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Going a bit medical (sorry)...
Have yourself checked for sleep apnea, it can come on later in life due to slack(en)ing of various throat muscles. It can wake you up and often causes excess urination.
Give the melatonin a chance, the wife and I use it but it needs about a week to really kick in.
Get your prostate checked, mine was 4 times the normal size, a simple op cleared it and got rid of one of my main reasons for waking up in the night.
However, I still wake up at 3 am if I have been doing anything more than social media on the computer before going to bed. Usually I have to get up, have a cup of tea and google whatever was bothering me (last night it was asynchronous Python) and then I can get back off to sleep. So the best advice I can give you is to watch a couple of episodes of M.A.S.H. (or anything similar that you know off by heart) before going to bed.
So old that I did my first coding in octal via switches on a DEC PDP 8
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"give the melatonin a chance" - interesting, I had not known that. I'll keep working at it.
Prostate - yeah, I see the P man in December.
Charlie Gilley
“They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759
Has never been more appropriate.
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My sleeping in getting less and less.
I'll go to bed around 01:00 (earlier makes no sense for me) and I am awake at 07:00. 
During the day I am tired but that is easily cured by black coffee ![Java | [Coffee]](https://codeproject.global.ssl.fastly.net/script/Forums/Images/coffee.gif) and Red Bull. (I have to support Max. He is my countryman  )
But I tend to 'wake up' around 19:00 and when bed-time comes I am not sleepy at all.
I noticed that it get worse with age. (when I was born, I could sleep 20 hours a day  )
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As George Carlin would say, I'm pushing 70  and running (as well as working on) a laundry list of projects. The short answer to your question is sort of, lol.
I still drink a glass of water shortly before bed, so there's a wakeup call around 2am. If nature calls again before 5am, it can take an effort to go back to sleep. If I know my day will be hell, or I have an unfinished concept that is nagging, I'll work hard to set my mind on something unrelated to fall back to sleep for an hour or so. I won't physically get out of bed before 5am but it's a rare day that I get up after 6.
My own observations are:
- I drink a few cups of coffee in the morning; sometimes a small glass of coke at lunch and zero caffeine the
rest of the day. As it wears off by early evening, I'm losing my edge on getting work done on most days.
- I do tend to nod off between 9pm and 10pm unless the TV really has my interest. Last night I fell asleep at 9:05 during the Sunday night game, woke up around 10 and stayed awake until the end of the game around midnight.
- I'm fine at 6 or more hours of sleep generally. The problem is I can generally function for about half a day on only a few hours of sleep. If I manage to stay awake later, getting up at 6-6:30 isn't difficult.
- I find standard time to be much tougher on sleep than savings time, along with the shorter days as well.
The need to pee, probably prostate related, doesn't in itself torch my sleep. My Samsung health app says most of the time, those breaks are less than 10 minutes. I try to keep that as a mechanical function, get up, go, and go back to bed without thinking about anything else. The four to five am time can be tough, but I try not to give in. The app isn't totally accurate, but it gives me a decent picture of sleep/heart rate/stress/O2.
Having lived in Colorado for more than 30 years and way down south at the moment, my sleep is generally better. I'd put two factors that are affected by that. First, the weather lets me get more exercise during the day and second, being closer to equator allows time to be a bit more balanced.
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Well, I've always been a morning person. So, now being past retirement age (but not retired!), here is my work day schedule (weekends are different). Bedtime routine starts at 9pm. Shower and associated activities, in bed, read for a few minutes, lights out at or near 10pm. Wake up (according to the Fitbit) a couple of times during the night that I usually don't remember, then when the alarm clock goes off at 5:15am, start the day. If I had a technical problem from the day before, I may wake up around 3am with the epiphany of how to fix it and then fall back asleep. I just need to remember it after the alarm clock goes off a couple of hours later. Usually, I can and if not, a few minutes of looking at the problem will help recall the miracle solution later in the day.
I work from home, so work starts at 6:30am until 11:30am...then lunch and TV (usually I watch General Hospital from the day before...Monday I watch Friday's episode, and so on) and skip the commercials. I can usually watch another show from the DVR, too. Back to work at 2pm for 2.5-3 more hours for a time-clock measured total of 10-10.5 hours/day. Boss knows and he's okay with that, as he's a programmer/developer too and knows the inspiration strikes when it wants, not on a company-driven timeframe. I do not eat supper (trying intermittent fasting to lose some weight). Which translates to, "hubby makes his dinner, cuts up cherry tomatoes, gives them to me to eat with two fiber pills and a glass of water". I was happy with just the water, but he doesn't understand what fasting means, I guess.
Now, I will admit...sometimes, if the second program off the DVR is a game show, I might take a 20 minute nap at lunch. If I can sneak in an episode of Babylon 5, I'm wide awake for all of lunch.
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If I have a "hard" problem then I tend to stew over it even after work. I have learned if I can
get the problem completely "in my head" sometimes I will have an answer or a line of attack in the
morning when I get up.
If not working on a hard problem then I do absolutely push everything work related out of my head
in the parking lot on the way to the car. Push it out and leave it there in the parking lot.
That being said I am a night-owl type anyway and function on about five hour sleep a night, can do three hours a night for a week or so. Anything more than about six hours and I feel logging and
sort of disconnected the next day. During vacations or between contracts my bed time gets later
and later till it hits 4am or so and I am up and running by 10am (night-owl mode).
While working I get up at 6am EVERY morning just to be consist. In bed by 11pm or midnight EVERY night.
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Exactly to the T with me as well, including the wife...
I have also tried the medical way, no luck. Then a TV in the room where it took the wife awhile to get used to the sounds, eventually worked a charm, mind you only on non violent heavy noises. Must have seen a billion movies with no recollection afterwards.
Started exercising lately after work for around half to full hour, works like a charm for me...
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The natural state of sleeping for humans is to go sleep when it's dark and wake up at sunrise. However, this is usually more than the 8 or so hours we need. Therefore, waking up in the middle of the night is normal. The Romans did this. Our modern lives just break up this pattern with artificial lighting.
Also, older people tend to sleep lighter, so random noises are more likely to disturb your sleep. Somewhere around very early morning (4 am?) our hearing is at it's best, so that only compounds the problem.
I suggest using that mid-night wakefulness to meditate, think on problems (work or personal), and generally be mentally productive while physically relaxed. Must most importantly, don't stress over it. Stress will only aggravate it, making it harder to go back to sleep.
On a side note, I have a personal theory about how early humans that were little more than animals kept watch during the night. Teenagers stayed up late, old people woke up in the middle of the night, and little kids got up very early, waking up their parents. So the whole night was more or less covered by someone keeping an eye out for predators.
Bond
Keep all things as simple as possible, but no simpler. -said someone, somewhere
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I noticed similar stuff (me 42yro). If I go to sleep earlier (say 21 or 22), I tend to wake up at 3-4am and cant sleep more.
They say:
1 hour of sleep before 00 is 2 hours of rest,
1h of sleep at 00 is 1h of rest,
1 hour of sleep after 00 is 0.5h of rest
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Melatonin is only good if you have problems falling asleep.
If you don't have problems falling asleep, but can't maintain sleep (like me, I'm 60) you should try 5-HTP and/or Magnesium Glycinate.
But in any case you need first to manage stress, which can raise your cortisol levels (the so-called stress hormone), waking you up in the middle of the night.
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No, I've always been a morning person. I can't code anything difficult after 9 PM. I go to sleep at 11:30+/-. I sleep soundly until 4AM, when an alarm wakes me so I can turn my disabled wife over  . It takes awhile to get back to sleep, maybe 30 minutes, but then I'm asleep until the morning alarm at 8:40. Sometimes I will wake up as early as 8 on my own.
When I was working, I went to sleep at 11 and up at 6:30, and by Friday I was a zombie from the missing hour of sleep, so clearly what I needed hasn't changed, just now I'm actually getting it.
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I'm 74 now and still at it, I work because that is what drives me. When I was young I'd stay up until 2 AM and then get up at 6 AM for my job. Now that I am 74 I say up until 8 or 9 PM and sleep until 2 or 3 AM and then I am up and working on some problem I have been churning over in my sleep.
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Same here. What worked for me was:
Working out after work but before dinner.
Having dinner ealier.
Eating less at dinner and smaller dessert if any, and fewer carbs late in the day.
No caffeine after 1pm.
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I made surprising progress today, so I thought I'd grab a couple of beers. I'm building a custom JavaScript code editor, and I'm now exhausted. If I hold a beer in my hand, it forces me to focus on it. If I'm focused on something, I'm less likely to nod off. Who wants to wake up in shock from spilling a cold beer on yourself? Right?
There is a caveat to this wakefulness technique. If you're holding a glass of beer in your hand, you'll drink it. I haven't found a fix for this, but I will.
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I'm not sure if you have serious issues with life or humor.
It's 3am on the east coast of the US. I cannot sleep. I am wide awake, my brain is zooming, and I don't do crack. See next post. I have to go to a code merge of a few hundred files..
Charlie Gilley
“They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759
Has never been more appropriate.
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charlieg wrote: I'm not sure if you have serious issues with life or humor.
I'm happy to find out I'm not the only one who had..."difficulty"?...understanding that.
Maybe I'm the one who needs a beer.
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charlieg wrote: I'm not sure if you have serious issues with life or humor. 
I could answer that question, but I'll be honest with you, I am a liar.
If a person is an idiot, does that mean that they have serious issues in life? Are they incapable of having a sense of humor?
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no worries. Late night chit chat in the lounge.
Charlie Gilley
“They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759
Has never been more appropriate.
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ps - hand me your beer. problem solved
Charlie Gilley
“They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759
Has never been more appropriate.
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Funny story, speaking of sleeping problems.
Several years back my ex-brother-in-law gave me a sleeping pill and said it would give me a great nights sleep.
I took it and next morning I woke up after one of the best nights sleep I had had in a long time.
Only one problem, I was laying on half a taco. He didn't tell me that one of the side effects was sleep walking.
Never took it again.
As the aircraft designer said, "Simplicate and add lightness".
PartsBin an Electronics Part Organizer - Release Version 1.3.0 JaxCoder.com
Latest Article: SimpleWizardUpdate
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Steve Raw wrote: If you're holding a glass of beer in your hand, you'll drink it.
This is a demonstration of what is known as "The Beer Equivalent", which states that"Consumed Beer == Available Beer".
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Who's torturing you with JavaScript ?. Will it get you a golden egg ? If you need help call AAA or the police ? Just say the word !
Caveat Emptor.
"Progress doesn't come from early risers – progress is made by lazy men looking for easier ways to do things." Lazarus Long
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Steve Raw wrote: I haven't found a fix for this, but I will.
Pick a beverage you don't like.
Perhaps tomato juice with ice. Or clamato.
Myself I like the first one so no help there.
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I've been trying to fix this problem over and over again since I can remember.
Last night, I held a glass of beer in my hand. I stayed awake by focusing on not spilling any beer.
Then I drank it all.
Then, after that, I went to bed and fell asleep.
If you don't succeed, try again.
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More discipline?
Get another one right away and see if it works better with the second. Repeat as necessary.
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