Premature waking feeling rested Is it related to therapy?

[TheManseHen]

Greetings,
So The Hen, is NO rooster, never has been, unless they stay up for the dawn, crow then sleep. I don't know my rooster husbandry.

My sweet spot, which I've nae seen in years would be 2-10/11 am. But in the last decade getting worse as I went on, I was sleeping say at earliest 3 am- 2pm or thereabouts because I needed to stay in bed longer and longer to make up for the peeing every hour all night long deprivation. Even after all those hours I was not rested, only just able to call it quits and start my day.

Now that I am on c-pap, even though I'm still working on getting consistent under 5.0 ahi (pattern is toward good!) I find myself, actually tired earlier (not the all day crap slog fatigue I had been living with) the good kind of tired. And I'm starting to go to bed no later than 3 ever, and sometimes closer to 2 am.

And I'm waking up a bit earlier, sometimes quite a bit earlier. Cause I feel "I'm done" time to get up. Have not felt this in years.

SO...last night, and I've learned one night doesn't make an apnea therapy related thing or reality, I had the weird experience of waking after 3 hours of therapy, wide awake, like I could just have started my day, at 5.00 am. This was not the heart racing or anxiety type waking that some of our friends have recently reported or dealt with. This was happy awake.

Aware my body needs more sleep to make it through the day, but also of sleep hygiene, after laying there in my mask a bit, I decided that the best thing to do was to get up, (I was quite hungry) get some cereal, maybe read a bit, and if need be, take a two hour nap or what have you.

So I ended up going back to sleep, a good sleep from 9-12:30. I purposely kept my alarm clock set for my usual wake time so I don't push my bedtime forward. I woke before my alarm clock and went about my day. Yes I only got 6 hours (in two halves) of sleep, but I feel great.

SO, do folk find, that they need less sleep? Do folk find that they have inappropriate "hi world, I'm awake, lets go out and play" wakings?

Will watch for a pattern. I don't really want to encourage myself into two sleeps but then on the other hand, some of my historical readings has shown me that in early times, folk actually often had a first sleep and second sleep.

My poor husband doesn't know what to do with his hen in the kitchen while he's trying to fix brekkie and get special needs son out the door.

Awaiting theories, prognostications, dire warnings, and amusement.

The Hen.

[quiescence at last]

I am amused. Also, I do two-sleeps pretty regularly. I wake up refreshed, and alert, not groggy. Sometimes I am stuffy. I take some medicine and wait about an hour and a half, read, enjoy, and then off to the second sleep. I average just about 6 hours 20 minutes a night, for the last 3 months, and have not been worse for wear. About 1 in 12 nights, I sleep over 5 hours straight. I intend to work my way to 8 plus hours, but not in a huge hurry.

QAL

[truckerdad57]

Welcome to the forums.

You are discovering the wonderful journey being a hose head, apneatic or whatever you want to call yourself.

Your body is getting over what was possibly years of disrupted sleep. Sleep doctors call it sleep debt. It's going to take your body a while to figure out what is the new normal for you.

Another thing. Pre cpap you probably would fall asleep almost instantly.. Now your new normal will be to take longer to fall asleep. So do all the good sleep hygiene things but give yourself more time to fall asleep.

I have those wake up and let's go play waking experiences any time I come off the road to spend time at home. But I think it's more about being a randy old truck driver that's been away from home too long. I want to play rooster with my hen of 30 years. ....lol

[Woodslinger]

I started CPAP 3 months ago, and took to it like a duck to water. The only worry I have, is the revelation of how little time I spend sleeping. Average 5:45 hours per night. I've always known I do not need much sleep, but now I've become disappointed, in trying to get more.

Since CPAP, my body wakes up ready to go, even if I've had a bad AHI of 6-8. On such mornings, though my body is awake, my brain feels a wee bit foggy. I think maybe I'll take a nap, but never do, because I just don't get sleepy anymore.

[TyroneShoes]

I am having somewhat the same experiences, in particular:

1) waking earlier (feeling rested, but always woke feeling rested, even before therapy)
2) sometimes getting up in the middle of the night and not going back for an hour or two

My best guess would be that xPAP is responsible for number 1.

As far as the fractured sleep, or bi-phase sleep, I used to do that a lot when I would have to get up to pee (don't anymore thanks to xPAP), and I do it occasionally now.

But I think it was on this very forum where I learned that this was normal, and the normal way humans slept pre-industrial, before electric lights, work shifts, trying to beat the clock every minute. Cave men did this out of survival, standing watch, putting more logs on the fire, etc. Of course they lived to 28.

So while it it better to get one long sleep session to max your REM, I say don't fight it. If you wake up and don't feel like sleeping, get up and do something. Then go back. Society says "go the F to sleep and stay there all night", but your body may also trying be to tell you something different, that might even be healthier in that moment.

[TheManseHen]

Cave men did this out of survival, standing watch, putting more logs on the fire, etc. Of course they lived to 28.

.

Enjoyed that comment Tyrone.

I am going with it for now, second night of almost exactly the same. Lay there for 10 mins or so, no sleep happening, so I got up, in the dark, got a bowl of cereal, ate it, came back to bed, read an interesting but far from riveting book " Daily Life in Immigrant America 1820-1870" with mask on (just in case) and was dozy soon enough. I covered my book light with Kleenex to make the light less bright as well.
The whole turn around was about 45-50 mins. AHI decent both nights (for me) at under 5.0.

Susan

[Eurika]

You are getting more quality sleep in less time due to the therapy.
It's like a gas tank, when filling it up with a clean strong flow it takes far less time to be full, than when using a clapped out old pump to fill the tank.
Your body will let you know how much sleep you need and thanks to the wonders of XPAP you are getting all you need in a shorter time.
It happened to me, and it's quite literally a life changing event.
Enjoy

[Ghost1958]

Yep happened to me too. Still does. Once ive woke up ive WOKE UP!!!!. No drifting in and out for two hours etc like before. Either asleep or fully awake.

Youll probably vary around for while on actual length of sleep. At first Id sleep maybe 6 hrs and awake. after about two weeks I spent about a week sleeping anywhere from 10 to 12 hours straight thru. Still when I woke I was AWAKE.

Now after about 5 months ive settled into 7 to 9 hrs a night depending on what i did that day and how tired I am when I go to bed.

I still wake up fully awake but the "charge lets go I feel like im 16 again feeling" isnt so pronounced as it was at the beginning.
I think after a while once the numbers are in a good range steadily, that feeling becomes the new normal and one doesnt notice it as much or at all as they did when they first start and suddenly go from the walking dead to feeling normal again.

Just my own theory.

[Crimson Nape]

As of lately I've been experiencing about the same thing. I go to bed around 11:30PM and have a hard time getting to sleep. . . 45 minutes to an hour. I sleep until around 4:30AM, wide awake and ready to go. In the afternoon and during the evening I get sleepy until I go to bed and then I'm wide awake. This has been repeating for over a week. This is getting old. There is absolutely nothing on TV that time of the morning. . . And I used to love to get up at the crack of noon.

[TheManseHen]

Very interesting. Thanks All. New Normal sounds good Ghost. This is true Eurika, I'm not wanting to call it a night after 3.5 hours cause I know my tank will run out of steam (-: but I expect I am more rested with 3.5 on pap than 10 without it!

The Hen