Try to go to bed every day at the same time (tired or not)... try to get up the same time every day regardless of how little you slept... pretty soon the insomnia goes away... I'm sure there's serious cases that need drugs, but for most people just making sleep a habit would help alot, I think...

We're reliably alerted to the dawn by two large, furry "singing" beasts. Sled dogs are wonderful, but they love to howl in the morning to recognize first light, annoy the neighbors and wake their humans from a confused slumber. On the positive side, I now find myself waking up at 6:30 am no matter when the sun comes up.

RW

I'm a mess. In fact, I'm going n Thirsday night for one of those wired-to-the-hilt sleep studies - my third.

I require a CPAP machine, which means I sleep like Uncle June - with a mig fighter mask on my face. Fun. I kind of hate sleep and sleeping, even though I know it's required.

JimK
Right Thoughts

I currently work in a gourmet kitchen (I'm training to be a chef after the tech sector and I had a falling-out), which ensures that I never have a problem getting to sleep when the time comes. The long, late hours, the high stress, and the physical exhaustion all ensure that upon walking in the front door, sleep will tackle you like an over-sized and over-enthusiastic dog, happy to see its owner returning home.

I used to think I was an insomniac, turns out I just wasn't working nearly hard enough.

I have a CPAP, too. I get better sleep, mostly, but some nights it seems like a lot of work to sleep.

But since none of the surgery helped, including removal of my uvula (worse than childbirth), it's my last resort. So I look like Mrs. Snuffle-upagus and sound like Mrs. Vader, at least my husband and I can sleep together now.

So sexy and feminine...

Suzy

Credo quia absurdum.

I'd rather listen to a crying baby than a dog barking.

A little Scotch can sometimes help.

Right now both dog and kid are asleep, so I'm happy. In an hour, the planes will stop, and we'll be left with the crickets. No one was ever kept awake by crickets.

Unless they suddenly stop.

Oh dear... I feel a little guilty when this subject comes up. I always fall asleep when I lie down and close my eyes. I always wake up when I need to in the morning. I can do without a nap, but if the opportunity arises, I'm up (down?) for one. I can sleep on plane flights to arrive refreshed. I can wake up at 2:00 am to answer the phone, and go right back to sleep. I sleep through raucous parties and morning lawn mowers. When my friends complain about their various brands of insomnia, I nod and keep my big mouth shut.

Living under/near the flight plans for JFK and EWR it seems quite ironic that I've never been woken by a plane, yet it's a problem out there in the boonies :-)

Once in awhile a "glass packed" retro-car makes some noise, and occasionally the train toots its whistle a mile away, but it's pretty peaceful overall. I awake, alarm-free, between 7:30 and 7:50 most days regardless of retirement time.

Oh, and living on the border as I do, the military choppers doing their patrols can be a bit noisy, but for me it's more of comforting feeling knowing they're keeping me safe and it lulls me to sleep. That, and there haven't been too many incursions on my border since the U-boats were lurking 70 years ago -- if only those choppers were working the southern border too!

Do you give it to the dog or the baby?

(Previously) by cjbpeps on Tue, 06/12/2007 - 9:58pm.

I'd rather listen to a crying baby than a dog barking.

A little Scotch can sometimes help.

I do, in fact, get enough sleep (usually). I also get to sleep in on a daily basis, if I so choose. And typically, I do so choose. Luckily sleeping in, in my 30s, is nothing as scandalously lazy as it was in my teens, or even 20s. I work 2nd shift, so I get done with work at 11pm and generally go to sleep about two hours later, and generally let myself wake up when my body decides it's time. Which always seems to be about 8 hours later, just to prove the scientists right about that sort of thing.

I get up REALLY early during the week, and used to enjoy the luxury of sleeping until 8 or so on the weekends...until I got dogs. With the exception of crying babies, there is no alarm clock like a hungry dog. If I try to sleep past 6:30 on the weekend, I get a cold snout shoved rudely in my face; if that fails, then comes the full-body pounce.

I forced myself to go to bed early enough to get a decent nights sleep. And it was a struggle, trust me. On occasions when I can't fall asleep, a glass of warm milk and an old movie usually does the trick. My cat's don't know about weekends, so they are usually complaining by 8:00 AM. Loud meowing. I try to reason with them, but no dice.

I think I remember that story - wasn't it after they finished saying the names of all the folks they were planned to do away with? I lived in TX for 20 years and we had huge hatchings of crickets some springs, all over the sidewalks everywhere - ugh. Still creeps me out.

I'll also go with an earlier post - sleep for most of us is really a habit, which is why staying up late and also sleeping different hours on the weekend will disrupt it. In my case, the DH works until 9 pm, so to have some conversation with him weeknights means I have to stay up later than I should, and pay for it the next day. Ah, love!

It's all relative. When your Toddler(tm) has kept you awake for 3 nights in a row coughing from allergies, you definitely didn't get enough sleep. Then you fill her up with benedryl on the 4th night, and worry all night that she isn't coughing because you drugged her into the sleep o' death. But you at least got more sleep than the previous 3 nights, so you feel just GREAT on the 4th morning.

Sleep? SLEEP?

I vaguely remember it.

Right now I'm sitting in a Starbucks at 8:47 after having worked all night in an ER.

I should be working on some blog posts and columns, but nooooooo, I'm sitting here reading buzz.mn! I get a lot less sleep (and a lot less done) since James started this blogathon!

I'm being sucked into the Bucket!

Not that I'm complaining.....