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One of the best things about retirement is no longer living by the alarm clock! I always found it depressing to sleep and wake up according to someone else's needs. I despise it when I have to set the clock now! I always thought I was sleep deprived during my working life. But I find I don't sleep a lot more than I did before.
My 'normal' hours are usually in bed by 2am and awake by 9 or 10am.
I didn't enjoy sleeping! I was clinically exhausted and when I retired, I slept 16- 18 hours a day for about a month. Then, slowly, not so much. Then, for the next 5 yrs, I had nightmares about my job. Now - retired for 18 yrs or whatever, I sleep in fits and starts and don't worry about it at all. Sometimes, I don't sleep at all for 2 days. It doesn't matter now.
One of the best things about retirement is no longer living by the alarm clock! I always found it depressing to sleep and wake up according to someone else's needs. I despise it when I have to set the clock now! I always thought I was sleep deprived during my working life. But I find I don't sleep a lot more than I did before.
My 'normal' hours are usually in bed by 2am and awake by 9 or 10am.
This is how we always were since I was on 2nd shift and he was self-employed. Then strangely, on retirement, things are starting to shift. Falling asleep in front of TV around 9 or 10, then sometimes watch "Cosmos" or something similar while nodding off in bed.
Then the accursed wee-hours bathroom trip and sometimes don't sleep after that until dawn, then sleep some more till whenever. It'll be interesting to see how it all settles down after so many years living the other schedule.
Neither of us ever got into napping but that may be in our golden future too....
This is an important concept. It's all relative. Sleep till 10AM go to bed at 2AM. Eight hours is eight hours no matter how you slice it. Me? It's 10:30 to bed and up by 7:00. Most afternoons, toss in a 30 minute nap.
I am more the 2am-9am sleeper in winter, but convert to 12-7am in summer. Up with the sun and sometimes even by 6am if going golfing.
But these hours are not carved in stone. I am pretty spontaneous about all this. My body leads the way! LOL
For me, the hardest thing about working was never getting nearly enough sleep. It was hard to fall asleep, knowing I had to get up early, and worrying that I would be tired all day.
I was tired all day every day. That is a VERY BAD feeling.
I think most Americans are sleep deprived. Maybe that's one reason there is so much alzheimer's and heart disease.
Don't miss any of that one bit......the hard to fall asleep thing then worrying that you can't/won't get to sleep causing even more stress that keeps you awake.....leading to clock watching to see the minutes/hours tick past and then calculating "if I fall asleep in 20 mins it'll give me 3 hours of sleep" and on and on. Someone here said it the best that it can ever be said: The best part of retirement is owning your day and doing whatever you want whenever you want.
Quote:
Originally Posted by BayAreaHillbilly
I naively hope that my 30+ years of sleep deficit (and counting) can be somewhat mitigated if / when I retire. Maybe some of the tangles will get repaired. One can hope. Realistically, though, it will probably require yet-to-be developed micromachines to perform such brain repairs.
Therefore, I continue to amass contingency plans for dementia.
Don't sweat it.....once the weight of working and living your life according to someone else's clock & demands is gone it will feel like a tremendous burden is off your shoulders and you'll sleep better than you ever have. After a short period of no alarm clock blaring in your head to get you up and when you realize that it's OK and you don't NEED to get up will seem like heaven and you'll sleep like a baby.
I left my last part-time contract job end of January. They called up out of the blue and their need for my services ended. It was my last connection to a profession I'd had for 28 years and I was planning on ending it in March when my SS starts. Needless to say I was elated to be done with it sooner.
Since then I have slept like a baby. Deep, relaxed, dream-filled sleep. Day naps pop up some afternoons and they are ''mini heavens''. I wake up refreshed and my whole body feels deeply relaxed in a new and wonderful way. I especially love to nap by the window during rain storms.
I figure it's a body-soul ''unwinding'' after years of tension. Whatever, it feels so nice.
Did any of you go through similar after retirement?
Not so much. I won't fully retire (working from home at the moment). But I have gone from an aveg. of 4-5 hrs./night sleep to 6-7 hrs./night. I still prefer to get up before the sunrise. And, every once in a while, I really miss having a higher level of stress that comes with deadlines and commitments.
Since then I have slept like a baby. Deep, relaxed, dream-filled sleep...
Did any of you go through similar after retirement?
Also newly retired as of January and just now able to sleep in until 6 a.m. or so. My job of 37 years that I left in July 2016, had me at work by 6 a.m. I picked up a contract job immediately after and because of the commute had me leaving the house at 4:45 a.m.
What I am noticing most is a thing you identified, the quality of the sleep is much better, no drifting off and waking up thinking about projects, or in my case wondering what nasty things the new managers were going to come up with day after day.
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