Sleeping rituals and other demands

[Aalo]

I'd like to think of sleeping as good escape from reality, but it isn't an easy journey to start as there are so much to carefully consider. No-one ever understood my sleeping rituals before, some of you might. Is anyone else having a hard time preparing yourself ready to sleep? Are there any special features, like temperature or lightning, that need to be just right in order for yo to be able to feel good enough to calm? Do yo need certain kind of clothes to sleep comfy? If you sleep with a partner, how do you prefer?

As much as some people tell that sleeping naked is nice, I couldn't ever. It's not only that I feel extremely uncomfortable when skin touching and therefore need always to use long hem pants and usually shirts (t-shirts and camis are sometimes ok), but also any small wrinkling on sheets feels so annoying to bare skin, that it has to be covered. Long pajama pants are also great at heat, because they're easier to wash than all sheets at once. I'll also have to put on lotion all over, so that I won't be triggered by itches and wake up scratched to blood. I can be not getting any sleep at whole night when itchy. Dry feet can specially get to nerves. Also to avoid finding blood under my fingernails in the morning I often use cotton gloves at night.

I've also used sedatives to help fall asleep for some times. At times of bad insomnia they didn't help me from waking up in the middle of the night thou. Now even slight stress won't bother too much.Almost any lightning conditions are fine by me, but with sensitive hearing I can't manage that good. I either need ear tubes (that make my ear canal sore for whole next day) or white noise, some music on really low volume. Adjusting that volume can be frustrating, because the music shouldn't be too loud to steal all attention, but still not silent to have some effect.
It shouldn't be too hot either. I can't remember smells bothering me. Doing sports or eating doesn't seem to affect as long as long as I'm not peculiarly hungry.

Or does not sleeping well just make you feel ill the next day?

 

[King_Oni]

I usually sleep naked or with some short sweatpants on. Or my boxers. I can't sleep when I'm warm, so I try to wear as little as possible. I don't mind wrinkles and all in the sheets... if I'm comfy, I can easily fall asleep whatever the situation is. Unless;

My girlfriend is over. I sleep about 2 hours when she's around and I'll get up and do something else. I can't sleep with other people in bed for some reason. Body heat of others wakes me. And I tend to move around a lot so bumping into others is pretty much insta-wake. Snoring, breathing, anything... but luckily my girlfriend doesn't come over a lot (like once or twice a month), so I can manage that a bit.. especially since I don't have anything else going on like a job. Quite sure if I have a job, her sleeping over will be over. Weirdly enough, it really depends, I've hard girlfriends with whom I could sleep fine. Or at least, better and more.

I usually put on either a airfiltration unit or a ceiling fan as a "sleeping" thing to create white noise for noisy people in the house. My computer is on pretty much 24/7, so that creates some noise.

I don't take meds to sleep, but I usually can go from awake to sleepy within minutes. And I really like to listen to my body and go to bed when I feel I need to sleep. But I'm so out of 24 hour cycles I sometimes don't sleep for 40 hours until I need my fix... it's how I work best.

I've noticed that I sleep a bit better when I burn incense sticks, preferably Opium, since I like that one most.

Oh, and I should mention... I cannot sleep at other places than my own bed. It just... doesn't work. I've tried.. well "sleeping around" ex girlfriends, crashed at friends places, but I just didn't have a good rest.

 

[_Josh_]

I has sleep rituals as well. First of all, I too have to be truly sleepy to fall alseep, and although I don't stay up for 40 hours like King_Oni said, 18-20 hours of awake time without some sort of sleep aid (melatonin or diphenhydramine) is usually when I get sleepy, and I need 8 hours rest to feel good when I get up. I do sometimes stay up for upwards of 24 hours on occasion, needing about 10 hours of sleep to feel rested after. When I was younger I would stay up longer, 36-48 hours quite often but just can't do it anymore. I also have trouble staying asleep though during times of insomnia and will wake up after 4-5 hours and feel really crappy, cranky, and tired all day. I cannot even go back to sleep usually if I wake up and need to use the bathroom or am thirsty. I take precautions there, use the bathroom before I go to bed and keep a big cup of water, kool-aid, whatever beverage I have without caffeine on my table.

Light is something that I have to reduce as much as possible for me to sleep well, I'll close my curtain and turn off lights, but oddly I have a hard time falling asleep without my TV on, though I set the timer to turn it off after an hour since it usually takes me about 45 minutes to fall asleep if I am able. QUite often though I'll lay there and think for hours. The TV thing I would say is a white noise aspect of it, covers noises from others in the house. I used to use a fan but it has since died and I haven't gotten another one yet.

I cannot sleep with pajamas on, and sleep either naked or in boxers, pajamas pants tend to roll up my legs which annoys me and wakes me up, and a shirt will twist up on me as I tend to move/roll around while I sleep. I practically live in my room so I sleep on a couch rather than a bed, though beyond having a couch to set on and watch movies/TV, play games, read, surf the internet, well.. do everything that I do, rather than a bed with no comfortable back, I like the support of the back of a couch to sort of lean against while sleeping.

I have a oil-filled electric radiator in my room for heat as the rest of the house is heated by a wood stove and I keep my door closed.. It would get really cold in my room during winter. I turn it down really low before I lay down, though as I can't sleep without a blanket on me, the heavier the blanket the better, yet I need to be cool to sleep.

Pillow wise, I use a fairly flat pillow and don't like the big thick overstuffed pillows that tend to be popular. Hard to find a nice pillow actually. I've actually cut open pillows and removed some of the stuffing to get the desired thickness.

I also cannot sleep at all in a bed other than my own. When staying at other's houses (which I only rarely do) I just stay up until the next day and sleep when I get home. In hotels on trips, I've gone as far as make a pallet in the bathroom of the hotel room, which helped for some strange reason I am yet to understand. On a hard tile floor no less.

 

[King_Oni]

Oh the blanket thing actually is something that goes for me as well. I can't sleep without a blanket, but it shouldn't keep me too warm.. like sweaty warm.

Pillows... I have 5 or so... and I sometimes think I don't have enough.

 

[Aalo]

I cannot sleep with pajamas on, and sleep either naked or in boxers, pajamas pants tend to roll up my legs which annoys me and wakes me up.

Oh yeah, terrible. I use socks to lock hems down (also keeps moisturized feet not massing whole bed), or have rubber band sewn to all of my pants. Of course it can't be too tight either.

I did remember only after reading different sleeping cycles from both of you, that last summer I tried several different alternative sleep cycles. Maybe the best for me was to stay up for 10-11 hours, then sleep 4, which I mostly managed to fit with society's opening times also. Wold love to get back to that.

 

[Biblio-Love]

My hubby and I go to bed at the same time every night. I prefer to sleep naked or mostly naked, and he sleeps in boxers. I'm a bit like a puppy, the way they squirm and lay all over each other. I pile on top of him, or throw a leg or arm over his. I need to be touching him at all times. It makes me feel safe, although he accuses me of trying to throw him out of bed because he keeps trying to squish over and I keep invading his space. I fall asleep best when laying on him. He sometimes complains that he gets too hot, but since I'm always cold - we balance out.

Aaah - now you got me thinking about sleep. I LOVE sleep.

 

[Flinty]

7:00 Take psych meds, turn on alarm (Sun-Thurs) - that way I remember that I took my meds.
9:45 Take decongestant pill.
10:00 Brush teeth, shave, use toilet, apply deodorant (I need to). In that order.
10:10 Change socks (you have no idea how important this is), turn on fan, turn out light.
11:something Actually fall asleep.

Adjust to something much later on Friday, and a little later on Saturday. Sleep in underwear and socks. Have two pillows, sometimes need more.

Other than that, it's not ritualized at all. :tongue:

 

[anne.bc]

I take my birth control, my Zyrtec, and melatonin, usually in that order because it's pretty much order of importance. :giggle2:

I sleep in lounge pants and a random shirt, sometimes just a shirt if it's too hot in my room.

EDIT: Oh hey! It's my 100th post! :wavespin: :bounce: :spin: :dance: :showoff: :laugh: :biggrin: :angelic:

 

[Lector Tiberius]

I usally go to bed alot like the lunar excursion module landed on the moon. A slow , steady desent into the world of slumber. Infact there's even beeping and the sound of my body executing "sleep commands" Milly - my cat usally docks somewhere beside me but remains "online" through out the night

 

[Loomis]

I like to sleep on the floor with a thick bedspread underneath me to provide insulation. Beds are too soft. The only problem is my dogs consider this is an invitation to join me.

 

[avodateinu]

I have a hard time falling asleep, so just like a few others, I have to be really tired. My main problem is that my brain doesn't shut down. It keeps wandering off and sometimes hits a painful memory or starts planning the next day and I can't fall asleep after that. So when I get to bed, I have a dream I want to fall into (which never happens, but I dream it anyway till I fall asleep).

I fall asleep best when I'm read a story to. Hard to find volunteers, though! I love listening to Stephen Fry's Harry Potter but then I need someone to turn it off when I've drifted off.

I sleep in my pj pants and a cotton t-shirt (long sleeve, if it's too cold). I have a blanket and a fabulous quilt my mom made me, which is pretty heavy so I use it as a weight blanket. Since I live in a country of a perpetual winter, I don't get very hot under two blankets, however come summer, I'll have to change that. I'd rather have less clothes but more blankets.

I always sleep with ear plugs because I live in a noisy apartment building in a noisy city. I don't use lotion because I'm fine with touching fabric (granted that the fabric is cotton).

My roommate smokes in the kitchen, so when she comes into the room, she wakes me up with the stink. It sends me into a sleepy nervous breakdown and I have a very hard time falling asleep after that. I prefer for her to go to bed before me but she just wouldn't. So that is the major reason why I sleep badly. Thank goodness, I'm moving out in 52 days.

 

[umbrellabeach]

I have to be warm, so unless my room is unusually warm, I wear socks to bed and then tuck my pant legs into them so they don't ride up my legs overnight. I also have to wear lip balm, otherwise I wake up too early and with dry lips.

 

[Aalo]

I've never really liked sleeping touching another person, napping will do, but I like sleep spooning my larger dog. He's soft and warm. Feeling him near also eases to fall asleep.

It seems that air circulation is better, and surely cooler, at floor. I also abandoned elevated bed some time ago and now just sleep on a mattress lying on the floor. But I've noticed that stomping (how do they walk like that?) resonances from neighbor sometimes disturb me as they're more easily detected near structural surfaces.

 

[Biblio-Love]

I have to be warm, so unless my room is unusually warm, I wear socks to bed and then tuck my pant legs into them so they don't ride up my legs overnight. I also have to wear lip balm, otherwise I wake up too early and with dry lips.

I wear lip balm every night too, for the same reason. I take my melatonin, put on lip balm, then tie my hair up with a soft scrunchy. I don't like the felling of a lump at the back of my head, but my hair gets really knotted as it is so long, so I pile it on top my head with something soft.

 

[SUM1]

I unfortunately normally end up sleeping at about 3am, even though I have to be up by 7 for school. I usually sleep with quite a bit of clothing on, including my pyjamas, but also my dressing gown and socks too. For a while, I also used to have a shirt and thermo-leggings underneath all that too. I also always have to have my lamp on and my radio on through the night, and although I can sleep without it, I prefer to have my blind open too. That's it really.

 

[Cuppa' Tea]

I'm intensely picky about sleeping, and an incredibly light sleeper. I have to have the room completely dark so I have light blocking shades, and a blindfold. (My sister uses one too. We call them "sleepy eyes" in our house) I am really sensitive to noise, so I use earplugs and sometimes even a fan for the white noise. I love sleeping under heavy pressure, but I forgo it because I cannot afford a weighted blanket right now, and using multiple comforters and blankets (six heavy comforters, and a sheet feels good) gets too hot. I need to be cool.