Ten to eleven o’clock is the normal time for me to go to bed and sleep. Seven to eight o’clock is the normal time for me to get up.
Sounds simple, right? Unfortunately, there are events that does not make it a simple eight-hour sound sleep. First, my bladder requires attention at least twice during that time. Some nights it happens four times. Many times, I get up go and come back and go back to sleep almost immediately. Other times not so fortunate. My mind starts working and I start thinking about many different subjects and takes different times to fall back to sleep. I remember the good old days when I could fall asleep and sleep for eight hours before my bladder would say, “hey Tom, it is time to pee!”
Secondly, I have started to wake up somewhere around four or five in the morning. I guess I do not need eight hours of sleep anymore before I feel rested. I don’t get up at that time. It gives me a good time to reconcile various events in my life. It may be a recent event or some event that happened many years ago. I do enjoy this time though; it gives me a time to think about actions I took or relationships in my life. Also, I take time to talk to the creator. It is usually a one-sided conversation though. After this mental activity I usually take a snooze before it is time to arise. I cannot remember the last time an alarm clock was needed to wake me up in the morning. Apparently, my biological clock never goes to sleep.
As I become older the afternoon nap is becoming more common and the ten-fifteen-minute snooze has become an hour or more.
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TomT2.0 
The older I get, the less I sleep. I have always been and early riser, and generally go to bed around 2200.
Not that sleep has ever been an easy and good thing for me. I have obstructive sleep apnea, and use a Bi-Pap. I was first diagnosed in 2014, and used a C-Pap 2014-early 2026. Another sleep study was done in Spring of this year, and I was switched to a Bi-Pap. Most of my adult life, I slept terribly, and thought I had insomnia. I have also snored since I was a child.
What I didn’t realize until I was in my 20’s, was that I was a horribly loud snorer, and disrupted the sleep of others (I upset barracks room-mates quite often, my snoring disturbed their sleep). All the way to 2014, I still believed I had insomnia, and “just snored.” HA! Boy oh boy, I was wrong. Big time wrong.
Obstructive sleep apnea blows! But, I am a 100% compliant Bi-Pap User, and it really does help. I have to use a full mask because I am a mouth breather. I’m one of the rare folks who likes the machine. Because, I like sleeping more than a few minutes at a time.
But, I have noticed I sleep less overall, overnight. Arising early is now, getting up at “Stupid Early O’Clock”—-and I also have an afternoon snooze on my daily itinerary.
A few years before my dad passed away (he died at 98 years old) we had a conversation about sleep. He also said that the older he got, the less he slept. He also had to get up “to go” once or twice and he napped during the day.
My husband has to get up several times a night “to go.”
Sorry for the novella. Have a good day.
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