So I get to bed usually at 10 pm, sometimes earlier, sometimes just a bit later, fall asleep rather easily…and I wake up a couple of hours later. Then it gets very hard to fall asleep again.
My Google-fu is failing to find what is this, as staying asleep is not exactly insomnia but it is related. Any ideas? Suggestions?
Do you drink caffeinated beverages late in the evening?
Go to bed later like a normal person, discover better sleep.
More exercises during day time and do something about your bedroom fēngshuǐ.
Happens to me when I drink coffee after lunch or so, but a lot of things can cause it. I do tend to sleep better on those rare occasions when I exercise.
I have problems like this too, especially it tends to happen at the worst times, such as on days where I need to get up very early. This is why I hate mornings. If I only sleep when my body wants to I’ll never ever keep to any regular schedule.
As it stands I need medication just to fall asleep, otherwise I can stay up until 5am. Tonight for some reason I took meds, fell asleep but had a really bad/scary dream, and now I can’t go back to sleep.
The cat wanting to sleep with me, but also seems to like to bite randomly does not help with my sleep.
I do not drink anything caffinated.
I would say age. I would also say it’s possible that waking up for a bit then sleeping again is something very normal, historically speaking. My suggestion is to do something with the time, such as reading, or if religious praying.
Historian A. Roger Ekirch was writing a book about the history of night and was dreading having to write the chapter on sleep.
“I thought it would be boring,” said Ekirch, a professor of history at Virginia Tech and author of At Day’s Close: Night in Times Past. “I thought it was a biological constant. I thought I wouldn’t have enough information to fill an entire chapter.”
Instead, Ekirch would stumble upon a pattern of sleep that stretched back to ancient times. Instead of sleeping in one “consolidated” block of eight hours or so, people would commonly sleep in two nightly segments. They would go to bed after dark, then wake up for about an hour around midnight, then return to sleep.
“I knew I was on to something strange — a form of sleep I had never run across before,” said Ekirch, who found references to “first” and “second” sleep in historical records ranging from literature to correspondence, newspaper articles to criminal court depositions in the public records office in London. He discovered references in at least a dozen European languages that suggested people regarded this pattern of slumber to be so unremarkable, they didn’t have to explain it. In 1690, the philosopher John Locke noted that “all men sleep by intervals.”
Try a lighter meal in the early evening? Make up the calories during the day.
Try an offline life.
Are you using Clubhouse? I heard it is ruining some people sleep…
I go to sleep by 22:00 and, frequently, wake up around 2:00. Sometimes I get up to use the bathroom and sometimes I read for a bit but I think that a key would be not to worry about something like this - it sounds like you have some anxiety about not falling back to sleep.
I haven’t had this issue of waking up after a few hours of sleep, but usually when I do, it’s to use the restroom. However, I have found that this happens when it’s been a rough time at work and I’m stressed out.
Exercise usually helps with my sleep issues. Up (very) early to exercise followed up with no afternoon nap, gets me in bed at roughly 12PM with no bathroom breaks until the alarm.
I’ve had the same problem. Wake up at around 4:00 a.m. to use the toilet and can’t fall back to sleep. I went to a Chinese doctor and took her Chinese medicine. Problem solved. It’s called 早醒 (early waking). PM me if you’d like to give this doctor a try.
I always had the few hours sleep then wake problem back home, May-June time as seasonal light and temperature changes.
Now having it here 2 months earlier, same last year.
I make a hot milky drink, chocolate or ovaltine, read a real paper book for hour or so normally works and I can sleep again but still wake earlier than I would want to.
Please no chocolate is a stimulus comments.
Yes, same here when I closed my eyes and my baby niece is counting 1~10 in English then in Chinese and then she tried to poked my eyes and want me to sing a never ending “the wheel of the bus” till 2am everyday. On Sunday I sleep on my sofa and can’t sleep as well due to dog’s pee essence is really making my night freaking nightmare so I need to clean up and end up Monday again.
I want my own space back but my brother can’t afford so I sufferrrrr
Did doctor give you something for walking up to use the bathroom or falling back asleep?
For falling back to sleep. I was to take it three times a day, but I cut it down to just once before bedtime, and it still did the trick.
Stress. Do you have anything that is causing you stress. If so find a way to resolve the stress.
What you describe is the classic stress sleeping pattern.
Exercise will help a small amount but what you really need to do is resolve the stress.