Sleep disorders appear to be on the rise in the United States.
According to a recent Gallup Poll, nearly half of all adult
Americans have trouble sleeping, up 13% from just four years
ago. The National Sleep Foundation blames this on the in-
creasingly faster pace of life in the 1990's and increasing
work pressures.

How much sleep to you get per night? Do you feel that it is enough?
Do you have more trouble sleeping than you used to?

47 responses total.

I'm doing pretty good on sleep.  I get about 7.5 hours, which seems to be
enough (although I do a little catching up on Sundays).  I think that I sleep
better these days than I used to, party because I've gotten a bit more used
to work stress (which in my case tends to appear for a while and then go away,
depending on project status)., and I also get a lot more excersize than I used
to, which I think helps.

  Sleep disorders are many times not a result of not sleeping x amount
of hours, but of not having REM sleep, not sleeping deep enough to dream.
Too many think they can get by with catnaps but it is difficult to
maintain an REM level when you keep waking up.  Stress is surely a part
because you have to be able to clear your mind when you sleep.  Going
to sleep thinking about some BS going on at work is a terrible thing to
do.  You have to think comfortable thoughts to sleep comfortably.  I
think sleeping solidly and deeply for seven or eight hours adds years
to your life.  The folks with rings under their eyes are most certainly
likely to not have slept much in their life.

agreed kerouac..i have fibromyalgia..and I hurt more on the days i did not
get a good nights sleep..Rem sleep I read has that healing effect i need not
to hurt so much.  Fibromyalgia is like arthritis ..but effects the muscles
and tendons.  and is characterized by many tender points on various parts
ofthe body..I have all of them.  However Ihave been lifting weights and I find
that my muscles don't hurt as much ..however I have to rach a balance between
not too  much and not too little.
I just started lifing weights and can feel some improvement.

i usually get about 4-5 hours a night....but it seems to be SOLID sleep...
i knokw that i'm not getting enough....and the reason why is obvious if you
look at the time that i posted this....:)

I'm sleeping about five hours a night, except on weekends. I have no
trouble getting to sleep as I stay up late, and sleep almost as soon as
I put my head on the pillow.

say rane a person with no worries...but I am doing better..smile*

I have a lot of trouble falling asleep before three a.m, and I usually only
get about five hours a night.  (I wake up repeatedly).  I'm under a lot of
stress right now, and I know that's the cause.  On the weekends, however, my
body lets me know that I need more by letting me sleep a solid twelve hours
without waking up at all.

<otter is awakened by her own snoring>
Oh! Hi there...guess I'm lucky, or maybe conditioned by my weird any varying
schedule, but I can sleep anywhere, any time. Minimum daily/nightly
requirement = 4 uninterrupted hours.

I usually get 6 to 7 hours of sleep a night.  It seems to be enough because
i usually wake up just minutes before my alarm goes off.  I dont know if this
is just conditioning or I have been told that your body knows how much sleep
you need and that it will wake itself up when you have had enough...I do find
fault in the latter statement for I know when i was a teenager I could sleep
for 12 hours at a time if you wuold let me...

I am most comfortable with 8-9 hours of sleep/night.  Used to be 10-10.5
when I was in high school.  I usually cannot get enough sleep due to job
schedules.  I find there is usually an adjustment period during times of
limited sleep, after which I can get by with less (seems to take a couple
weeks for full acclimitization).

Longest sleep I can remember: 15 hours  (college frosh, after last final exam)

Longest period without sleep I can remember: 43 hours

Longest work week I can remember: 134 hours  (only 168 hrs/wk, you know)

Honey curls up to sleep...sssshhhhhhhhhh...don't wake me..ha haha i wish!!!!!

I get 6-7 hrs per night and I fall asleep like flipping a switch.  If I have
moderate amounts of coffee, I still go to sleep instantly, but I wake up
early, say after 3-4 hours.  If I have lots of coffee late in the evening,
I can't go to sleep, but I have no trouble getting up at the scheduled time
in the morning.  It seems like caffiene simply erases the need for sleep. 

This response has been erased.

I disagree, Vaalerie:  Sleep isn't a waste of time.  It's a time for
recharging our batteries.  And mine are run down pretty low!

I'd like about 8 hours a night.  I get a couple of "naps" usually.  I wake up
either to use the bathroom (the curse of pregnancy!) or cuz a kid is sick,
or whatever.  If I had time I could sleep anywhere, anytime.  In my
pre-pregnancy days even massive amounts of coffee didn't keep me up at
night.

I figure I should be aable to get a good night's sleep in another 3 years
or so.  

sleep?  what's sleep?

at this point i can fall asleep at the drop of a hat, and i sleep HARD.
this is because i don't have time to sleep...

I usually try and get 6-8 hours of sleep...

I'm one of those that does have sleeping problems, seems I go in cycles
of having insomnia--not a lot of fun, tha'ts for sure!

I just bought Melatonin 3 mg capsules.  Does anyone know when the best time
to take it is?  I don't have problems going to sleep but I wake repeatedly
during the night and have been trying to find a way to stay asleep for ages.
Wonder what woud appen if I took the Melatonin the first time I woke (which
is usually two to four hours after I fall asleep.)

Not sure of the timing, headdoc...will ask a friend who's been using it.
BTW have you had a sleep study done to eliminate the possibility of sleep
apnea? Just curious.

Yes, thank you otter.  Went through the whole thing at the Sleep Disorders
Clinic.  No Apnea.  No explanation for why I wake so often during the night.
I am now taking the Melatonin half an hour before I want to go to sleep.  I
fall asleep as usual, no probalem and wake two to three hours later and then
every hour or every other hour after.  Last night, I took another Melatonin
at 1:30.  Slept another two hours and then kept waking till I got up at 6 AM.
Most baffling, but from what I hear, not all that uncommon as one ages. I
would give a lot to have 6-8 hours of straight sleep, however.

how about the good ole cup of warm milk at night..:)?

I'm still battling chronic insomnia...nothing relaxes me.  The other night,
I took a Sominex out of desperation 'cause I had to get up early to drive to
Marquette, and I was still strung out from work.  (I work nights).  The pill
put me to sleep in about twenty minutes, and I woke up only slightly groggy.
I have, however, heard that taking sleeping pilss is not good for you, and
you can become reliant on them.  Is this true?  

you can become reliant on anything that you take.  some thins like sleeping
pills, you're body eventually learns "heh, i can't sleep WITHOUT them, so i'm
not even going to try!"  if you take them every so oft4en, AFTER you've tried
to fall asleep, you really will be better off

I have been an insomniac/night person my whole life. Lately I have been doing
ok during days but after dinner (around 7:30) I am ready for bed and could
sleep until 6:30 the next morning. Not sure what the deal is. I don't like
it. I think for awhile I wasn't getting enough sleep and my body is going "You
WILL sleep." I like Tylenol PMs but I have a hard time waking up with them
sometimes.

I find that I often have a hard time convincing myself to go to bed, even when
I'm getting tired, so I tend to stay up pretty late.  Then in the morning I
have a really hard time convincing myself to get out of bed, since it's so
comfortable.  I often end up getting about eight hours of sleep at a time.
I used to get a lot less when I was in high school and actually had to get
up in the morning.  Now I have a job where it doesn't matter when I'm there
as long as I get stuff done, so I generally don't have anything forcing me
to wake up.

Well, I've learned to survive on three to four hours of sleep per night.  The
things college can do to you...
(As for the pills...I only take one about every two weeks when I *just can't
sleep*)

Have you tried bundling up and drinking something warm? Raising your body
temperature might give you the "sleepies".

I have only been sleeping 2-3 hours a nite for the past
week.....Ughhh.....Somebody shoot me in the head plaese....

Sarah, you might try drinking chamomile or catnip tea about 1/2 hour before
you want to sleep.  Celestial Seasonings makes some good tea blends like
"Sleepy Time" and "Tension Tamer".

I'm lucky, I can sleep any where, any time also.  I get about 8 hours of sleep
a night, but it is interupted by my son, who has a sleep disorder.  He falls
to sleep and immediately goes in to the deep sleep stage.  He then spikes into
REM, which causes him to loose control of his bodily functions, Then falls
back into the deep sleep stage again.  Yes, he wets the bed.  We have him on
a program to teach him to sleep in more normal sleep patterns.  Unfortunately,
it involves an alarm that goes off and wakes me up (but most often does not
wake him up) sometimes two times in a night.  When you wake up periodically
in the night, it is better than if you fall into that very deep sleep stage.
You are more likely to fall into REM and then your mind will rejuvinate and
sort out information.  Just an example of how my son sleeps, One time I was
driving home from my Mom's (about 45 min,), he fell asleep in the car, I
brought him in the house and took his clothes off and put him in bed.. I
talked to a friend on the phone, decided to go to Jacksn (about 1 hour) and
put my son's clothes back on, put him in the car, drove, arrived, and put him
in a bed.  He did not wake up for any of it.  I had to make sure that I was
next to him when he woke up in the morning so he wouldn't be frightened,
because he would not know where we were at.  Anything could happen to him
while he is sleeping and he would never know.  He wouldn't even hear the smoke
detectors go off in the house at night.  Scary!

  I think it helps to sleep if you know what you are waking up to...I used
to hate alarms cause I knew my sleep would always end with them going off.
Then I tried waking up to the radio, but it always went off during a commercial
and its lousy to hear some loudmouth announcer first thing in the
morning.  Then I had the radio alarm set to npr and used to wake up
to news.  But I realized I dont want to hear ANY voices period in the
morning.  Solution: I bought a CD clock radio that I can put a CD in
and wake up to whatever track I want.  Sometimes I wake up to 
classical guitar, or mozart, or I'll put in an enya cd...something
cerebral and melodic.  If its like a weekend and I dont need to be
proded out of bed, I have a cd of sound effects, so I can wake up
to ocean waves or rain .etc  I find I'm not nearly as cranky waking
up if I can decide what I want to hear to rouse me.

Hmm, I like that idea, kerouac. The Self Care catalog has a light clock, which
slowly turns on like a sunrise to wake you. You wake up to light and not
sound, which they say makes you wake up better and less groggy/cranky. It also
has a beeping alarm though, just in case.

Alarms are *so* annoying, but I can't wake up to a song or voice...no matter
how loud.  If the sun doesn't wake me up, it has to be a sudden noise or
someone shaking me.  
Marsha -- I'll try the chamomile tea, but doesn't tea have caffeine?  Mostly,
my insomnia is due to wild thoughts running through my head...everyday stress,
how I'm going to solve a problem, etc...  Maybe I'll try Kae's idea and make
hot chocolate.  =)

Our alarm clock consists of four paws and an insistent whiny meow.

My alarm clock turns on both a lamp and a radio, with the radio playing NPR
news.  About 15 minutes before that, however, a plant light in the next room
turns on.  I usually listen to the news for about 10 minutes before getting
out of bed.

Waking up to a beeping or buzzing alarm is *very* annoying.

I kind of miss Jerod...  He would come over after his eight a.m. class to wake
me up for my ten o'clock.  It was wonderful waking up to a man gently rubbing
my shoulder and kissing my cheek.  =)  Of course, there was that morning I
was being *extremely* lazy, and he ended up pouring a large handful of snow
on me.  <bg>

Chelsea has the best kind of alarm clock! 

Well, it'd be nicer if it didn't insist on going off at 5 a.m.
every day.

Note to otter and redfox -- The past two nights, I've made myself a cup of
hot chocolate when I got home from work.  It worked like a charm!  Within a
half hour to an hour, my eyes were heavy, and I was yawning.  =)  Thanks a
bunch!

I suppose, remmers. I had an alarm clock that actually put her butt in my face
to wake me up... after visiting the litter box too. Nothing is more horrible
than waking up to a cat's hiney in your face.

Well, waking to sound of a cat puking could be worse, perhaps... :)

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