I've been waking up at 4:45-5am every day no matter what time I go to sleep

The sleep center in my area. They denied me the more beneficial sleep study that they do right at the sleep center and made me do the "home" study. It's was a monitor that I had to set up myself and place electrodes all over my body, along with pulse ox and a few other things. I toss and turn a lot during the night so I don't even know how effective the test really could be. They told me I have mild sleep apena so they set me up with a C-Pap.

I used it for a bit and it wasn't helping at all. It was a huge pain too. I've never woke with shortness of breath or anything along that matter. I'm far from being overweight as well (I know you don't have to be overweight to have it...).

That's what hospitals do though. You have a minor "case" of something and they treat it like you have something far worse. I actually worked for that company that is part of the sleep center in my area. "United Health Services" is the name of it and it's truly a scumbag establishment. I worked there for 7 years and recently quit about a month ago because it was making me miserable. I thought my sleeping would get better without having all of the stress from that place but I guess not.

Tibs, give yourself time to re-establish your sleep pattern. I'm sure the stress from your job has contributed hugely to all this. A month isn't long enough to re-set your body clock. Just be kind to yourself for a while, and I'm sure you'll get back to normal.

Hi Nic, I suspect you've diagnosed yourself when you say "I [...] feel like I've failed if I wake up in the night, even though I know it's normal". It is indeed normal to partially wake after each sleep cycle (about an hour-and-a-half) and many of us wake fully.

Your use of the word "failed" got me reflecting on the ideas we hold in our culture, that seem to equate the ability to sleep soundly with success, or even virtue.

I was a poor sleeper even as a child, and I was soundly beaten for this by my parents, particularly my mother. (Not an indictment of either of them - this was viewed as good parenting 70 years ago, especially in poor families like mine.) I have plenty of childhood memories of lying there, wide awake but with eyes clenched shut, rigid with terror, knowing that my mother was staring at me, trying to make out whether I was really asleep or just faking it again. I'm sure this contributed to my lifelong sleep problems! I'm not telling you this to gain sympathy - I'm an old lady now and it doesn't matter any more. I've long since understood that they were loving parents who wanted to beat the "badness" out of me to give me a good start in life. But it shows the deep identification with sleep and morality that exists in our collective consciousness.

As a young adult I continued to sleep badly, of course. My general pattern was similar to yours, but slightly worse - one good night followed by two or three rough ones. I eventually learned not to discuss this with my friends, as too many of them said: "Can't sleep? There must be something wrong with you!" This wasn't said in a kind tone, as in: "Oh you poor thing, you must be ill, have you seen a doctor?" No, it was said in a contemptuous snort. They clearly felt my inability to sleep was a sign that I was somehow inferior!

I realise now that these reactions - their self-righeous attitude and my resulting silence about my sleep problems - feed back into each other in society. The idea that everyone is supposed to get 8 hours of uninterrupted sleep (plucked out of the air by 19th-century doctors I believe) has taken such a hold that people who don't achieve this are seen as failures - by others and themselves - and may be shamed into silence about it. This in turn makes it look as if most people are "perfect" sleepers, and we're some kind of weird exception - which we're not, of course. 

Well, I got through life in spite of feeling tired most days. I truly sympathise with you and I agree constant tiredness is a b1tch. But it won't damage your health, and one eventually works out methods of dealing with it. Having passed my biblical three-score years and ten, I'm still in excellent health. And I sleep much better now too.

On the practical side, I don't think you need to exercise to the point of exhaustion. An hour or so of brisk walking on five days a week will do the job just as well. Don't forget all the usual rules: no coffee after 2pm; no computer, phone, tablet etc. use in the hour before bed (google the effect on sleep hormones of the light these devices emit); switch off your phone overnight or, better still, leave it in another room; keep your room, the bedclothes and your PJs fairly cool. And have you tried occasional use of OTC antihistamines of the first-generation kind? These were real lifesavers when I was young. (See my post on the subject to Tibs above.)

Above all, try and drop the idea of failure! If you could get past that, I'm sure your anxiety levels would fall and you'd start sleeping a bit better.

Thanks Lily, that's makes a lot of sense. I need to train myself to not feel guilty if i wake in the night. Reading your message helps me to do that. I often head people say they've slept for 8 hours straight and I feel envious. Actually, one night a few months ago I did sleep for about 5 hours but still woke up feeling like poo - it was as if I didn't reach 'deep' sleep. I can't win. I will start to do some walking each day & hope that helps. 

I agree with the bit about feeling terrible after a "good night's sleep", Nic. There's nothing like a seemingly undisturbed 8-hour period of sleep to make me feel like a zombie too! I remember when I was going through my sleepless phase I always used to feel terrible after the first night's sleep following a run of insomnia, but much better the next day, even if I'd hardly closed my eyes the night before that.

You're right to go easy on yourself. Also bear in mind that we all have different sleeping patterns. The UK PM known as "the Iron Lady" famously slept only 3 hours per night, and it did her no harm. Though I'm not suggesting we should all aspire to be like her.

As regards interrupted sleep, try googling the following (I can't post links here):

- "The myth of the eight-hour sleep". This one's a BBC article from 2012.

- "Biphasic and polyphasic sleep". From Wikipedia.

- "Sleep: why they used to do it twice a night". From The Guardian.

There's plenty more of this out there if you google something like medieval sleep pattern. It seems that not only is the concept of 8 hours a night a comparatively recent introduction, but so is the very idea that we have to get all our sleep in one chunk. I realise it might be difficult to fit our modern lifestyle around biphasic sleep, but it's still a reassuring thought.

Sweet dreams!

Yea I definitely understand not wanting to exercise after sleeping poorly. I was planning on going to the gym in the hotel room each morning at the hotel this weekend but I didn't go at all because I felt terrible when I woke up. I did swim a bunch which was a pretty good workout but it still didn't help anything.

Hello Tibs. Can I ask, do you sleep through from 11.30pm till 5am? Some times on the rare occasion I have managed that duration, I still feel awful, it's very wired. Now I go to bed at 10pm, get up still 6am, but wake twice in the night - 2am & 4am... I am slowly learning that it is normal to wake in the night, it's part of our DNA. When I wake, I properly wake up, at 2am I nip to the loo & take a Valerian Root tablet, the Valerian is just a comfort factor, I don't think it does much. I drift off reasonably quickly, the second wake up at 4, nip to the loo again and just lie there and somehow manage to drift off. If for example I had something worrying me, I could probably get back off yo sleep on the 1st wake up but not the 2nd. Being wake from 4ish in the morning, kills me, I feel one moody lady and struggle like mad all day. BUT the most important thing I tell myself (and I must thank a lady on this forum fir reminding me)' that it's normal to wake. As long as I know I'm 'normal' lol, I can cope. So, therefore I just doze back off again until 6 ish. Just remind yourself of this and it will give you peace of mind. I really thing that that's what we insomniacs look for in the night peace of mind xx

Something that I've been looking into today on the web is Sleep Cycles. On average each persons sleep cycle lasts approximately 90 mins. We have a series of these throughout the night. Some people wake fully between cycles (like me) and others don't, or can't remember waking. So, when I fall asleep at say 10pm and wake at 2am.. I must of not of woken during that first sleep cycle. But then when I wake at 2/2.30am and sleep until 4 and wake up that's another 90 min cycle. Also learned today that if you are disturbed or wake up without finishing your 90 min sleep cycle you can feel rubbish. Wish makes total sense. Very interesting stuff, but again at least I know I'm not a freak waking up all the time! Insomnia has totally dominated my life, especially in the last year, so I'm always keen to learn more.