Thread 7 - TalkLair: “In fact it’s an oblate spheroid”

[Kucinghitam]

Continuation of previous threads (thread 6).
The new lair of JTT escapees is all cosy and homey; we have truly settled here. Outside, the garden is blooming with spring flowers. Inside, the hearth is glowing, pictures are up on the walls, rugs are down on the floors (and assorted pets curled up on them).

We just won’t mention the gnawed bones of our prey over there in the corner of the cave…

The question I asked myself at the time was 'What is the evolutionary advantage of everyone sleeping for eight hours straight every night?'. I don't see one. No other mammal does this.

Oh yes, I read about “first and second sleeps” some years ago - interestingly (or alarmingly?) the sleep consultant I worked with had never heard of it.

Mavis, I've also found that medical people don't know about first and second sleeps and it surprised me a lot. Sleeping that way means you need to go to bed earlier to accommodate the waking period, but it works for me and I feel a lot better for it.

I rarely sleep through the night these days and tend to wake somewhere between 2 and 3 ... prime time for fretting about all the things you can't control! So I read for an hour or two and generally wake up around 6 or 7, often with the bedside light on (and the book on the floor). I hadn't thought of this as first and second sleeps, though I'd read about the medieval habit, but it makes sense and going to bed earlier would probably help.

I remember learning about first and second sleeps in a history documentary about medieval lives (but I can't remember what its title was). Made a lot of sense to me, although knowing about it doesn't seem to help me when I find myself awake and in an anxiety spiral in the small hours.

I get quite a lot of insomnia at the moment - not sure if it's menopause related, or just an age thing. It's SO boring just lying there - especially if I know I have to be up early in the morning. Also the last few days remaining dog has decided that 6:30 is a good time to wake up, after having had several years of being a lazy slugabed. The other one was always the perkier bouncy one who got them both up, so I think it's taken him until now to realise his alarm clock isn't there any more, so he needs to make a noise himself.

I'm with @MissLawls on using stuff to help. Whatever gets you through the night - esp at our ages! I also take zops now and again and I will tonight if it's needed, after last night's horror. In fairness, though, I have found meditating during the night hours very helpful, but then I've been doing this for 50 years so my mind is accustomed to the process. Sometimes, this can be so satisfying and I can meditate/drop off/meditate/drop off for hours. (Egregious worries do overshadow sometimes, as last night).

Haven't sold the guitars yet @MavisMcMinty ! I'm sort of passive in this until I simply have to find the dosh for family teeth. I have been learning the main theme from Cinema Paradiso and playing it on the Collings, which has a celestial sound. Solo arrangement of this terrific performance by two Japanese(I think) guitarists:

BUT - that great performance marred by the way the bloke nods with approval or some sort of condescension at the woman, patronising bastard. Or is that just me?

@angelico53 BUT - that great performance marred by the way the bloke nods with approval or some sort of condescension at the woman, patronising bastard. Or is that just me?

Arf! I see what you mean - he seems to think he's in charge, while she is just totally focused, but also relaxed and enjoying herself. I'm not sure that she's paying him much attention. Maybe the head gestures are just tics, or cues to himself?

Lovely, lovely performance.

My little helper for getting back to sleep in the middle of the night is one paracetamol tablet. It doesn't always work, but often does. That and making sure my feet are warm - an extra layer over them in the early hours can help. Then there's always listing all the countries, and counting backwards in 7s or 9s or whatever you fancy.

For going to sleep, I've taken (since the start of the first lockdown, so a little over three years) to saying a few prayers last thing - I'm not sure exactly what the non-Goddy equivalent would be, but a set routine for unpacking the day and putting it to one side is very helpful.

I find a 2mg Diazepam taken if I wake in the night and can’t get back works best.

@DeanVolecapeAKAelderberry - Warming up your feet, even if they don't feel cold, is a good tip. I have no idea why that helps, but it does for me too.

I'm not sure what the Godless equivalent of prayer would be. Perhaps jotting stuff down and then destroying the paper? I do this sometimes with draft emails, but live in fear of accidentally hitting "send".

That duet is beautiful (think they’re Korean). Didn’t see the nods as patronising - it was just communication and expression. Had never come across them before so thank you!

Warming your feet (and body) before bed works because as the feet (body) cools, that induces the sleepy hormones.

I read a persuasive article about sleep cycles, and how to not wake up groggy and furious when your alarm goes off in the morning. Apparently most sleep cycles, consisting of the 5(?) different sleep stages, last around 90 minutes each. If you wake at the end or start of a sleep cycle, you find it much easier to get up refreshed than if you are woken in the middle of that sleep cycle. So to wake up smiling (or whatever passes as refreshed and alert for you), go to bed at a time* that ensures you get at least 4 or preferably 5 whole sleep cycles before your alarm goes off at whatever o’clock. 6 hours sleep = 4 sleep cycles, and that’s quite enough for most adults, apparently, although people have been programmed to think of 8 hours as the holy grail.

*You will need to calculate in however long it takes for you to fall asleep, of course.

Which for me, last night, was 4.5 hours, from 11.30 to 4am...

how to not wake up groggy and furious when your alarm goes off

Alarm clocks are the work of the Devil, imho, and I trained my mind to wake me at 7am so I don't need to use one. Can't remember now when I last used an alarm to wake up but it's been many years. AFAIR I used to think 'Wake up at 7am' and after a few goes it worked.

Or, your cat can train herself to wake up at fuck-o-clock, and then walk all over you purring and whistling, if that fails pat your face with just a hint of claw, and if that fails sneeze in your face.

I can't do warm feet. It has to be absolutely icicles for me not to have my feet sticking out from under the duvet. I sleep quite badly. I'm an owl like Mavis but I also get restless legs. I use codeine (30mg tablets) which I have for all of the pain. Diazepam when I have it. Generally, though, I just let not being able to sleep as a time to read and write and refuse to worry about it because then I'll panic and sleep even less. Last night I had an accidental two sleeps because I fell asleep sitting up with my glasses on. Woke at 6.30. was up for about half an hour then back to sleep until 9.30.

We went for an "easy" walk yesterday. We discovered that it wasn't even a little bit easy. Two lots of stepping stones/rocks, clambering up and down rocks. Bits of it shared the living shite out of me but I summoned bravery and did it all. I was proud of myself. We saw loads of dippers and it was ultimately a real joy.

As I've got older I've inclined more towards the two sleeps model. This generally works fine, although I don't got to bed as early as I should, provided I just accept lying in bed peacefully and don't get up and do anything. After half an hour to an hour, I go back to sleep. If I start reading or anything else, I just wake up completely.

However, my bladder is such a fucking opportunist. It doesn't wake me up - when I wake up I'm fine. But after a while, it suddenly starts shouting urgent! urgent! and I have to go to the loo for a miserable, unnecessary wee, which then means I struggle to go back to sleep. And then the gloomy, anxious spiral of doom begins...

@Kucinghitam, I rather miss being woken by being sneezed at, though it was OH who was the main target. He'd get being sneezed at and having his nose gently nipped until he got up and followed his master's orders. I never understood how that dog could sneeze on demand but he did it a lot.

I love my cats but I can't bear cats in the bedroom and cat hair in the bed. I have made several cosy cat areas in the basement and the litter boxes are down there and a water bowl (food and water bowls in the kitchen). We have trained our cats to go in the basement when we go up to bed. When the TV goes off they trot down there, and if they're slow to do so we say "chop chop" and off they go.

I can’t bear one of the cats in the bedroom (although they can open all the doors in the house so I can’t keep her out) - Ava, who is a real solid chonk of a cat, who likes to march all over your head, purring. I think the dogs in their crates downstairs send her upstairs to wake me up. Tash on the other hand, lies at the bottom of the bed in the opposite corner to me, I wouldn't know she was there.

I am starting to think Tashie is my favourite.

@Britinme We have trained our cats to go in the basement when we go up to bed. When the TV goes off they trot down there, and if they're slow to do so we say "chop chop" and off they go.
^^
Are you absolutely sure those are cats you've got there?

I was going to say, that's some pretty impressive cat-herding!

Absolutely! But they honestly cooperate in this. This is also a skill they've acquired in the last five years since we have been in this house. In our last house we just let them roam the house because we could shut the living room off (they are villains and will claw the furniture and rugs if left unwatched for hours) and shut the bedroom door as we had a master bathroom off the bedroom. In this house we can't isolate the living room and there is only the family bathroom upstairs so down to the basement they go. At first we had to actually put them there, but they soon got the hang of the system. Cats are quite routine-oriented I think - ours are anyway. Also our cats don't go outside so all their routines are house routines.

I know in British eyes it seems unkind to keep cats in, but in our last house there were fisher cats and coyotes and - worst of all - Lyme disease-carrying deer ticks in the woods that our yard went into. Now we're in town they are totally ignorant of traffic, and although there aren't the wild critters there are still ticks. Also when it's knee-deep snow out there for maybe four months of the year, they're not interested anyway.