Progress with CPAP but not sleeping enough

Been using CPAP for three months now and I get an average AHI of 1.3 for the past 40 days but I am having a hard time getting 7 hours of sleep now.
In the first month of CPAP usage I was getting at least 8 hours of sleep.
I am able to function well during the day but by 7:30 PM I am really tired.
I try not going to sleep at that time and push it to 8:30 and then I sleep for about 5 1/2 to 6 hours hence I am awake at 2:30 AM and can't sleep.
What is better ? stay in bed and just lay there or get up and read or just start my day?
I am 65 years old and retired so I could take a nap during the day but I don't,
would a nap help me break this cycle?

...maybe, but exercise during the day does help with the sleep cycle.

Yes, I think a short nap - with Cpap - would help. A lot of us have run into a similar pattern, though each is a bit different, and it can be difficult to get it 'right'. Not sure if it's a question of age meeting Cpap or OSA or circadian rhythms, but it can be frustrating.

Apart from exercise, I read an article just the other day about "two sleep", how people, before the spread of electric light, would naturally get up around 2-3, spend a few hours reading, doing whatever, and then go back to sleep till the morning.
Maybe that would be worth a try?

Golf016 wrote:Been using CPAP for three months now and I get an average AHI of 1.3 for the past 40 days but I am having a hard time getting 7 hours of sleep now.
In the first month of CPAP usage I was getting at least 8 hours of sleep.
I am able to function well during the day but by 7:30 PM I am really tired.
I try not going to sleep at that time and push it to 8:30 and then I sleep for about 5 1/2 to 6 hours hence I am awake at 2:30 AM and can't sleep.
What is better ? stay in bed and just lay there or get up and read or just start my day?
I am 65 years old and retired so I could take a nap during the day but I don't,
would a nap help me break this cycle?

Golf016,

It sounds like you may have Advanced Phase Syndrome since you feel sleepier at a considerable earlier time than most people and wake up in the early morning as a result. This article covers APD which mentions light therapy suggestions. Interestingly, it doesn't feel the use of melatonin has been shown to be effective for this condition.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3020104/

49er

As you're already seeing, there's more than one school of thought on what are good, or at least acceptable, sleep patterns. I think it ends up being whatever works for you. The fact that you have flexibility makes a nap more workable for you. For those whose schedule requires they get all their sleep in a consolidated time, there's all kinds of info out there for attempting to reset our circadian rhythm. When I was failing to sleep enough hours, my sleep doctor advised me to plan a nap with CPAP into my day. However, she did prefer I work with the ebb and flow of hornones and try to go to bed earlier and stay asleep longer. What I wonder is since our body gets a large chunk of our REM sleep at the end of a "normal" sleep cycle, and it generally takes a while to reach REM, are those with segmented sleep REM deprived? Maybe someone who is familiar with the subject could answer that. If lost REM is an issue, that's another story. I am admittedly lazy about "fixing" my sleep, so I'm probably not the best person to listen to on this. At 3 months in, I'd venture to say you not have yet settled in to what is your new normal. Do let us know how this works out for you.

I have a similar problem as the OP, except I start crashing a lot earlier. A lot of times, I will wake up in the morning and feel like I've had a full nights rest. Then, I look at the clock and it's about 5:00am but I'm not tired anymore. So, I get up go to work and then about 9:00am, I start fizzling out 'cause I've only had 5 hrs of sleep. So, about lunch time, I'll take about a 15 minute nap and then I am fine for the rest of the day.

Been doing this for years.

A nap might help you break the cycle since it is a cycle that you don't particularly want. Since you are retired you might give it a try. But a word of caution.....don't take that nap too late in the afternoon and don't make it too long or you might have trouble going to sleep at a more appropriate time of your choosing.

Sometimes I get a really strong urge to nap around 5 or 6 PM...usually because my hours of sleep were short the night before from something external (dogs, cats, pain, whatever) but I have found if I take a nap after 3 or 4 PM then I am wide awake at midnight and that means another short night and it would be real easy to make that a bad habit.

When I get the really strong urge at 5 or 6 PM I get up and force myself to move around until I can get past the urge to sleep. Then I am usually okay until my usual 11 PM bedtime. My normal get up time is between 7 and 8 AM depending on the dogs wanting to go outside to pee. On occasion I wake up sooner for no reason but it's rare. I feel the best with at least 7 1/2 to 8 hours of good quality sleep. If I get less than that my butt starts dragging and if the sleep quality is marginal I still get the butt dragging even with 8 hours of sleep. Sometimes my sleep quality isn't optimal because of pain mainly. If I have had a bad night and I really need a nap in the afternoon...I take it. I just try to not do it after say 4 PM if at all possible...sometimes it can't be helped and then I usually have to have another short night because I am wide awake at midnight but I work on it the next day so that I can get back to a schedule more to my liking.
I would love to go to bed a midnight and get up around 8 AM...but my dogs want to go pee before that time so I have adjust my bedtime to accommodate by babies.

Since you are retired you can play around with the nap times and go to bed and wake up times to try to find what time seems to work best for you.
Allow yourself that luxury. If you need a nap and the nap doesn't keep you up all hours of the night...take a nap.

I do get enough exercise, I play 18 holes of golf most days in the AM and I walk it. ( at least 4.5 miles )
My biggest concern is if I take a nap I won't be able to fall asleep that night.

Golf016 wrote:My biggest concern is if I take a nap I won't be able to fall asleep that night.

Well...that's always a risk and severity of risk will likely depend on length of the nap and the time of the nap.

Eventually you do fall asleep though...won't keep you up all night...just will mess with the schedule a bit.

Or do like I do if I get really really washed out at 7 or 8 pm for some reason and I know that I will really mess up my routine if I take a nap or go to bed that early and end up waking up at 4 AM wide awake...
I find something to do at the 7 or 8 PM time frame that gets me through the urge to sleep that early. It's really hard sometimes though and fortunately doesn't happen to be often.
What I do...rearrange the kitchen cupboards a bit. Not real physical but annoying to sometimes get me out of the sleepy mood.

xxyzx wrote:

Golf016 wrote:I do get enough exercise, I play 18 holes of golf most days in the AM and I walk it. ( at least 4.5 miles )
My biggest concern is if I take a nap I won't be able to fall asleep that night.

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fear or reality

you may be right but i never had a problem with naps
worst case i go to sleep later if that happens

but usually a short nap , hard to take a long one, only recharges me til the normal bed time

you may have other sleep issues they need to address
and golf in the AM made me take a nap when i got back

how about golf in the afternoon instead
then you would be tired at bed time and get a better nights sleep too

What is the best restaurant in Hilo, HI?

Golf016 wrote:I do get enough exercise, I play 18 holes of golf most days in the AM and I walk it. ( at least 4.5 miles )
My biggest concern is if I take a nap I won't be able to fall asleep that night.

What I would suggest is that when you get tired to take a "POWER NAP" set your alarm for 10 to 20 minutes. Sleep just long enough to get rid of the tired.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_nap

I take them quite frequently.