Not wanting to go to sleep
 

Alright, a couple of things first...

1) I love sleeping. When I can sleep in, I love sleeping a long time. I love naps. Generally, I think sleeping rules.

2) I have no trouble falling asleep. I fall asleep great at night. I get on a plane, I can fall right asleep. I actually have trouble falling asleep when in bed w/ someone new, but that's a whole different topic.

So, on to the main topic.

It is often SUPER HARD for me to make myself go to sleep. Like, to actually get in bed. Now, once I do, no problems going to sleep. I usually read for half an hour, then quickly fall asleep. And I love it.

But up until that point, I will do just about anything to keep from going to sleep. Surf the web. Watch crappy whatever on TV. Play Flash games. Chat w/ random people. Go through email. Read some blogs. Sometimes I will do this even when insanely tired. During the weekdays it's not that big a deal because I always have something in the morning and I can make myself go to sleep by a certain cutoff based on when I know I need to get up. But when I don't need to get up the next day, I will often waste a number of hours doing ridiculous crap at the tail end of my day that would be SO SO SO much better spent either sleeping or doing stuff earlier the next day.

How many of you have this same problem?

Re: Not wanting to go to sleep
 

I have had this problem forever.

Re: Not wanting to go to sleep
 

I do the same thing. I hate sleeping though. I mean I like the feeling of being refreshed from sleeping but wasting time sleeping suck imo. When I have nothing to do the next day, I sometimes stay up all night for no reason.

Re: Not wanting to go to sleep
 

Wow, not only do I have this same exact problem but I was considering making a post about it. I think I do it mainly for the same reasons - if I know I have a lot of stuff to do the next day I just stay awake the night before to put it off. It sucks because I end up not getting enough sleep and being a zombie the next day. Basically we probably just need to stop being so lazy I think.

Re: Not wanting to go to sleep
 

El D,

I have a terrible time with this. I'll stay up doing something that's not anywhere close to important, even if I DO have something to do the next day. On the weekends, it's ok, because I can often sleep as late as I want. During the week though, this leads to lots of days where I'm really tired, because I've only slept 4-5 hours the night before. When it comes to bedtime, I've got no discipline. Once I'm there, I'm out, no problem. It's just the actual "stop what you are doing and go to bed" part that I struggle with.

It's especially aggravating, since I really feel like I could do better at work if I was more well-rested, but at the time I'm doing this pointless stuff, it seems much more important than sleeping

Re: Not wanting to go to sleep
 

El Diablo,

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How many of you have this same problem?

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Why do you consider it a problem? Are you not sleeping enough?

-McGee

Re: Not wanting to go to sleep
 

Masked Man:

I have almost the same problem, except I can't get to sleep, either. Spider Solitaire, Diablo II, History Channel...I suspect it's some type of sickness.

Re: Not wanting to go to sleep
 

miajag is a mod now?

Re: Not wanting to go to sleep
 

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I have had this problem forever.

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Re: Not wanting to go to sleep
 

I gave up trying to put myself on a schedule. When I am tired I just sleep (naps, longer hours...). I have it in my head that if I sleep longer I will liver longer.

Re: Not wanting to go to sleep
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I have had this problem forever.

[/ QUOTE ]

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Re: Not wanting to go to sleep
 

Have exact same problem it fuks me constantly

Re: Not wanting to go to sleep
 

Misread OP, disregard, my mistake.

Re: Not wanting to go to sleep
 

Still a problem for me, but used to be much worse 'til I decided to replace my "before going to bed" activities (usually mindless / fun / stimulating stuff like watching TV, surfing Internets, chatting with people) with much more boring / potentially "productive" stuff. Like to-do lists for the next day, or bills, or something. It has helped.

Guess this is pretty obvious, but the big killer for me was always TV. Cutting that out for the most part was pretty good choice imo.

-Al

Re: Not wanting to go to sleep
 

[ QUOTE ]
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I eventually stopped considering this a problem and just accepted it.

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Re: Not wanting to go to sleep
 

[ QUOTE ]
Still a problem for me, but used to be much worse 'til I decided to replace my "before going to bed" activities (usually mindless / fun / stimulating stuff like watching TV, surfing Internets, chatting with people) with much more boring / potentially "productive" stuff. Like to-do lists for the next day, or bills, or something.

[/ QUOTE ]

quadrant two activities FTW

Re: Not wanting to go to sleep
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
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I have had this problem forever.

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Re: Not wanting to go to sleep
 

[ QUOTE ]
Alright, a couple of things first...

1) I love sleeping. When I can sleep in, I love sleeping a long time. I love naps. Generally, I think sleeping rules.

2) I have no trouble falling asleep. I fall asleep great at night. I get on a plane, I can fall right asleep. I actually have trouble falling asleep when in bed w/ someone new, but that's a whole different topic.

So, on to the main topic.

It is often SUPER HARD for me to make myself go to sleep. Like, to actually get in bed. Now, once I do, no problems going to sleep. I usually read for half an hour, then quickly fall asleep. And I love it.

But up until that point, I will do just about anything to keep from going to sleep. Surf the web. Watch crappy whatever on TV. Play Flash games. Chat w/ random people. Go through email. Read some blogs. Sometimes I will do this even when insanely tired. During the weekdays it's not that big a deal because I always have something in the morning and I can make myself go to sleep by a certain cutoff based on when I know I need to get up. But when I don't need to get up the next day, I will often waste a number of hours doing ridiculous crap at the tail end of my day that would be SO SO SO much better spent either sleeping or doing stuff earlier the next day.

How many of you have this same problem?

[/ QUOTE ]

i have this problem as well, mostly with 2p2 at 2am when I have work the next day

Re: Not wanting to go to sleep
 

[ QUOTE ]
The best thing to do to fall assleep when you can't is to find the most boring text book you have in your entire cabinet from school, and to sit down and read it while you are in your bed. Try an economics book. I guarentee you get so bored you fall assleep. I probably wont have a follow up post because NT! is going to ban me for the other thread i posted to flex his e-muscle. Take it easy El D.

[/ QUOTE ]Falling asleep isn't the problem. Just going to bed is. I like to turn on history channel ftw puts me out quick.

Re: Not wanting to go to sleep
 

[ QUOTE ]
The best thing to do to fall assleep when you can't is to find the most boring text book you have in your entire cabinet from school, and to sit down and read it while you are in your bed. Try an economics book. I guarentee you get so bored you fall assleep. I probably wont have a follow up post because NT! is going to ban me for the other thread i posted to flex his e-muscle. Take it easy El D.

[/ QUOTE ]

Whoosh. Re-read the OP, dude.

Re: Not wanting to go to sleep
 

Gentlemen, I have your solution: children. Spend long enough not knowing when you're next going to need to be awake, and you will dive for the bed at every opportunity.

Seriously, some days when I wake up my first thought is "Man, I can't wait to go to sleep tonight."

Re: Not wanting to go to sleep
 

El D,

I was just wondering about this to myself last night. I too love sleeping, and used to nap regularly in college. I should be in bed by midnight (11 would be optimal) most weekdays, but constantly find myself chatting or surfing blogs or playing playstation until 1-2. It's really affecting my performance at work.

Same goes on weekends. I'm often up until 5 with no reason to be, then I sleep wicked late. None of my chores get done and it takes me longer to "get going". If I went to bed between 2-3 and "slept in" until 11, I would be much better off.

I definitely think it's a problem. I look at my father, a guy who has gone to bed by 9 p.m. his whole life, gets up at 3:30, goes to work, comes home, works some more around the house, and generally packs his day and is never dragging ass. I really need to find a way to focus and force myself to do this, at least to some extent.

Re: Not wanting to go to sleep
 

Econo:

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Quadrant 2 activities are important but not urgent. Working in this Quadrant is the heart of personal time management. Activities in these areas are preparation, prevention, planning, relationship-building, intentional recreation, and values clarification.

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Except for the bolded part (wtf is "intentional" recreation and how is that managing your time?) I like it!

-Al

Re: Not wanting to go to sleep
 

I have this problem AND I can't go to sleep easily.

Plus I never take naps.

Sleeping is such a waste of time. Why can't our bodies be efficient without having to shut down for ~1/3 of the day?

Re: Not wanting to go to sleep
 

I definitely have this problem. I was convinced that the reason was the insomnia I dealt with for 20+ years. But though the wonders of modern medicine have dealt with that problem I still find myself not wanting to go to bed. Again, until just now I figured it was just ingrained in me due to my past troubles, but apparently not.

Re: Not wanting to go to sleep
 

I have to mess this up for like 2 weeks straight to get myself to start getting into bed before midnight. Not allowing myself to sit on the couch after work was a good move for a while.

I find the problem is that when I come home from work I want to go to bed, like right away. So I make myself stay up, but I'm tired. Then I feel awake around 8-9, start doing stuff, then when I finish whatever I'm doing (gym/movie/games/poker, etc.) it's midnight and I hit the DVR.

The only time I didn't have this problem was one summer when I was working/taking classes. My econ prof was talking to me about this same thing and he mentioned how one of his friends transformed his week into a 6 day week. He was a prof so the hours worked. Basically it meant he could sleep longer, but less often. And he loved it. If I was a pro poker player this is how I would probably set my week up.

I couldn't do this. So instead I would go to bed every night between 3 and 3:30AM. Get up at 8. I would get home between 4 and 5 pm and nap for 2 hours. I felt so good this whole time. I haven't done it since then because I've been working more hours/a lot busier, but if my poor habits of trying to squeeze in 1k hands or an entire playoffs on 2minute quarter madden past 1am continues, some drastic measures will be made.

Re: Not wanting to go to sleep
 

Diablo:

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I actually have trouble falling asleep when in bed w/ someone new, but that's a whole different topic.

[/ QUOTE ]

This has got to be pretty standard though, right? Last girl I dated, first time we hooked up and she stayed over, she kissed me good night turned her back to me and proceeded to go to sleep. No cuddling, nothing. Even though we broke up and weren't a great fit long-term, I will always [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] this girl.

-Al

Re: Not wanting to go to sleep
 

Al: Yeah, I mean, I will do that stuff, but then when I get tired of doing that, I will have this pull towards just seeing what Tivo has recorded for me and then watching a few eps of Hogan Knows Best or Janice Dickinson Modeling Agency while struggling to keep my eyes open. STUFF I DO NOT EVEN LIKE WATCHING.

SA: "The best thing to do to fall assleep when you can't" Those suggestions are solid, but that's not a problem at all for me.

Aces: "Why do you consider it a problem? Are you not sleeping enough?" Yeah. I often have meetings or calls in the morning, and I never oversleep. So, there are many times when I have to get up before 8am but I keep myself up til 3 or 4 when I easily could have gone to sleep at 1. I'm definitely less productive the next day and also my workouts at the end of the day are generally crappier when I do this.

otb: "It's just the actual "stop what you are doing and go to bed" part that I struggle with." Exactly. I will often have an inner dialogue that is like "JFC WTF THIS IS SO RETARDED, STOP TRYING TO STAY AWAKE FOR THE LAST FORTY FIVE MINUTES OF THIS STUPID MOVIE YOU DONT EVEN LIKE BUT HAVE SEEN FIVE TIMES LATE AT NIGHT AND JUST GO TO BED"

mia: "if I know I have a lot of stuff to do the next day I just stay awake the night before to put it off." That's not at all part of my reason. If I have a ton of stuff to do the next day, that's one of the few times I can actually motivate myself to go to bed at midnight.

Re: Not wanting to go to sleep
 

Also,

My grandparents have timers on their lights. It works in an outlet (poss for TV?). Just an idea.

Re: Not wanting to go to sleep
 

El D- A lot of people are probably like this, more people especially on here; I mean we waste are time on this thing anyway. I do this too but my question is, do people do this b/c they feel that they are missing something when they are asleep?

Re: Not wanting to go to sleep
 

I've had problems getting to sleep in the past. Some of it was/is probably due to having caffine too close to bed time or my mind is too wound up. I try not to have caffine a number of hours before bed.

I have weird issues w/ sleep in that I don't get enough or I get too much (SAD during the winter months). I also have had problems setting and keeping a sleep/wake schedule. I'm not a morning person, so that certainly doesn't help things.

I'm the obnoxious guy that shows up late for "9 a.m. sharp" meetings because it's "too early."

I guess for you, you should just stop fidgeting around w/ blogs, flash games, etc. But you already know that. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

Reading something boring, clearing your mind (meditation?), trying to memorize pi or something might help if you can't sleep still.

Re: Not wanting to go to sleep
 

Turning the computer off is a big help to me. If I'm online I'm overly tempted to keep chatting with people, playing poker, browsing 2+2/Wikipedia/news sites, etc. If I'm just watching TV or reading a book or magazine or whatever I tend to get bored and tired pretty quickly.

Re: Not wanting to go to sleep
 

[ QUOTE ]

How many of you have this same problem?

[/ QUOTE ]

I only have this problem when I've started drinking and don't want to go to bed and just pour another.

Sometimes (usually after cards) I'm so amped up I can't wind down to go to sleep. What I've learned to do now is to Tylenol PM or Ambien it 'cause otherwise I'm not getting to bed anytime soon (like 5AM) and I'll be wrecked for the next day at work.


DUI

Re: Not wanting to go to sleep
 

[ QUOTE ]
Also,

My grandparents have timers on their lights. It works in an outlet (poss for TV?). Just an idea.

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http://www.pcresource.co.th/html/pro...s/image003.jpg

Pretty sure Sleep Timer has been standard on television sets for many years now.

For myself, this never, ever helped.

-Al

Re: Not wanting to go to sleep
 

kid: "Same goes on weekends. I'm often up until 5 with no reason to be, then I sleep wicked late. None of my chores get done and it takes me longer to "get going"." Yeah, weekends are when this is a real problem for me and results in me not doing stuff that I wanted to get done.

All: The best solution I've found to this is really hard workouts. Those days I can usually make myself go to sleep a couple hours sooner than normal.

Al: I dunno. I have the problem for longer than I think I should. Also, it's like doubly bad when sleeping at their place. Obviously it's some sort of trust/fear/insecurity issue.

All: The worst outcome of this is when I'm like tired as hell at 10pm, then fall half asleep for half an hour around 11, then am pumped up and ready to stay awake 'til 4. I'm trying hard to go to sleep as soon as I'm tired enough to go to sleep. Very tough, though. Mainly on weekends, this results on me sleeping on the couch far more often than I should (which is not nearly as restful as my bed).

Re: Not wanting to go to sleep
 

I have the exact same problem and am somewhat surprised to hear that it's so common. As El D says, my problem is often that I'm wasting time doing absolutely nothing productive, like reading message boards about which I couldn't care less, watching stupid tv or shows I've seen a million times, etc. I'm not concerned about the days that I'm up until 3 reading something or studying, but the days when my hours between 12 and 3 were completely unproductive.

For reference, I usually go to sleep some time between 2 and 3 and wake between 7 and 8. Unless I'm in "a mood," I very rarely accomplish anything after 11 or so.

Re: Not wanting to go to sleep
 

t,

"do people do this b/c they feel that they are missing something when they are asleep?"

This is one thing I was hoping to get at with this thread.

There's some innate desire in me that makes me want to do this. I rationally know many times that I won't really get anything out of the thing I'm doing and will be MUCH better off just sleeping, yet I still at some level am compelled to keep myself up. Every rational and logical part of me, however, knows that going to bed is the right thing to do.

Re: Not wanting to go to sleep
 

[ QUOTE ]
t,

"do people do this b/c they feel that they are missing something when they are asleep?"

This is one thing I was hoping to get at with this thread.

There's some innate desire in me that makes me want to do this. I rationally know many times that I won't really get anything out of the thing I'm doing and will be MUCH better off just sleeping, yet I still at some level am compelled to keep myself up. Every rational and logical part of me, however, knows that going to bed is the right thing to do.

[/ QUOTE ]This describes my thought process/feelings about the matter exactly.

Re: Not wanting to go to sleep
 

Bascially it's an issue of not wanting to change whatever it is I'm doing. If I'm awake, Idon't want to stop. If I'm sleeping, I don't want to stop that either.

The funny thing is whenever I do manage to get up by like 9 or 10 I'm always really glad I did but it almost never happens.

At night, going to sleep just seems so boring.

Re: Not wanting to go to sleep
 

I just want to say how proud I am of everyone for not suggesting all manner of self-abuse as a way to solve this problem.