I’ve had insomnia on and off for 30+ years now. The current round started earlier this year, in January, I think. Typically, I don’t sleep well, 4-5 hours a night, for 6 months or so, and then I start sleeping properly again. I’m still sleeping oddly.

Now that I’m not working, I am having an afternoon nap every day and I don’t think this is helping at all. I’m sleeping about 5 hours a night, regardless of what time I go to bed, then I’m so tired by afternoon (after doing nothing, really) that I have to have a nap and I nap from 1-3 hours and then the cycle repeats itself.

I think, and I very well may be wrong, that if I didn’t nap in the afternoon and went to bed at 10 that I might be able to break the cycle. I suppose it really doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things, I’m still getting around 8 hours sleep in a 24 hour day, the sleep is just broken into chunks.

Do other retired people do this? Is it normal to nap every afternoon? Being awake at 2 or 3 am seems normal to me now. I don’t tend to do a lot, watch some TV or a movie or play some old school video games. I often go back to bed at 5 and sleep another hour or two, sometimes not. Perhaps, for now, this is the new normal.

If you’re retired, let me know how you sleep? I’m curious as to whether or not this is “normal”. Probably not, what else do I do that’s normal? Likely not a lot…