retire. Now, of course, I have a few sleep related problems related to plain age, but I’ve learned how to deal with most of them. The too early awakening is really a simple one. First, figure out some way to stop being mad at it! Anger stirs the adrenalin and can’t help but make it difficult to sleep again.
When I wake too early, I fix my thoughts on something relaxing, like how nice and warm I am. I turn over if I feel the need and get settled again, then begin to count backwards from 100. Slowly and gently, without getting upset if I mix up the numbers, skip some or forget where I am… since those all indicate the mind is relaxing. If you are not into numbers, you can image a waterfall or the surf… imaging the way the water falls or how each wave is different, the foam… etc. Or you can imagine a simple and familiar engine laid out all in pieces, and put it back together slowly and carefully. Anything like that.
I very seldom remain awake long enough to reach 50/49/48….ZZZZZ
But if I let myself get mad/frustrated, and/or start thinking about what I need to do in the morning, start to worry about something … I won’t get back to sleep and I might as well get up.
I do the same thing. Now I go to bed later (midnight-ish) and when I wake up with the chickens at around 5AM I only spend about 10 minutes trying to go back to sleep. Some times I do, mostly I don’t. So I get up, get my coffee and putz around. My secret is the sacred “Nap”. If I’m tired during the day, poof! I lay down and get the rest of my nights sleep. Everyone now knows not to interrupt the “Nap”.
What you just described, Joel, is actually closer to the normal human circadian rythm than sleeping a tight 8 and waking up at the end. Prior to the industrial revolution and Electric lights, it was totally normal for people to have a two ish hour wakeful period around 2 am and then eventually go back to sleep. You probably have healthier sleep patterns than most of your readers. Embrace it don’t fight it
That’s actually true, Goober, and it would work for most of us who don’t have to punch a time clock. It wouldn’t work for me, really, since once I get up and get busy… I’m up for the day. And it has happened. 🙂 Awful dark in the winter here at 2AM. And often very cold.
I wake up about every 2 or 3 hours, usually go to the bathroom then, and seldom have any problem going back to sleep. I average 6 to 7 hours a night, but sometimes 8 or even 9, depending on how tired I let myself get the day before, less if I have a lot of pain all night. Since I no longer take chemical medicine for the chronic pain, it can be a real struggle. Just getting up and starting my day is often the only answer. I can usually take a nap on those days, and count that toward my total sleep.
The key is to find ways to cope, rather than getting angry or frustrated and defeating yourself getting the sleep you really need… regardless of the pattern it comes in.
All ya gotta do, Joel, is imagine that you’ve got your gun out and are shooting rats. And count them as you shoot them…
}:-]
I was going to suggest curtains to keep the moon out of your room, but our bedroom has curtains and I’m still awake most mornings around 3 am. Unless, of course, I have to go somewhere and I set the alarm for 5 am. In that case, I sleep like the dead, startle at the alarm, and I just know that I could sleep for another couple of hours. There’s probably a Murphy in there somewhere.
What you are experiencing is known as segmented sleep. It was the norm in the pre- Industrial Age. People had what they called first sleep and second sleep. It only went away when the first factories were built and standardized working hours became the norm. The old practice was to awaken, read or meditate for a while, then go back to sleep. Perfectly normal.