check the timestamp
I’ve been waking up at 4 a.m. for the past few weeks. Without fail. Without an alarm clock. I hate it, so I toss and turn for a couple of hours until I fall back asleep. And then I invariably oversleep — yesterday, Mister Husband finally woke me up at 9:30 so I could go teach my 11:30 class. Since I slept so much later, I have no interest in my normal bedtime, which would be around 9 or 10. I go to bed closer to midnight, and then I wake up at 4 again.
This will not do, especially with exams approaching. (It would make sense for my sleep to be messed up because of them, but I don’t have a strong sense that they’re the reason.) And it’s doubly annoying because I’m normally a very sound sleeper.
So today I just gave up and got up. Perhaps if I can make it through the day without napping, and with my normal amount of caffeine (a small cup of black tea), it’ll reset the whole shebang.
It seems like lately there’s a larger than normal number of folks with sleep problems in my part of the blogosphere. Ya’ll better not be contagious.
Comments
That's around the same time I've been waking up. It happened to me my first year at my first job, too. My doc explained the 24-hour chemistry cycle that causes this phenomenon, but (not having had enough sleep) I didn't follow it.
My new approach is to actually do something when I wake up and wait until I'm sleepy enough to go back to sleep. Read a book. Watch part of a DVD. Listen to music. Do crosswords or puzzles. It beats lying there and letting my mind race.
My $.02.
Posted by: George | October 14, 2006 9:42 AM
I've been waking up at exactly 4:15 every morning for a week or so now. I just go back to sleep, though. What the hell is wrong with us?!
Posted by: Scott | October 14, 2006 10:18 AM
Hang in there! When I took my exams in the spring, I experienced much the same types of things. They pass. And you will, too! :-)
Posted by: Billie | October 14, 2006 10:36 AM
Happens to me every year at about this time, I assume because of fatigue. I go for days and days on 4-5 hours' sleep, until I am so so so tired that finally I get a good night's sleep, which seems to crack the cycle.
But when I wake up at 4:30 and can't go back to sleep: I get up and do deeds. Beats lying in bed feeling frustrated.
Posted by: senioritis | October 14, 2006 5:51 PM
You guys know what I did? I did go back to sleep for a couple of hours at 7. Then I got up and read all your lovely comments that came in while I was sleeping and which made me feel much better. And then I took the day off. Very revolutionary! I watched TV and went erranding in the beautiful weather and went to dinner with Mister Husband. I futzed around on the Internets a lot, and cleaned the house a little.
And then I went right to sleep at 10:30 and stayed that way until 7:30 this morning.
I wonder if I can do it again? The sleep part, I mean. Because now I’ve got all kinds of work to do today.
Posted by: Krista | October 15, 2006 8:31 AM