Good Nights Sleep!

[jd_1984]

I never underestimate how much a good nights sleep makes a difference.
I sometimes kid myself that I can get by on 4-5 hrs sleep but after consecutive poor sleeps I feel almost ill. I have just had two back to back 8 hour deep sleeps and I feel the benefit from it, energised, fit and more alert. I have worked shifts for 10 years and I never really minded but I feel now that I would like a job that gets me home the same time each evening and I am up same time of a morning, a regular routine..
How much sleep is best for you?

[dotty.]

I understand how you feel ill, I suffer from sporadic insommnia and I can't decide on the reason for it, but some nights I go to bed and just know I am not going to get to sleep. I went to bed at midnight last night and slept right through until 6am when OH got up for work and then i went back to sleep and only woke up at 1! Must have needed it though. Probably because I've missed a couple of days thyroxin again though.

[jd_1984]

Is sporadic insomnia actually a condition? I am like that too but put poor sleeps down to periods of stress and worry or the rotation of shifts at work

[daffy654]

I have suffered insomnia for years now and it is horrible, it makes you feel tired and drained all day long. Last night (thanks to noisy neighbours) I wound up coming downstairs at 2am to nap in my recliner chair, I was restless from then on and actually up and awake from 8am.

[excelsior-1]

my alternating shift work does not allow me much sleep

sometimes however, it all catches up with me, and i end up sleeping for most of a weekend just to recharge

[ummmm]

My OH often wakes me up throughout the night and yes, it does make you feel ill.

[grasscarp]

I seem to want 8-9 hours a night. Never had much trouble getting to sleep. However I have a friend who gets up every morning at 4.30 am. She doesnt want to or need to sleep longer which I find very odd. Her husband is the same and that is how them met, wandering about in the early hours during a chess tournament in Croatia. Sleep is hugely important to all of us in that it is when the body renews itself and the brain sorts out all the newly digested items of the day. Sleep deprivation, as experiments have shown, can permanently and terribly damage a human being.

[daffy654]

People who don't sleep well tend to suffer all sorts of other health problems as well. They also have more trouble losing weight.

[jd_1984]

My grandad is the same even at 85. He is up at 5am every morning, fresh as a daisy. He is often up until 10pm/11pm watching tv or reading. If I had a pro-longed period of only several hours (by which I mean 4-6hrs say) I would not be functioning properly. I guess there is no such thing as "the right amount of sleep".
Also, I find disturbed sleep effects me massively. If I am in bed for 8 hours but I have been woken during the night a couple of times I feel dreadful. I would settle for 7-8hrs un disturbed sleep every night, but in the real world as a family man working shifts it aint happening!

[dotty.]

it must be actually a condition as i suffer from it, i sleep some nights really well and as soon as i go to bed, but if i wake in the early hours i know i will not go back to sleep, or i go to bed and know i will not sleep until the early hours when i drop off eventually and sleep like a brick.

[pastafreak]

I've always been lucky,in that once my head hits the pillow,I'm out. Until I wake needing the loo...this is always after 6 hours,which seems to be best for me. I'd love to sleep longer,but when I do,I don't feel any better for it.
My problem is actually getting *into* bed,I could happily potter about for hours all night.