Am I, at 64, never going to sleep through the night again? I wonder. And how do I handle these nights of interrupted sleep?
As I am now off of the 3 psych meds for nearly 6 months with the only medication I take being trazodone, as needed, to help with sleep on occasion, I am feeling that since I am off of everything else I don’t want to take the trazodone either, but after a run of bad nights, feeling teary and exhausted and trying for hours to go to sleep, it can be a relief to have a little help. The thing is that the trazodone can help me go to sleep far more quickly but it doesn’t always help me stay asleep, and if, as is usually the case, I have to get up at some point to go to the bathroom, it can be very hard to go back to sleep. And then I don’t want to get reliant on taking medication to get to sleep. But it can be excruciating trying desperately to go to sleep for hours. What to do?
And then sometimes it doesn’t seem to make much difference. The night before last, after struggling to get to sleep again for a few nights, I took the trazodone. I fell asleep fairly quickly but not much more than an hour later I had to get up to go to the bathroom. It took me quite awhile to get back to sleep. I finally did but I woke up again at 5:30. While I did finally doze again between about 6 and 8:30 I did not really go into a deep sleep and when I finally got up I was tired and anxious, and relieved to just get up and have the night behind me. Last night I didn’t take anything, it took me awhile to go to sleep but I slept until 6:00, from about 1 or 1:30. Again from 6 to 8:30 I never really went back to sleep. I perhaps dozed a little, I think I actually prayed rather desperately for some help with sleep, but when it never came I was up again about 8:30.
I was very anxious this morning. Those early morning fitful hours seem to lead to a kind of anxiety it is hard to shake once up. This is not the extreme anxiety I suffered with for so long that was nearly unmanageable but it is not comfortable. And I wonder about that too. Despite the fact that I am worlds better than I was a year ago, and that I believe that I am managing well without medication as does my therapist and the P.A. who manages my meds, I don’t wake up with a zest for the day, but more often with a bit of anxiety coloring the morning hours, and on harder days anxiety mixed with a kind of fear. It is as though no matter how hard I try, and it was even worse when I was on medication, I just seem never to be completely comfortable in my own skin. Does sleep play a part in this? I don’t know.
And I think one never feels as alone as they do awake in the middle of the night. If you are awake at 3 a.m. in the black of night the stillness can be deafening. And though we are told absolutely not to get on our phones or any other kind of technological device I can’t tell you just how many nights doing just this has saved me. When I have been awake, and afraid, almost, on a really bad night, panic stricken, to pick up my phone and peruse Facebook say — not write anything or answer anyone, just kind of scan it — I feel less cut off from the rest of the world and alone. Many has been the night that just scanning Facebook for 10 or 15 minutes has switched something in my brain, fear subsides, my mind is diverted, and I have put the phone down and gone right back to sleep. And I have been interested to see a number of other friends on Facebook in the middle of the night, mostly women in my age group. And that makes me wonder something else.
I had a talk with a dear friend this morning. We have long shared our mental health struggles, and difficulty with sleep. But as I told her I have talked to more and more women who don’t struggle with mental health issues — of course everyone has their trials but I mean real diagnosed mental health conditions — and yet quite a number of them have problems sleeping. More than a couple have even said when they wake up at 3 and can’t go back to sleep at night they just get up and are often up for the day. Lordy. So what I’m wondering, or trying to figure out, is how much of this just has to do with age? When you have spent a lifetime struggling with mental health issues you tend to blame everything that goes wrong on them, but could this be, at least in part, simply due to age?
I have also tried all manner of natural sleep aids that simply didn’t help. All kinds of herbal formulas, melatonin, my son and daughter-in-law even gave me a little bottle of “hemp oil” for my birthday! It did nothing for me, nothing. And having some kind of herbal tea before bed is out of the question because if I don’t curtail liquids as the evening goes on I will be up several times at night to go to the bathroom. Tea before bed just isn’t a solution for me.
I would really, really love to hear from those of you who deal with sleep difficulties and have found solutions. What do you do that works? And if you haven’t found a solution to help you sleep can you please tell me how you handle the wakeful hours in the middle of the night? I’m serious, I really hope you will take time to write to me in the comments below about this. Your response could help others who write in too.
There has got to be a solution. I’m not sure what it is but I am searching for one and I’d appreciate your help.
The Experiment ~A 365 Day Search For Truth, Beauty &
Happiness: Day 1 ~ Introduction To The Project
“Do or do not. There is no try.”
Yoda
Significant, regular Increased activity level seems to help me. Not too close to bedtime but consistent expended energy.
Noni,
I am getting more exercise, albeit a little each day. I hope it helps.
I’m so glad you came this weekend. It meant the world to me.
Love you honey, so much…
Maitri
If I may think aloud for a moment…
I’ve often wondered how hard-wired we really are to stay up All Day and sleep All Night. If you look at how animals work on their own in Nature, sleep and wakefulness are more evenly spread out. The pattern we live by is more of a Collective Agreement – and artificially imposed.
One of the experiments I’ve wanted to conduct is how I would act if I didn’t have any sort of a clock or schedule I had to follow. I’m not quite there yet, but after my caregiving duties are completed, I might give it a shot after all.
Instead of seeing this as a problem, what if this is another invitation to Fit Out, and find a sleeping/waking schedule that fits you the best?
Victoria, what an interesting premise. And I do think that probably a lot of the “problem” is that we believe that we are supposed to go to sleep easily and then stay asleep all night to a certain hour and when we are not doing that we feel that something is wrong and we get worried about it and anxious about it and that makes it worse and it becomes a vicious cycle. How to let it be what it will be? It is certainly something to work toward. Thank you for this perspective…
Dear Maitri, I so know how you feel. I went through this for awhile after Gall Bladder surgery. I know now that mine was caused by PSTD from unhealed emotions from childhood surgeries. I tried everything. So no mine was not from age. I do hear you say “struggle” in your blog and I think that is a clue. Of course you struggle to get back to sleep but it could be the main thing that stops you from sleeping. I’m not diagnosing but that jumped out at me. I sleep pretty well at 82 but I cannot sleep in bed more than 4 hours at the most. My back and hips hurt. So I get up and go to my recliner. Sometimes I am awake for an hour or so but I do go back to sleep eventually. I took a half a xanax for awhile before bed and that helped but my doctor didn’t want me on it .
I so dislike those “professionals” who say don’t turn on TV or kindle or Social media. I can see how that helps you and your anxiety. I hope someone or others help you find some solutions. I just wanted to let you know how much I understand the feelings and yes anxiety in the mornings are not fun.
Much Love, Jean
Thank you dear Jean…
Interestingly Noni was here last night. She cannot come very often anymore but she came and we had dinner together and watched 3 episodes of The Crown on Netflix, Season 2, we watched Season 1 last year and loved it. It was after midnight when it finished and she went back to “her room” (My guest room became Noni’s room in the year and a half she was here every weekend.) and we both piddled around on our phones until 1 or after and then went to sleep but I went to sleep pretty easily and did not wake up until 8:45. I couldn’t believe it. But I know that it was having her here in the house. I wasn’t alone. I was more relaxed and I was so happy to have her here. She just left a little after noon and I am SO sad. It’s so hard for me that she doesn’t come anymore like she used to. Even though I was alone through the week I always knew she was coming on the weekend and I looked forward to it all week. Now I am mostly alone again. If she comes once a month for one night, not the whole weekend, that will be a lot. The point being I think I am, I don’t know if I would say afraid but not as at ease here by myself. I was amazed last night what a difference it made, with her back in her room as I was going to sleep, knowing that she was here. Sigh, sometimes it just breaks my heart to be so alone.
And I was just saying something to Noni this morning re the recliner. In the last several years of my father-in-law’s life, many years in fact, he only slept in a recliner, to the point that when they would come here to visit and stay in a hotel he had a very hard time at night and would sleep upright in a hotel room chair, he just couldn’t sleep in a bed. I thought that was so odd and said so numerous times to my husband, I just didn’t get it. NOW I sleep every night in my recliner and have for some time, I even tried, a couple of weeks ago when Delilah had to be taken to the emergency vet in the middle of the night and came home with her foot all bandaged up, to sleep in the bed because I didn’t want her little foot crowded (the pugs sleep snuggled up in the big oversized recliner with me), but none of the 3 of us could sleep. We tried, fitfully and miserably and I finally got up and got us in our recliner and we went right to sleep for 3 hours. I can’t imagine ever sleeping in a bed again. I feel safer and more secure and very comfortable in this big recliner, I love it, it is my safe place. So I totally get you needing to use the recliner.
And people can have all their theories about blue screens and how detrimental they are. I read about people that turn off all electronics including their phone by like 8 in the evening. First of all I would never turn off my phone because #1 I always want my kids to be able to get in touch with me 24/7 if they need me, and #2 I live here alone and if there was any kind of emergency my phone is right there and I could call for help instantly. But that middle of the night comfort, when I am anxious and afraid, of not feeling so cut off from the world, just to see people I know on Facebook even though I am too tired to answer or actively engaged, well, it just saves me. I am able to switch gears somehow, relax, and go back to sleep. I guess inasmuch as there is a “hierarchy of needs” for some people not having the blue screens is an important thing, but for some of us that sense of connection that makes us feel less alone and afraid in the world is a more pressing need. Yet another example of how, in life, there is no one right way to do anything.
I don’t know where the anxiety in the morning comes from, or why, but again, waking up with Noni here in the house, even though she was still asleep in another room, made me feel so happy and at peace. It is harder than we know, I think, to be so alone, I don’t think we were meant to be, but here I am and there you are. It is what it is…
Much love to you dear Jean, I hope you are having a lovely day…
Maitri
I am a night person living in a day-world. And I’ve never found a way to manage it. Even when I worked a night job, I was still working a day job at the same time so no help there. I’m retired so sleeping when I need/want to should be easy-peasy, right? Wrong. I’m married, sharing a home (and a life) with another person so…I have to keep ‘normal’ hours. Thursday night I was in bed by 10pm, asleep by 10:30 and up at 1:30am and never got back to sleep, not even a nap during the day…man I was just feeling stupid all day, not to mention tired all day. But last night I slept well, from sheer exhaustion. I suspect tonight will be another ‘not much sleep night’ – it’s my life, always has been. Whadda you gonna do?
Ah Grace, so difficult when one’s Circadian rhythms are not in sync with the rest of the household. For a time, when I was still married with children at home, I was put on a medication that just wreaked havoc with me. I was so wired all night I would be up working while my husband and children slept, I couldn’t go to sleep until about 5 a.m. and as I was getting into a sound sleep everyone would be getting up and it was a helter skelter time in my inner world. Then after my husband and I separated and my kids were older and off to college and so on and I was alone I would stay awake until 3 or after, I loved being awake at night when the world was asleep, it was peaceful, but getting up at noon or one put me so out of sync with the rest of the world I just couldn’t stand it. It can be such a quandary. As you say “Whadda you gonna do?” It’s a puzzle. I hope you can find a way to work it out that brings you peace…
i too of late (this year, maybe before this year?) have trouble GOING to sleep. i even wrote an acrostic about it! i toss and turn, i lie this way, then the other way, on the bed (this can be true whether or not tom is in the bed or gone), sometimes it seems FOREVER and i wonder if i’m EVERgoing to fall asleep. unlike you, when i do fall asleep, i can get up to use the bathroom and go RIGHT back to sleep. And if i wake early-ish, i can go back to sleep. So for me, it’s about quieting my mind and body somehow so i can relax and release into dreamland. could i meditate and stretch? could i get a heckava lot more exercise to EXPEND my energy during the day? yes and yes, i could. So, yes, i think and i’ve read that older people have more sleep problems or “need less sleep.” and i like what a person said above, about changing our need to go all day awake and all night asleep. i personally LOVE naps. and they seem to have no effect on my being able to sleep at night. i think the fear and anxiety that arises is the worst part of sleeplessness. we need to work on a mantra that will help us let go so that sleep can finally overtake us???
xo ka
Yes dear Ka, I do think it’s the fear and anxiety. As it overtakes us (We are “supposed” to be asleep after all so if we aren’t “something is wrong”…) it becomes a vicious cycle, our minds can race and race. What, if, as Victoria said above, we didn’t feel like we had to be asleep all night? What if it was okay? What then? I think it could make a difference. This will be something to experiment with.
But, too, as I wrote to Jean above and I won’t repeat it all here because I kind of went on about it, last night was a night and day difference, I went to sleep fairly easily and slept well and long for me. I didn’t wake up until 8:45 BECAUSE NONI WAS HERE. Having her here in the house, even though back in another room, changed the whole tenor of things for me. My whole life I was either in my parents home, my married home, my children were at home, and I never had trouble sleeping except a brief period when I had problem on a medication I was on. When there were other loved ones in the house I suppose on some level I felt safe and more relaxed and could fall asleep at 9 and sleep through the night. Only in the years since I have lived alone have I had trouble with sleep and it’s gotten worse through the years and especially worse since the fire. I miss Noni being here so much, it has really taken a toll having had her here every weekend and then not anymore, rarely. It has been a terrible loss for me. Even when I was alone through the week I always knew she would be there for the weekend and it made me feel less alone even through the week when I was alone. And now, at my age and stage of life I don’t see any way not to be alone, but I will tell you sometimes my heart aches to the point of tears. I always dreamed of a life of solitude, a la May Sarton. I never knew how lonely it would be. And then like a miracle, Noni was here, and now she’s not hardly anymore. It feels like a cruel act of fate that that window opened up for that year and a half, kind of like when, in the Wizard of Oz, everything goes from black and white to full blown technicolor. It is as though it is a black and white world again and heartbreakingly hard, having known another way. Last night it was so wonderful having Noni here, but just now I feel bereft. It could be a month or more before she comes back again and then who knows when after that. What am I to do? I just don’t know. Tis a quandary.
This is a subject that needs far more thinking and writing than just one post. I am grateful for all the responses. I will have to sit with this awhile…
M. xoxox
Some of it is age-related, I’m sure, because my dad too wakes in the wee hours and can’t get back to sleep for hours again. He puts the TV on, he says, to occupy himself.
I rarely have trouble staying asleep but the odd time have awoken and lain awake for an hour for no reason I can put a finger on. Lately I listen to podcasts of my favourite talk-radio shows so at least I’m not bored lying there.
One more thing, probably doesn’t pertain to you but who knows: sometimes I can’t get to sleep NO-HOW until, after hours of tossing and turning, I realize I’ve been half a degree too warm or too cold. Such a tiny amount that it wasn’t obvious. I fix that (a blanket added, or a change to lighter pyjamas) and voila, off to dreamland.
If you’re interested in a theory that explains your wee-hours waking, you’ll find one in the Seth books – maybe The Nature of Personal Reality. His idea is that it’s more normal to sleep shorter periods than long ones, and that our unconscious is better integrated with our waking consciousness when we do.
-Kate
Thank you for your thoughtful post Kate. I too am fairly certain that it is, in part, age related. Our bodies change so much with aging. I don’t have cable anymore so I can’t just put something on in the background that will drone on quietly so I can sleep. I do, however, put the live news on on my phone turned very quiet so that I can’t really distinguish what is being said but the soft voices make me relax a little and I will go to sleep with it on, just turning off on the cusp of sleep. I don’t try to listen to a podcast or audiobook if it’s something I really want to hear because that WILL put me to sleep and then I miss it all!
And I can’t sleep without a fan! The movement of air and the soft whirring sound are essential for me. Interesting about the Seth books and sleeping for shorter periods makes sense in line with the aging/less sleep needed thing. Thanks for the suggestion.
And than you for taking the time to comment, it meant a lot to me. Blessings to you dearheart, I’m sending you a hug…
Maitri
Hi Maitri,
I have had more sleep issues in the last several years too and I attribute them mainly to hormonal changes. Most nights I can fall asleep pretty easily. I don’t drink any caffeine after morning time. Even decaf coffee was enough in the past to keep me awake. Usually I have no liquids except for a sip of water with my before bed supplements to reduce the frequency of waking for the bathroom and that has helped a lot.
I run a diffuser with a relaxing oil blend to permeate the bedroom at night. I sleep in a cool room, often with a fan running both for temperature and white noise. I wear ear plug s at night. I have experimented with sleep masks but have not yet found an ideal one for me.
I fall asleep giving myself Reiki. Most nights I do seem to wake suddenly between 3 and 4, though these days I don’t check the time and am just guessing. Often I wake up hot, so maybe have had a hot flash. Once I’m comfortable again I might go back to sleep quickly or I might not. If not, I either start giving Reiki to myself again or I start sending it to those who have asked for support or prayers. Eventually I will dose off again.
I consider it a good night to get 6 solid hours. Anything more is a bonus.
I seldom wake up energized for the day but I get myself going by doing some gentle stretching. My morning green tea energizes me. I usually have a short power nap listening to a meditation audio in the early afternoon.
I’ve been tired for years. I know it’s not ideal but I guess I’ve learned to live with it. I’m still looking for answers too. Most recently I’ve started taking 5HTP at bedtime as for some people it will help you stay asleep longer. It’s only been a couple of weeks but I think it may be helping a bit. Overall I spend less time worrying about how much sleep I’m getting each night. I only get anxious about it when I read health articles that talk about all the issues that can happen from too little sleep. I know what those are, so I’ve stopped reading those articles now too. 🙂
Joan,
I agree with all you say and think these things matter: no coffee past morning, very little liquids before bed, a fan and so on. I don’t run a diffuser next to me but keep bottles of essential oils next to me and use them. I have begun to use a sleep mask and I think it helps, I really do. The one I got on amazon was only $10 and has 9500 positive reviews! It is here:
https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B00GSO1D9O
Thank you for all that you shared. You know in reading through all of the comments — which I have appreciated so much — and coming up with some ideas about what my problem might be, I am feeling kind of a little sad and lost. I am beginning to realize how much of my difficulty stems from having a difficulty being so alone, and that is not something I know how to fix. But I will take everyone’s suggestions and ideas to heart. (I too have done reiki and pray for myself and others. Sometimes this helps but sometimes it can lead me to spiralling into overthinking and I get more anxious.)
There is so much to think about here. There is no easy, one-size-fits-all answer. I will continue to look for what might work. But having you all here to discuss this with me has helped so much. I’m sending you a big hug Joan and so much love…
That’s a lovely looking sleep mask Maitri. I will see if I can find it on Amazon.ca
I think I have four different ones now but there is something about each of them that eventually makes me uncomfortable in the night whether it be how the strap fits or the lining.
Thanks for the hug. I agree it is helpful to have other women to discuss these things with.
Joan, the mask is silk, it’s very lightweight, but really blacks out the room. And the strap is adjustable so you can adjust it to fit comfortably for you. I find it very comfortable.
And yes it is nice, it means more than you will ever know that you and others take time to leave thoughtful comments. I appreciate it so much. And yes, hugs, always, and much love…