What keeps you up at night?

[sb2009]

other unfulfilled sexual desires or having wild sex?

For me, it's this crazy restless leg syndrome. It comes and goes and right now I've had it a few nights in a row and it's MAKING ME NUTS.

I usually sleep on the couch so I can get up and walk around frequently but it's just so damned annoying.

 

[graceanne]

I'm not used to sleeping alone.

 

[Kikori]

Sadly, what keeps me up isn't sex related.

Noise, lights, schedules, pets, fears. And not of the dark, either.

 

[Aquila1]

I'm an insomniac from way back. Partly it stems from spending long periods living on boats and having to keep watch. It's amazing how many of the world's problems I have solved sitting up in a wheelhouse drinking coffee in the quiet dark.

I still find my most mentally productive/creative times are in the early hours of the morning - I need that deep silence and lack of external stimuli in order to focus. Plays havoc with 'normal' working hours though, which is one of the reasons I started my own business.

 

[Vixandra]

Insomnia paired with a twisted circadian rhythm.

My "normal" schedule, the one I fall into with no work or school stimuli has my day starting around 11 am to 3 pm and running until around 3 to 8 am. So working a standard 9-5:30 day, like my Friday school schedule, its difficult. Doable, but difficult.

The insomnia is cause I think and hear too much. The freeway seven miles away, the neighborhood idiots loud bad ooom-paa mariachi music, the hum of a computer that didn't get turned off. Did I pay all my bills? Did I remember "insert issue?" What would happen if I rewrote this part of my current project?

It sucks, and not in a good way. Need for sex can also keep me up, but my hubby wakes up pretty easy with the right incentive.

 

[BiaTcHiNFiRe]

Missing him keeps me awake.

Same as Gracie, I am not used to sleep alone.

 

[ImOnIt]

My phone charger has an almost inaudible high pitched whine.

The dog next door has a louder whine, and its SLIGHTLY low pitch.

Sometimes L takes all the pillows in her sleep.


I have slept every night and very easily for a long long time. Much caffeine or alcohol or anything else stops me sleeping, so i avoid those like the plague. I had a couple of V (guarana 'energy drink'( the other night to stay up working on a paper... i did nothing for hours and felt horrible doing so.

 

[StrayKat]

Insomnia that came with years and worries.
I miss the times when I could sleep 10 hours in the same bed with snoring husband. Any kind of noise wakes me up now.

 

[Lizzie_Borden]

Anxiety.

And now the stress I've caused my mother by crying over the phone and telling her I was fucking hopeless because I was 28 and couldn't handle my shit.

 

[sereneone4u]

Insomnia
Migraines
Missing my husband, he travels a lot with his work.

 

[SimonBrooke]

I still find my most mentally productive/creative times are in the early hours of the morning - I need that deep silence and lack of external stimuli in order to focus. Plays havoc with 'normal' working hours though, which is one of the reasons I started my own business.

Oh, don't I know the feeling. The quiet thud of the diesel, the occasional chatter on channel 16 on the VHF, Ry Cooder on the stereo singing 'The Taxes on the Farmer', the quiet creaks of the boat and the gear as she shuffles through the swell, watching the breaking phosphorescence in the wake...

And then of course two hours is up, and you bang the forecastle hatch and everyone else tumbles on deck and you haul that bloody net again, throw the good fish into boxes, shovel half a ton of hermit crabs back over the side again into the reflected starlight, and then back into the wheelhouse for another hour and a half to the end of your watch, haul the bastard net again, sort the catch, tumble down the hatch, brew tea, tuck yourself into a sleeping bag for an hour and a half, haul that sodding net, oilskins off and back in the bag for another hour, make food, haul the buggered net, and then it's your shift in the wheelhouse again...

Trawling is a bloody awful job. But being the only one on the boat awake in the still, quiet watches of the night is sheer heaven.


These days when I don't sleep it's mainly cramp from doing too much exercise with too little salts.

 

[Cattypuss]

Insomnia keeps me awake and has done since I was about 6 years old.

 

[VelvetDarkness]

Migraines and other, funkier headaches. Master's backache/snoring. My stupid moggy who thinks it's morning when I stagger to the toilet at 3am and then caterwauls for his breakfast until I give in and get up.

 

[rosco rathbone]

I'm a light sleeper and just about anything wakes me up. Then I lie in the darkness thinking about the vastness of space, the insignificance of human effort, the futility of love and the waiting grave.

 

[HottieMama]

My 1 month old son. At this point, I am so tired I can sleep standing up, I think.

 

[sb2009]

Anxiety.

And now the stress I've caused my mother by crying over the phone and telling her I was fucking hopeless because I was 28 and couldn't handle my shit.

Hey, don't be so hard on yourself! I'm 40 and there are times I can't handle my own shit!

I have ambien to take, and I am "supposed" to take it as soon as I realize I can't sleep so that I have a routine and don't get caught up in staying up all night/sleeping all day, etc but it has such odd side effects at times...like eating in the middle of the night!

And Hottiemom - a new baby will do that do you, you have my sympanthy. both times I had new babies I had this horrible feeling it would never end, that I would never sleep again...and it actually did pass. Now they are older and even can get thier own cereal on Saturdays, as long as they know they get the "big breakfast" on Sunday mornings!

 

[Etoile]

Generic insomnia for me. I take Trazodone to make sure I get some sleep. I could stay up until 6am every night otherwise. But Trazodone really likes to enforce 8 hours, so I can't take it if I have to be up in less than 8 hrs - if I'm up at 7, I can't take it past 11, or I'll be a drugged-out mess when I get up. Those nights, I end up staying up till between 1 and 3. Beats falling asleep on the road to work. I did have a funny day a week or two ago, though - accidentally took my nighttime meds in the morning, and although I made it to school before they kicked in, I was literally falling asleep in all my classes. I had to apologize to the teachers the next day once I figured it out.

 

[00Syd]

Insomnia fuled by anxieties of various stripes.

 

[MisterSir]

People. Either they'll come in at ten or eleven when I'm trying to sleep or will call at two or three when I am asleep - either way, curses are thrown.

 

[YourCaptor]

a twisted circadian rhythm.

My "normal" schedule, the one I fall into with no work or school stimuli has my day starting around 11 am to 3 pm and running until around 3 to 8 am.

Thats me too, fuckin day dwellers setting the standard.

the neighborhood idiots loud bad ooom-paa mariachi music

I see you live in socal. Me too, we have so much in common.

 

[Lizzie_Borden]

Hey, don't be so hard on yourself! I'm 40 and there are times I can't handle my own shit!

We're all our own worst critics, I know

But, I'm a chronic bottler of worries, fears, stresses, anxieties. I think I do a good job, but I know that my parents know that I'm unhappy at times, and I'm trying to talk to them. I'm getting better. Last night was just a very bad night.

 

[Cattypuss]

Generic insomnia for me. I take Trazodone to make sure I get some sleep. I could stay up until 6am every night otherwise. But Trazodone really likes to enforce 8 hours, so I can't take it if I have to be up in less than 8 hrs - if I'm up at 7, I can't take it past 11, or I'll be a drugged-out mess when I get up. Those nights, I end up staying up till between 1 and 3. Beats falling asleep on the road to work. I did have a funny day a week or two ago, though - accidentally took my nighttime meds in the morning, and although I made it to school before they kicked in, I was literally falling asleep in all my classes. I had to apologize to the teachers the next day once I figured it out.

hHah! I took Trazodone for three years, for clinical depresion. THEN I slept well - but on my dose (300mg every night) getting out of bed in the morning was like raising the dead every day. I came off the Trazodone completely in July this year. And can I sleep now? Can I buggery.

And yes, I once took mine in the morning by accident and pretty much passed out (good thing I work at home).

 

[minx1]

I'm a light sleeper and just about anything wakes me up. Then I lie in the darkness thinking about the vastness of space, the insignificance of human effort, the futility of love and the waiting grave.

This.

worry and anxiety and stress

I worry about the future.

 

[StrayKat]

getting out of bed in the morning was like raising the dead every day

That is the main problem with tranquilizers and such stuff, they knock you out for longer than you want. I tried all kind of things and in the end I dumped everything even if it means to stay up entire night sometimes.

My ability to sleep undisturbed went to pieces during the war actually, I was always half awake so I could jump out of bed and go soothe my kids asap if the alarm started. Otherwise they would cry themselves into fit. We would have to run to shelter and stay down there for the rest of the night sometimes. I dont believe any kind of pills could cure my insomnia after that so I dont even try anymore.

 

[Etoile]

hHah! I took Trazodone for three years, for clinical depresion. THEN I slept well - but on my dose (300mg every night) getting out of bed in the morning was like raising the dead every day. I came off the Trazodone completely in July this year. And can I sleep now? Can I buggery.

And yes, I once took mine in the morning by accident and pretty much passed out (good thing I work at home).

Dear lord!!! The most I have ever taken is 100mg - I can't imagine what a 300mg dose would do! I'd probably sleep for 24 hours straight! I currently take 25-50mg and it eases me to sleep pretty well. (50mg if I don't have to get up the next morning, 25mg if I do.) When I was taking 100mg, I would fall asleep in the middle of eating or whatever I was doing, I used to compare it to being hit by the sleep train. Did you have to eat with your Trazodone? My wife is on it too, and if she eats it won't work. If I DON'T eat, it won't work! Kind of odd. Mine has always been strictly for insomnia though - I have Wellbutrin for depression.