Late night early morning thoughts

Hello everyone I listened to a Miss Read audiobook at 4.10 this morning and felt better. Who could be worried in Fairacre or Lulling!!! Drifted off around 4.50 I think! Thank you again Joelsnan xx

I too, like another poster, listen to Radio 4 Extra or Radio 4 or 5. I have them on most of the night, awake or asleep. I wake every hour or two as am arthritic and need to change position and then need the loo etc . Sometimes the programme keeps me awake if good, or if good I fall asleep and miss one I'd like, or it annoys me so I change station as that stops me sleeping. It does stop me worrying and thinking though.

I usually get to sleep quite easily (looking after 3 grandkiddies on a daily basis does the trick) but I do sometimes wake around 3-4 am for no apparent reason. I find it quite hard to get back to sleep, possibly because I worry I might not hear the alarm and, because I am not up everyone else will be late (I live with my daughter and grandkiddies and am first up/get breakfast ready etc for them all). I don't have any worries going around in my head, it's really annoying when it happens but fortunately it is only rarely that it does.

I was told by a doctor that when these worries come into your mind you should deep breath and tell yourself "I'm fine" and keep repeating this. Works for me

I too am a 430 waker-upper. But... DH loathes me reading/listening to anything, so I get up, watch all the TV I have to catch up on, read books, sew, read the paper... then have a nap after lunch. It works for me.
I wish I didn't need to get up that early though - if DH has a cold and I sleep next door, I have Classic FM on almost inaudibly and it soothes me to sleep. Problem is that DH can't sleep without me, and I have difficulties sleeping with him! Guess who gives in?

I dont go to bed early these days, like my "own time" first, then if I am not really tired, I go through the day, maybe concerned or worried about different things, so keeping me awake, but then when I waken, things dont seem so bad at all. I am glad I dont waken up at 4am, and I know I am not alone having difficulty getting off! Pleasant dreams everyone out there.

I am another one who has trouble with negative thoughts during the night and when I awake in the morning. I worry about my future as the children have now left the nest and I now feel redundant. I don't know where I am going in life any more and feel like I am drifting aimlessly. During the day I cope and take pleasure from what the day holds. I hope with time I will adjust to my current situation.

Oh, those dark, dark hours.....

caramel start a thread?

gransnetters I am sure will fill you in with ideas!

I was always a good sleeper. My Dad used to say I went on a short course of death ! That was until about 2 years ago. I first posted on here then asking for advice on how to help GD1 who was having trouble with friends(!) At school. I would be awake much of the night worrying about her. Now any little niggle or worry about anything will wake me at silly o'clock. I suppose it is now a habit. Sometimes I quite like the peace of those hours.

It is a comfort of sorts, to know how normal this is, please remember, that whatever you did, at the time, was what you thought was for the best. 'The past is a foreign country' and we view it through an anxious lens at times.......

I'm a three a.m. one churning things over. Never listened to Desert Island discs before I started waking early. So, earpieces on my phone ready to tune in to BBC I Player. Heard some really good episodes from people I've never heard of. Then there is Sounds of the sixties if I've missed one and oh all sorts of programmes to discover. If I'm awake at 5 I start the day with radio 2. No wonder I don't sleep, too much excitement on my phone! !

I read somewhere once that this sleep pattern, falling asleep easily but waking in the small hours and being unable to drop off again, is a typically female form of insomnia. I certainly suffer from it, and any worries seem enormous. I have the radio on with headphones which helps a bit.

Your brain chemistry is doolally at that time of night. How many times have you worried yourself sick at four in the morning only to dismiss the fears as groundless when the morning finally arrives?

Most people get these night fears but, when you wake, you should tell yourself that they are a product of chemicals and hormones and that you need to 'change the subject'. I find it hard myself as they seem so real but I have got better over time at saying 'Stop this now, it isn't real.'

My DH says he makes himself think of a journey he has done and it usually sends him back to sleep. But that's men for you. Simple and easily made happy.

Great thread for me I had no idea this was such a common thing, I've always thought of myself as a 'worrier' but perhaps I don't worry anymore than anybody else. I read the other day that out ancestors got up in the night for a couple of hours and worked or busied themselves so maybe this 3/4 o'clock waking is a hangover from that and quite normal.

There is a reason why, when the secret police call to arrest a political dissident, they do it between 3.00am and 4.00am. It is because the cycle of sleep means that we are psychologically at our most vulnerable and I think this is why if we wake at that time we tend to end up with woory thought patterns about the real and the irrelevant.

I read at bedtime and usually sleep well for a few hours, but I also have that ' wake up and worry ' time clock. Then I tell myself there is nothing I can do about it at that time of the morning, so I pick up the book again, read a chapter, then when I turn the light out I try to work out how the story is going to end. It takes my mind off the original worry and usually sends me to sleep.
I'm glad I'm not the only one with this problem!

Elrel, you and I have the same sleep problem. When I start worrying about the "should haves and could haves" I am so unhappy it takes ages to get to sleep, and here we are, thinking that it's just us with this problem. We know it's too late to change whatever has gone before but it doesn't stop us fretting. If we think about our actions at the time we know whatever we did was right at the time. Reading before bed-time probably helps, it certainly makes me more sleepy.

Don't fret, BartonLady.

I do it, and we all do it.

It's literally all in the mind....we must learn to live with it. These thoughts won't harm us, and may even make us better human beings.

Another night time worrier here. My problem is dropping off to sleep, start thinking about every thing that is wrong and then there's no hope of sleeping. I switch on the light to read again sometimes 4 or 5 times. As soon as I read I start falling asleep but when I turn the light off I'm wide awake with brain going round in circles

Another one to add to the list! 3 - 4 is the 'witching' hour. All thoughts and worries are magnified, the brain goes into overdrive but the next day the problems and worries seem minuscule compared to the problems of the world. I try not to get up and 'do something else' which was always the advice. The latest is to sit tight, not put on the light and to concentrate on your breathing, the idea being presumably that boredom will set in and sleep will overtake you. Still waiting for it to happen

You have all been so lovely my GN friends! I thank you again with all my heart for taking time to reply and share. When I wake up in the early hours i'll think of you all doing the same and send you comforting thoughts knowing I'm not alone
xx

A warm drink and a (refreshed) hot-water bottle often works for me.

Yes I do too, often awake then and think about my son who died my parents who are gone too. Sometimes I drift back off to sleep again.

May I suggest that perhaps you early wakers listen to Steve Allen on LBC 4 - 7 am