The picture above is typical of what I often see in the night. Sometimes it says 12:31 or 2.54 or 3:17 or all of those. The fact is I wake at least four times in the night these days, often half an hour after I have fallen asleep in the first place. Often every 90 minutes. I used to be such a sound sleeper and could manage eight hours solid perfectly well. But the last three years has seen a serious decline in my sleep pattern to the extent that I wake frequently and don't feel slept-out when I rise at my usual 7 or 8am. When I wake during the night, I rehearse having difficult conversations with people, or draft in my head an email I need to send or practise learning off by heart a choir song I need to learn or make a mental list of things I need to do the next day or what to wear for a special event. My mind just doesn't seem to switch off. (By the way, I never ever wake because I need the toilet!)
I tend to avoid looking at blue light before bedtime, retire regularly around 11pm, read for half an hour or so in bed and even take medication to help me sleep (amitriptyline prescribed when my daughter was not sleeping through the night until she was 8 years old and my sleep patterns were disturbed at the time.) I have even sprayed lavender on my pillows to aid sleep (supposedly meant to help except it doesn't!) I have undergone sleep apnoea tests and they have proved I don't have that, so I am in a quandary what to do to get a decent sleep. Rather than fight it, I often get up, say at 3am and make a hot chocolate, then read for an hour and that often helps. By 7 or 8 am I am in such a deep coma, I could sleep forever, but usually have things I need to address so drag myself out of bed.
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