Sleep issues only on weekdays (pill, sleeping pills, pain, effect)

[Range]

For about the last 2 years I haven’t had to wake up early. I slept 12am-9am.

Last week I started a new schedule which requires me to be up at 6am weekdays. I go to bed between 9-10pm. Have no issues falling asleep. I consistently wake after just about 5 hours of sleep(so anywhere between 3-4am) I have no issues going back to sleep, but after I consistently wake up about every hour until my 6am alarm.

I don’t have this issue on the weekends. I assume it’s because I know I don’t have an alarm that’s about to wake me up.

If anybody has dealt with the same thing, What did you do to fix it?
I’m thinking about taking melatonin but that usually makes me tired if I don’t get enough sleep.
I do have some anxiety as of late because of this new schedule.

[Durpie22]

I've had that issue and it is related to anxiety from having to work the next day.

[Ann Alison]

Yeah, give yourself a chance to get used to your early schedule. Sounds like you've figured out you need 9 hours sleep; I did well with 9 in my twenties, and up to 10 in my teens! They say you should stick to roughly the same (waking and sleeping) schedule 7 days a week or you'll be hurting. It kind of sucks if you're young and/or you want to go out on the weekends, but it's a tradeoff.

[Back to NE]

When I've travelled many time zones away, I manage to sleep well by doing the following:

- get on the local time right away (no naps)
- take extra caffeine if needed to stay up
- take a sleeping pill if needing to sleep and are not tired
- alcohol can be used to confuse the body clock and hasten the transition

2 or 3 days and nights later, I'm pretty much good to go. I usually won't need further sleeping pills.

And just don't worry about sleep deficits, if you got only 4 hours of sleep, forget it and carry on. This was much harder when I was young (til about 24) but now it's easy. Young bodies are far less resilient on poor sleep.

[Parnassia]

Originally Posted by Range

For about the last 2 years I haven’t had to wake up early. I slept 12am-9am.

Last week I started a new schedule which requires me to be up at 6am weekdays. I go to bed between 9-10pm. Have no issues falling asleep. I consistently wake after just about 5 hours of sleep(so anywhere between 3-4am) I have no issues going back to sleep, but after I consistently wake up about every hour until my 6am alarm.

I don’t have this issue on the weekends. I assume it’s because I know I don’t have an alarm that’s about to wake me up.

If anybody has dealt with the same thing, What did you do to fix it?
I’m thinking about taking melatonin but that usually makes me tired if I don’t get enough sleep.
I do have some anxiety as of late because of this new schedule.

Its still new after one week! Give it time for your body clock to adjust. It will. Lying there worrying about how much sleep you're not getting (because you're lying there worrying) isn't going to help. I agree that if you don't happen to get a full night's sleep once in a while it isn't a disaster. Just carry on. Contrary to what many of us were brought up to believe, you probably don't actually need that full 9 hours of sleep every single night. Thousands of healthy working age adults do just fine on 6 hours, even less. How much works best for any one person is very individual of course.

Creating a bedtime routine will help things shift and doesn't require you to start taking concoctions that can create unwanted residual effects the next day. There are lots of suggestions out there and most people have their favorites. Here are some:

https://www.sleepfoundation.org/slee...ine-for-adults

Over time, I found my best end-of-day routine actually started before I left work. I'd put some minor things to bed instead of letting them dangle over night. Make some small decisions instead of dithering over them after I left the office. Compose and send the email you put off all day. Do a bit of planning the next day's work. Make a to-do list and cross a few small tasks off of it. Reprioritize bigger ones. These weren't necessarily big items, just small nags that I knew would clutter up my mind that night. All this helped me leave work AT work.

You're new at this job. I've found climbing a new learning curve is not only exciting and stimulating, its stressful. If you need assistance, get it. Make a list of questions you need to remember to ask someone about new procedures. If someone has unreasonable expectations of you right now, reconcile them. Re-negotiate.

I typically don't have trouble sleeping, even when working and getting a bit less sleep than was probably optimum for me. Once in a while I couldn't turn my brain off or had some minor ache or pain that kept me restless. Half a Tylenol PM at bedtime usually did the trick and it wasn't heavy duty enough to leave me dopey the next morning. It can help break a couple of day's lack of sleep cycle. Obviously that wouldn't be something to rely on on a regular basis.

Don't try to make up for lack of sleep by sleeping in too long on weekends. That can throw the next week's cycle off all over again.