SIGforum
Deep Sleep

This topic can be found at:
https://sigforum.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/320601935/m/1690041125

June 22, 2026, 11:37 PM
parabellum
Deep Sleep
At my age, I sleep no more than about an hour and forty-five minutes at a stretch, wake up, roll over and get another 1:45, if I'm lucky.

I do fondly recall, though, the deep sleep of my youth. On days, sometimes in the Spring but usually in the Fall, when the sun shone bright and I was engaged in some sort of physical activity which wore me out, and then lying on my bed in the late afternoon to take a nap with the windows open, then waking up after the sun had set and the room was dark. The air, cool; ambient light coming in through the window, and the crickets chirping, slowly and with little enthusiasm.

"Where am I?"

I pity anyone who has never experienced this.

And when this happened in the early years of my marriage, finally getting up after putting my head back down and sleeping a few minutes more, walking slowly down the stairs to the kitchen, where my wife was fixing dinner in the quiet. Then, slipping down into a chair or the sofa, and just enjoying being back in the land of the living.

Now, that's a nap, ladies and gents.

I don't sleep like that anymore.
June 23, 2026, 02:15 AM
Paten
I don't sleep like that either anymore. However, every once in a while, I will take an over the counter sleep aid and get a full nights sleep. I figure as long as I don't do it every night it can't be bad for me.
June 23, 2026, 04:01 AM
PHPaul
Rarely...VERY rarely like 3-4 times a year, I go to bed and don't wake up until it's time to get up.

A good night is where I only get up to pee twice.

I commonly wake up about every 2 hours, but I roll over, fart and go back to sleep no problem most of the time.

I have an internal clock when it comes to naps. Unless I'm sick or truly exhausted, I nap for 1 hour, +/- 5 minutes.

I do have naps so deep that I wake up and it takes me a minute to figure out whether I'm waking up from a nap or if it's morning.




Be careful when following the masses. Sometimes the M is silent.
June 23, 2026, 05:02 AM
Captain Morgan
The last time I had a deep sleep was during a colonoscopy.

I just cant seem to get comfortable and even have a decent sleep. I want to partially blame the pillow and bed but it could be something else.



Let all Men know thee, but no man know thee thoroughly: Men freely ford that see the shallows.
Benjamin Franklin
June 23, 2026, 05:25 AM
braillediver
Yes oh how I miss those days.

Waking up from a nap and not knowing what day it is, wondering why I have clothes on as it all slowly comes back to me.


____________________________________________________

The butcher with the sharpest knife has the warmest heart.
June 23, 2026, 05:51 AM
Bassamatic
At 79 I now sleep an average of 2-3 hours, and yeah, wake up, roll over, get up and hit the head, and then go back to sleep.

I can't say that I never have a deep sleep as many times I wake up after some crazy ass dream, look around and say WTF was that!! IDK, maybe that's not a deep sleep by this definition.



.....never marry a woman who is mean to your waitress.
June 23, 2026, 07:39 AM
oddball
It has been decades since my head hits the pillow and sleep 100% through for 7-8 hours and then wake up. I have never really napped in my life, so night sleep is the only time of rest. Nowadays, I sleep for a couple of hours, get up to relieve myself, and good nights I fall back to sleep fairly quickly, repeating this 1-2 times more. But a couple of nights a week, after the bathroom break, it'll take me 1-2 hours to fall back to sleep.



"I’m not going to read Time Magazine, I’m not going to read Newsweek, I’m not going to read any of these magazines; I mean, because they have too much to lose by printing the truth"- Bob Dylan, 1965
June 23, 2026, 08:02 AM
Johnny 3eagles
I just finished an In-Hospital Sleep Study this weekend. I think I already know the results, Patient does not sleep well. Turns over more than a day old Hot Dog on a 7 - 11 cooker.





Any dog can be a Guide Dog if you don't care where you're going.


NRA ENDOWMENT LIFE MEMBER
June 23, 2026, 09:52 AM
Warhorse
Melatonin works well for me, allowing me to sleep
for 7-8 hours.


____________________________
NRA Life Member, MGO Annual Member
June 23, 2026, 10:23 AM
1gkek
I lived on ~ 5 1/2 hours sleep a night for more than a decade, but it caught up to me and really beat me down. Over the last year I've got it up to 7 hours a night and I feel human again.

It's been a deliberate effort involving exercise, magnesium glycinate 30 minutes before bedtime, and breathing exercises (4-7-8) just before I hit the pillow. I also play an audio book on a timer in an earbud at the lowest volume I can hear. That voice in my ear keeps the work stress from breaking through and keeping me awake. If I wake up in the night, I turn the audio book back on and let it lull me back to sleep.
June 23, 2026, 11:36 AM
BigSwede
7ish hours during the week and usually 8-9 hrs on the weekend, usually with a Sunday afternoon nap


June 23, 2026, 12:56 PM
HRK
For years I couldn't nap, didn't matter car, plane, home, just couldn't get that nap in, watched my dad on weekends hit his favorite overstuffed chair, turn on golf and go out like a light...

Now I get a good afternoons nap on Sundays with NAPCAR or Golf on the toob after a day in the yard and pool with the grandkids.

Wake up in time to get dinner, then back to the recliner and the TV....
June 23, 2026, 01:41 PM
sigfreund
I was introduced to aluminum foil on the bedroom windows when stationed in Alaska. Years later when I got a night shift dispatcher job, I did the same. General guidance about sleeping well is for it to be dark, really dark, and cool. Both are true of my bedroom and I leave a fan on to help with the coolness and as a source of white noise. There are YouTube channels with various white/brown/pink noise or even “natural” sounds like falling rain that I would probably try if I didn’t use a fan. I could probably do without the covering noise because the bedroom is also very quiet (in the basement).

Although I have tried to avoid the habit of getting up for a pee break, it’s necessary about 50-60% of the nights. Otherwise I sleep straight through 7-8 hours. (Just turned 80 YO recently.)

Living where I do, an oxygen concentrator was recommended to help recovery from pneumonia. Using that at night might have reduced the “get up” times, but it’s still too early to be certain. In any event I’ll probably keep it for the future, although low blood oxygen saturation levels can be useful as excuses for some things. Wink

I absolutely cannot sleep with or even otherwise tolerate something like a TV going in the background; I guess I should envy those who can tune it out, but despite my best intentions I’ll even react to a comment I half hear when my wife is listening to some news program on the radio.




6.0/94.0

“I can’t give you brains, but I can give you a diploma.”
— The Wizard of Oz
June 24, 2026, 04:36 AM
ftttu
I wake up every 2 hours or so due to BPH. Each time I come back to bed, I lie awake for a while.

For those of you who don’t know, good sleep is very important for brain health. You need 7-9 hours nightly of quality deep sleep to clear out amyloid plaques and other waste products which build up daily. If not, they build up, causing dementia/Alzheimer’s.

Also, you can’t get crappy sleep during the week and binge sleep during the weekend. The daily cleaning process is imperative.


Retired Texas Lawman
June 24, 2026, 02:49 PM
shovelhead
I’m supposed to get a CPAP next week. Everyone including my cardiologist says I should sleep better and longer, we shall see.


-------------------------------------——————
————————--Ignorance is a powerful tool if applied at the right time, even, usually, surpassing knowledge(E.J.Potter, A.K.A. The Michigan Madman)
June 24, 2026, 03:19 PM
GT-40DOC
I usually get 2-3 hours sleep before potty time. Maybe I go back to sleep quick, and maybe I don't.
June 24, 2026, 03:51 PM
Flashlightboy
I have the world's worst AFib. Even with medication to control it, it's still in abnormal rhythm and three different procedures to control it haven't done the job. I will likely have another ablation in a couple of months.

My sleep is crap and 2-4 nights a week, but usually 2-3, I don't get a single minute of REM sleep and only about an hour or a bit more of deep sleep. The rest is non-refreshing light sleep. On the other nights I crash hard out of sheer exhaustion but you can't do that forever. None of the sleep is deep or restful.

Abnormal rhythm really messes up your sleep.

I'd love to have the teenage hours of deep sleep, even for just a couple of nights.
June 24, 2026, 04:26 PM
bordeth
I will count my blessed then because I'm in my mid-50's and get a straight seven to eight hours non-stop. My thoughts are with you guys who aren't able to.
June 25, 2026, 07:35 AM
mttaylor1066
Sleep mask.

I bought one of these primarily to use on overnight airplane flights… but I have found that I can sleep much more soundly when I use it at home. It also prevents me from checking the LED clock and thinking “Geez, I’ve been wide awake for 94 minutes… when am I going to get sleepy again? Now it’s been 95 minutes… 96 minutes…”

I never thought a sleep mask could do much for me, but I am blissfully wrong.

I have a Manta Sleep “Pro” version. The main feature are padded eyecups. You don’t feel as if you’re wearing a blindfold, you can blink naturally and it is very comfortable. Yes,it is expensive… but my post-purchase satisfaction is quite high.


___________________

Company, villainous company hath been the spoil of me.
June 25, 2026, 07:51 AM
Rick_Perry
As I have gotten older (early 60's now), I never get any good sleep. I wake up constantly all night. I wish I could fall into a deep sleep. I wake up so easy! Many nights I will go to bed about 11:00 PM and then find myself up at 2:30 or 3AM on my PC or reading because I have woken up and cannot fall back asleep. I my younger years, I would sleep like a rock! I miss those days!!!


_________________________

Einstein defines insanity as "Doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results"