Please help for my sleep issue

[jackofalltrades]

Hi,
This is my first post in this forum. It was just a week ago I discovered that I am INTP. I have been suffering from different psychological issues and desparately trying to get rid of them.
I thought this might be the right forum where people will understand me and help too. I hope it happens so....

One of the major issues that I am facing is about waking up in the morning at the right time to go to office on time. I just don't seem to wake up at a particular time in the morning. This results in me reaching office late everyday which has really become a serious issue for me. I have been officially warned about this and I cannot simply loose my job just for going late in office!
I can hear the alarm, but I switch it off and again go to bed. Surprisingly, now I am not really sleeping, but just enjoying being in some thoughts. These thoughts are not necessarily pleasent and I can feel them just like somebody watching my mind. But still I cannot stop them and seem like enjoying it. I know what I am saying is weired, but that's how it is.
Somehow, I don't feel the urge and seriousness of waking up when required.
I need to get rid of this somehow. Please share any thoughts..

 

[saffyangelis]

Hiya, and welcome to the forum and all that!
Ummm, I'm not really sure of what to say to help, but try moving your alarm so you have to get out of bed to turn it off, and by then you'll probably have forgotten what you were thinking about, or maybe, just get used to turning yourself onto autopilot so that you can think while you get ready.

Or, stick little post-it notes where you'll see them to remind you why you need to get up.

That's my attempt at helping, but some of the others'll probably come up with better advice. =)

 

[Perseus]

Can't say I have ever got over this problem, except when I can't get to sleep at all.

 

[Da Blob]

Hiya, and welcome to the forum and all that!
Ummm, I'm not really sure of what to say to help, but try moving your alarm so you have to get out of bed to turn it off, and by then you'll probably have forgotten what you were thinking about, or maybe, just get used to turning yourself onto autopilot so that you can think while you get ready.

Or, stick little post-it notes where you'll see them to remind you why you need to get up.

That's my attempt at helping, but some of the others'll probably come up with better advice. =)

These are good ideas!
However , you may wish to consult a professional in regards to possibly suffering from some type of sleep disorder. These are really quite common and under-diagnosed because people feel silly about going to a doctor for such a 'minor' ailment.
However, as you are beginning to suspect suffering from a sleep disorder can have a major disabling effect on one's life. Dream deprivation is a major problem in this regard...

 

[hopefulmonster]

It sounds like you just like to ruminate when you first get up...that's really quite common and I'd just say get a louder alarm clock and move it across the room. I guess I should attempt to be constructive; do you have any other sleep related problems? Problems falling asleep,waking up in the middle of the night,chronic "night owl" etc? I'm sure you can manipulate some lazy shrink into giving you fun time pills with this issue. Sell them to grade school children and make a quick buck!

 

[LucasM]

Also, don't set your alarm to go off too early.
I know for me, if I set my alarm too early, the motivation to get up is not able to overpower the comfort of the bed. Try 10 minutes before. Then, you see the time, and bounce out of bed.

Also, knowing a warm cup of coffee is waiting helps me.

 

[Da Blob]

It sounds like you just like to ruminate when you first get up...that's really quite common and I'd just say get a louder alarm clock and move it across the room. I guess I should attempt to be constructive; do you have any other sleep related problems? Problems falling asleep,waking up in the middle of the night,chronic "night owl" etc? I'm sure you can manipulate some lazy shrink into giving you fun time pills with this issue. Sell them to grade school children and make a quick buck!

I wouldn't follow that last bit of advice, Sleeping in prison is actually a risky venture (for one reason or another)
However, there have been a couple suggestions about relocating the alarm clock or adjusting the time.
One suggestion, which might be particular beneficial, would be to examine the patterns of your sleeping. People sleep in approximately 90 minute cycles, during each cycle, sleepers generate the entire spectrum of brain waves, from Theta to Alpha waves, if the cycle is interrupted, bad things can occur. A cycle usually ends with a dream. Your alarm could be awakening you right in the middle of a cycle (?)
My brother had a similar problem. He started getting out of bed an hour earlier than necessary, taking time to leisurely begin his day with a little 'quiet time' mulling over coffee and anticipating the demands of the day... It worked for him...

 

[Inappropriate Behavior]

One thing I've tried that works pretty well for me is a chime alarm that starts off low and gets progressively louder. It a gentle wake up that doesn't give you the startling jolt of an alarm going off full powered.

Also, and this could be very helpful too, is sleep with the shades open and hopefully in a spot where the rising sun will shine into your room. Even if you are on the western side of your house or building, the progressive daylight helps wake you naturally. Nice gentle wakings help the mind become alert faster rather than interupting a cycle as Da Blob suggests.

 

[Da Blob]

One thing I've tried that works pretty well for me is a chime alarm that starts off low and gets progressively louder. It a gentle wake up that doesn't give you the startling jolt of an alarm going off full powered.

Also, and this could be very helpful too, is sleep with the shades open and hopefully in a spot where the rising sun will shine into your room. Even if you are on the western side of your house or building, the progressive daylight helps wake you naturally. Nice gentle wakings help the mind become alert faster rather than interupting a cycle as Da Blob suggests.

You know as a group, we, INTPians, offer some pretty good advice.
Maybe we should rent ourselves out,
providing the concept of group therapy with a new wrinkle

 

[dbtng_thomas]

I have an awful time waking up. I'm a night person. I don't really want to go to bed until about 4am, so it isn't surprising that I don't like to get up early. It's been an issue for me all my life, so I arrange my life around it. I set my work start time to late mornings now. I find I can make 10am pretty well. If I get up early, that gives me more time to relax around my home, like you seem to enjoy.

You can't go to work late-morning in all jobs, but if you lose this one, find one that let's you start later in the day. It might be that simple to live more happily.

 

[Ermine]

Get a really obnoxious alarm, and keep it across the room from your bed so you have to get up. My alarm is so annoying that I can't hear myself think. Another thing that helps is that I sleep in a loft bed, so it takes more effort to get back in bed. I used to have a hard time getting up, but ever since I got into the same alarm clock strategy, I wake up out of habit. I anticipate it so well that sometimes I wake up a couple minutes before the alarm, and I have to wake up at 5:30 AM.

 

[Kuu]

grrr I have this too. And unfortunately, the alarm-on-the-other-side-of-the-room strategy worked for a month or so. Then I just became used to getting up, turning it off, and going back to bed, automatically, just like driving a car.

The light thing and the sleep cycle thing are good. But rarely are they possible with evil early morning schedules.

Whenever I really really need to get up, I put two alarms. The usual, across the room one, and one that's in the bathroom, set to go off just as I am returning to bed from turning off the first one.

And then a splash of cold water in the face.

Or if really sleep deprived (several days), a super cold shower gives you a nice jolt (this is useful if you're gotta drive to work/school/other-version-of-hell).



I usually joke with my friends that alarms should come together with a DDR mat and you'd need to succesfully finish a track in order to shut it up...

 

[Melkor]

I say caeffine...Depeding on whether you want to have a long sleep the next night....

Lots of coffee and the like can give you a quick fix of energy, you could even buy little energy pills that tast like lucozade (apparently)...


Moreover I suggest you get colder....






This might aound weird, but when I get Ill, and overheated, I have a similar horrible problem, in which my mind is so maddeningly blurry I can't sleep because the pictures that leap out when I close my eyes distract me...


So yes......try losing the blanket.... an overheated mind leads to such things as 'religious expereinces' ans you don't want to go down that road.....

 

[hopefulmonster]

I have an awful time waking up. I'm a night person. I don't really want to go to bed until about 4am, so it isn't surprising that I don't like to get up early. It's been an issue for me all my life, so I arrange my life around it. I set my work start time to late mornings now. I find I can make 10am pretty well. If I get up early, that gives me more time to relax around my home, like you seem to enjoy.

You can't go to work late-morning in all jobs, but if you lose this one, find one that let's you start later in the day. It might be that simple to live more happily.

oh oh oh. There's a specific sleep issue caused by your circadian rhythms being flipped. Daylight triggers sleep signals...this explains why some people are chronic night owls. It typically manifests itself after puberty begins. My aunt has this disorder and has been unable to go to bed before 6 am since she was 12. Lightbox therapy and sleeping pills can give you very limited temporary results. The best piece of advice a professional could give you(assuming you do have the disorder) is get a job w/ a night shift.

 

[jackofalltrades]

Hi all!
Thanks for all your responses. I really appreciate the urge to help.
Btw, I have been trying to ring on all sorts of alarms from a progressive one to a very loud etc. Eventually I developed a habit of wake up, walk upto the alarm, switch it off, come back and close it.
My real worry is actually, why can't I be serious of waking up at a given time given the circumstances. However important work it may be, it's just ignored by me in the morning. I thought it was something related to my personality trait INTP.
Anyway, how much hours of sleep a normal person requires? Typically, I have observed that if I sleep for 8-9 hours, I can wake up pretty easily. But unfortunately, my work hours do not permit me that amount of sleep. If I decide to wake up on required time, I will get a sleep of hardly 6 hours a day. May be that's what is the cause?

However, thanks once again to all for your responses!

 

[JoeJoe]

6 hours?!

Of what I've heard from 60 onwards you can manage with 6 hours. I'm 16 and I can manage with 6 hours or less for a few days if I can sleep out on the weekend. I used to oversleep all the time the last half year. I now got a radio alarm clock. I can leave it on and it's not annoying but will keep me from falling asleep.