I run a low blood sugar and I use reams of it in my coffee. Otherwise, I don't get much at all unless I eat carbs. I try to avoid them due to my sedentary lifestyle. Weight too easy to gain, too hard to lose.
I generally go to bed at 7-8 PM and get up at 3-4 AM. I love the mornings with the quiet. Sometimes after a short snifter of fine Spanish brandy, I dose off at 5 PM and sleep in my recliner until first call of necessary business and then go to bed and sleep until 2 AM. I don't take naps because I wake up with headaches and all grouchy.
No particular time. I go to bed when I am tired and I get up when I am no longer tired. I lean toward going to bed between 1-3 and getting up just before noon, but that tends to creep forward. Once in a while, I will do a reset by going to bed at midnight and getting up around 7-8 am. That doesn't last, though. Whenever I go to bed, I can usually get to sleep within a half hour. If not, I get up or read.
When you did your ambulance service, did you have set daily shifts or do as paramedic/firefighters with so many days on call and sleep when you can. then days off and on call only in extreme emergencies? My retired fireman 82 year old neighbor still has no set hours for sleep. He is usually more of a morning person, but may sleep for a few hours get up at 2 AM and go work on his antique cars until 9 AM and then go back to bed and sleep until noon or until he hears a fire or ambulance siren. We live a block from a fire/ ambulance station. He never wakes for a police siren. He explained the different levels of ambulance sirens and the different siren sounds of the Chiefs vehicle, the tool truck, and the fire engine. How he can wake from sleep and know the difference is beyond me. 40 years on the job and I guess his mind doesn't recognize retirement.
Twenty-four-hour shifts, usually. When I worked for a volunteer service, people were on call but, even then, we had at least one crew at the station to eliminate the time that it would take for people to get from their homes to the station. When one crew went out, another reported to the station. Paid services were usually 24-hour shifts. I don't want to derail this thread, however, since it's about when people go to bed. I suppose the hours that people generally worked when they were working full time has some reflection on the hours they keep when retired. I slept sporadically as a paramedic and worked the night shift before that, so that might have something to do with it.
That's true. My oldest son lives in Oregon and he is always forgetting about the time difference when he calls.
It’s dawned on me since moving into Assisted Living two years ago that I no longer need to maintain a sleep/wake schedule like when I was still working pre/retirement or owned and lived in my own home. Last night for example I ate a early dinner at 5PM and then went back to my apartment to watch the evening news and answer some email. At 7 PM I felt tired but not sleepy yet and thought I would go to bed. I went to bed at 7:30 PM and got up at 4:30 AM, took a hot shower and got dressed. It’s now 7AM and I will go to breakfast at 8 AM and then back to my apartment to go online and do some banking until I leave for a 11:45 AM Oncology appointment via transportation provided by Assisted Living. Assisted Living transportation will bring me back around 12:30 PM and I will do some reading in my apartment until going to the dining room for a bowl of soup.
I have no idea why I'm so schedule oriented. I feel all out of sorts when I don't do the same things at the same time. I wish I were more flexible. I guess you do have to keep in mind the food serving times though.
My schedule definitely changed when I stopped working. Not sure it's age-related or just the fact that I don't have to be a slave to the alarm clock. We do keep to a semi-routine as far as meals; my husband only eats one meal a day so we have dinner relatively early.