Anyone else become a Night Owl?

[Patze]

I've always been a "night owl" as well, and its really gotten bad since the beginning of this mess.  Used to be able to sleep a few hours and bounce up and go to the job and then partying after...aaahhhhhhh, the memories!   Anyway, would love to be able to sleep through the night again, but it ain't happening any time soon.

Make that three that are very happy that you're not meditating while driving Joe!


Patze

[Meld256]

I think this is interesting.  Seems that many of us have this same situation. 

When I first started having health issues, and was diagnosed with Fibro I became very familiar with that symptom, "unrefreshing sleep".  I could sleep for 10-12 hours at a time, and wake feeling worse than when I went to bed.  It amazed me!  I yearned for the days (just 3 years ago) when I could drop into bed, fall asleep, get up 7 hours later and be ready to go all day long. 

That may never happen again.  So this is how we adapt.  I feel blessed for the times I feel like doing some of what I want and enjoy, and if it happens to be at 3 a.m., so be it! I'm really glad this little SW cafe is open 24 hours. 

[irish]

The remark about "not being good for you" by that doctor refers to the fact that people who work nights are high risk for health issues. Working nights just raises havoc with our bodies.Our circadian rhythms get shot to he double toothpicks.

My sister worked nights for many years and it darned near killed her off.She is a nurse and would come home and sleep a couple of hours and then get up and haul the kids to wherever they needed to go. Go home and sleep another hour or two and then go back and get them. She slept i spurts like that for several years as the kids were growing up. Mix that schedule with lack of sleep and regular Coke to stay awake and health ain't gonna happen. She is younger than me but got high blood pressure and diabetes long before I did and probably from the night shift.

I had a doctor years ago tell me never to work the night shift. I think he knew that I was autoimmune but at that time they didn't know that much about it. He just felt that I should never donate blood or work nights as my system was not able to take it. Of course, the next job I got was working nights on OB. lol  We can't always do as we are told due to finances.  Irish

[eyeamdry]

I am a night owl.  I always felt I was a night-person working an 8-5 job and I was.  I'd stay up late @midnight and get up @6am, be to work by 8am.  Home by 5:30 pm and in bed until 8pm for a 2 hr nap.  Then up until midnight.

I stopped working about 6 years ago and have been quite sick sick since.  Hubby and both I retired in this time.  Well, he is used to getting up at 4 or 5 am to leave for work and still gets up at this time.  Sometimes I am up and down 3 or 4 times a night and am really going to bed as he is getting up for the day.  Needless to say, I sleep all day at times.

Sometimes I really don't get much real sleep and many days he puts the tv on and gets another 2 or 3hours in his recliner.  We are the only ones here, so it doesn't hurt much.  He is very capable of cooking and usually gets me up for breakfast by 1 or 2 pm if I am still sleeping.  He will cut up fresh fruit for me and it is delicious.  Or make a bowl of cereal and grapefruit half.  He goes to the gym for an hour 5 days a week and is usually back by 7 am.  I am sometimes still up.  I think there is something in us ingrained that just can't be changed.  Lucy

PS.  Whether it has anything to do with our AI or not, who knows?

[Linda196]

Irish.you must be my long lost sister! You just described my lifestyle when the kids were growing up, to a "T". Only difference is, I worked nights by choice long before the kids, and continued it long after they were independent. Oddly enough, I had to add days when I took a full time job, and that's when I really started having trouble with my health (if you don't count the 18 month sick leave starting 9 months after my baby was born, Sarcoidosis Dx time).

I didn't work any more hours full time than I did part time, averaging 60 hours a week, so that probably wasn't the reason I started having more uncontrolled symptoms, and for the first time in my life my BP became very labile..shooting from 90/60 to 190/100 in a matter of hours, then dropping just as fast (thats no fun for sure!) It was also while I was working a day/night rotation that my kidneys decided to try to fail, I had a stroke, and eventually my SjS made an appearance, since I worked that rotation until I was forced into retirement.

Now that I'm retired, I seem to act more like a "normal" person, to bed and quickly to sleep around midnight, usually for 8 hours, but sometimes (must be nostalgia) I simply stay awake all night, if I have a particularly interesting book or project. In times of need, I can still go up to 2 1/2 days with only "cat naps" and that has served me well in times of family problems, when a loved one needed someone with them in hospital for example. Of course that usually led to a week or more in bed and a bump in Prednisone, once the problem came to its conclusion, but I personally think I would have felt worse (physically and emotionally) if I hadn't been there.

Unfortunately, my hubby is as far from a night owl as is possible, bed by 9PM, up at 5AM..we've referred to our life together as shift work... he looks after the world from dawn to dusk, then I take over! Luckily we both enjoy our alone time, as well as the time we share.

[really?]

I havent slept normal since all this stuff hit me,, I have what I call the black sleep,, no dreams,, just pass out and now its awake at 3am, never to go back to sleep, seems the days pain hits about then,, then the draining starts, its the same old routine,, day in day out, sucks,, my wife and kids could sleep there life away,, used to get by with just a few hours of sleep, bounce out of bed and spend teh day just lovinglife,, those days are long gone,, no joy in mudville

[Meld256]

Irish,

You bringing up the circadian rhythms made me think of the shift work my ex-husband and many others like him worked at a steel mill. 
They have finally made changes, but it was a grueling schedule:  One week of day shift, 6 a.m.-2 p.m. two days off, one week of 3 p.m.-11p.m. one day off and a week of nights, 11 p.m.-6 a.m.  They had from Thurs. night off (so Fri.-Sunday) and then start back on days.  This was the norm, over and over.  Maybe no wonder he was "grumpy." 

[Chickpea]

Hi Melinda and everybody else too!

This is a great thread - yet another of those things that I thought was just 'me' and then I discover it's possibly part of the SjS story.  I'm often tired around 10 pm and if I can get to sleep then I may have a normal-ish night.  But most of the time I'm busy reading or watching TV or on the internet, and I get a second wind.  Then I can happily stay awake until 3 a.m.  I get 4-5 hours sleep but if possible I doze off again mid morning, and mid afternoon!  Like many others here it's usually pain that wakes me.

Melinda - my father-in-law worked similar shifts to your ex:  a week of mornings, a week of afternoons and a week of nights was how he termed it.  He also worked overtime in the factory if he could get it, including triple time on Christmas day.  What a life!

Take care - Chickpea

[really?]

I worked shift work also for years, 7 on, 2 off,, 7 on 2 off 7 on 3 days off, by the 4th midnight shift I dint know if i was coming or going,,

[kimbo]

Yeah! You are all making me feel normal. 
I have always been a night owl, also.
I read a news article on "quick sleepers" and decided I might be a quick sleeper.
My husband can get a long night sleep, and seem tired in the morning.
I can get 4 hours, wake and feel totally ready.
Even if I take something to help me sleep, I may get up in 5-6 hours and be wide awake and ready. With the exception in times of fatigue flares.
Because of this, when I am flared, I really fill the difference.
And recently when thyroid issues arose, it seems to cause me to be wide awake all the time.
Joe, I do the deep breathing with; breathing in "be still" and out "and know"
But I have never tried closing my eyes and looking to the top of my head .

[Meld256]

really?  So you know that awful schedule all too well!  Were you ever able to adjust to it?  Like you said, not knowing if you were coming or going...I'll bet lots of people felt that way and that's kind of scary, huh?  Like these guys, sometimes working with huge vats of molten steel, railroad cars, etc.

It sounds strange to say now, but back then hundreds of people had that shift, and it seemed normal.  If we ran into someone, the conversation always included something like "when's your long weekend? Maybe we can get together."

Chickpea, I had no idea we'd get so many responses to this. I just started thinking one night *I can't be the ONLY one* 
Hope you have a good Friday, all.

[Meld256]

Yes, you're normal, kimbo.

I have my schedule, (which is NO schedule) totally out of whack this week.  Twice I have stayed up all day and night and into the next day.  Then I sleep for 10-12 hours straight, and the next day I'm up again for 24 hours straight or longer.  Now THAT is not normal... think I'll try some new ideas to go to bed when I think I'm not sleepy and see what happens.

[really?]

I didnt mind teh afternoon shift in the spring,, I could spend my time trout fishing in the morning,, daylight shift wasent to bad in the winter, I never went anywhere after work anyway,, and the roads were usually clear, Midnight shift ws ok during deer season,, i would get off at 7am which left me alot of time to hunt,, and I made sure I got a catnap in during work,, and since I was in maint, (electrician),, we didnt have to do a lot unless we had a breakdown somewhere,, usually a crane or the electric blast furnace,
  BUT,, I NEVER got used to 7 in a row,, when I worked in teh steel mill,, it was horrible after about 5 of them, I got goofy,, didnt pay attention, and that was noplace to lose your train of thought,, lot of guys taken out of tehre either by ambulance or the morgue, you just got stupid,

[really?]

Yes, you're normal, kimbo.

I have my schedule, (which is NO schedule) totally out of whack this week.  Twice I have stayed up all day and night and into the next day.  Then I sleep for 10-12 hours straight, and the next day I'm up again for 24 hours straight or longer.  Now THAT is not normal... think I'll try some new ideas to go to bed when I think I'm not sleepy and see what happens.

Some white noise,, cool room and a horrible book, you will fall asleep,,

[kimbo]

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