Sometimes i find a text from my sister saying she is awake. I find 4 am nice and quiet because i don't get much quiet in my day otherwise. I let the dogs out and don't hear leaf blowers or sirens or ups trucks. This morning i sat on the porch for a little while. It's warmer since we are expecting rain.

The trouble is i'll be exhausted by 8 pm!

How are you holding up?

It just seems sort of melancholy to me somehow, regardless of my actual state of mind, which lately has not been great.

I will pay for being awake so early later.

There is nothing out there except a few trucks and the wildlife. But there is no one to piss you off either.

I was on I-95 on Sunday, with the rest of the post-holiday traffic and I nearly got into more than one accident. Some idiot in a small SUV just decided to change lanes right where I was. I was not even in the blind spot, but right next to her. I laid on the horn, but there was no acknowledgement. And it seemed like every was driving in the left lane.

Sat in so many holiday parking lots on that road, most of them in Georgia.

up at 4:00 a.m. It's nice and peaceful and I mentally plan my day.

Sometimes I pick up my current book and read for a while.

... I find the early hours to be my most productive, and will try to tackle my toughest jobs early in the day.

As noted by others, it's a great time to drive through what are normally congested areas.

I haven't milked a cow in more than 40 years, but I still get up early and am glad I do.

The dark middle of the night is when all those bad feelings and worries I've managed to repress all day come back in, unwanted.

... as for worry, I've always tried to deal with issues where I could make a difference and avoid worrying about those where I couldn't. It's not a perfect system - children penetrate it every day - but it helps.

In other words, instead of worrying about something, do something about it. And if you can't, try not to worry about it.

Some mornings I'm able to return to sleep but usually I'm awake for the day.
I try to distract myself from stinkin' thinkin'. Fixing something warm to eat or drink calms my nerves most times.

My alarm goes off at 4:30, but I rarely sleep through to the alarm. I like the solitary dark; there is something comforting, renewing about it.

If the sun is already up when I wake up, I feel stressed and behind all day long. I like to be awake, to have had time to reflect and gather myself to greet the sun.

It's kind of like a daily rebirth.

I hit menopause right around the time I got laid off. Between the stress of this never-ending joblessness, and hormonal disruptions, I went for years without getting more than 3 or 4 hours of consecutive sleep. And, not being able to afford to replace the 15-year-old (at least) mattress hasn't helped, either. All the monsters under the bed come out at in those early hours of the morning. It's horrible. Everything bad seems even worse.

Some of this can turn into habit, like it did for me. You should try to nip it in the bud, if you can. I found that Mid Nite helps get me back to sleep. You can buy it OTC at any grocery, big box, or drug store. If you are a female of a certain age, they even have a menopause formula. I also find that turning on the TV, and setting the turn-off timer helps. It distracts me from the things that worry me.

Which I can deal with. I think I must wake up all the way during the shallow part of the R.E.M cycle. Usually I've been dreaming, sometimes disturbingly.

I've been getting better and more sleep since I got my new job. I hated the old one, so the stress kept me awake a lot, especially on Sundays because I dreaded the workweek. That doesn't happen so much. And I've even slept pretty well most of the time, despite being down in the dumps for the last few weeks.

I find that screen time, from the TV or a computer, makes it harder to fall asleep. I can't listen to most music because I get so into it, it has the opposite affect.

3 a.m., by Guadalcanal Diary. It's a sad one.

Where I graduated from high school. Weird. I've never listened to their stuff.

They're a total REM ripoff, but I've always had a soft spot in my heart for them.

They jumped on the REM bandwagon just like Rain Parade, Jason & the Scorchers, the Dream Syndicate and a few others did, but they weren't complete ripoffs in that Creed ripping off Pearl Jam sort of way.

I loved 'Trail of Tears and I've still got 'Walking In The Shadow Of The Big Man' on vinyl, and only ever listened to it once coz the rest didn't excite me like that song did...

to fix i need to distract myself

maybe 20 minutes or so on du or facebook
or maybe some online funnies
and i can go back to sleep

distraction is the key

But there is good stupid tv on at that time.

I used to wake up around 3:45 am most days, and couldn't stop the depressing thoughts from coming. It still happens sometimes. It's awful when it happens.

The best way of dealing with this, for me, is warming a cup of milk in the microwave and drinking it while distracting myself with a book. Especially books that take your mind off the present and carry you to another world, like the Lord of the Rings. The other thing that helps me sleep through the night is a prescription anti-depressant that works as a sleep medication.

Yes, like the world is ending ..... that feeling of dread. I've dealt with it since my first days with the ambulance and it's never changed ... maybe partly due to most of our worst calls being around that time of the morning. Usually I can get back to sleep, but it makes for a long, tired day if I can't.

Bad things seem to happen in the middle of the night.

my internal alarm clock always woke me at 4:30 a.m. After I retired, I still woke up at that time. It has taken me a few years to sleep later. Sometimes I will wake at 4:30 and force myself to go back to sleep.

I usually look forward to it four a.m. because I know I'll be so exhausted by then that I'll fall asleep.

I hadn't realized 4 am was so common in music, literature and art. I think my thesis is correct: 4 am is both very early and very late. Things happen then that don't happen at other times.

I remember this from Babylon 5

Susan Ivanova: Have you ever heard of the hour of the wolf?
Lyta Alexander: No.
Susan Ivanova: My father told me about it. It's the time between 3:00 and 4:00 in the morning. You can't sleep, and all you can see is the troubles and the problems and the ways that your life should've gone but didn't. All you can hear is the sound of your own heart. I've been living in the hour of the wolf for seven days, Lyta. Seven days. The wolf and I are now on a first-name basis. In times like this, my father used to take one large glass of vodka before bed. 'To keep the wolf away,' he said. And then he would take three very small drinks of vodka, just in case she had cubs while she was waiting outside.
[she takes a drink]
Susan Ivanova: It doesn't work.

Two of my siblings have told me they experience something in the night, where they wake up suddenly, scared and panicky. They don't know what they're panicky about. They have trouble going back to sleep. My brother keeps a panic pouch, where he has things that seem to help him or comfort him. I don't know what's in the pouch.

I couldn't understand what they were talking about, until about twice I woke up suddenly, feeling panicky. That's very unlike me. I'm lucky to be a sound sleeper. But I knew what it was....a profound sense of being alone, and getting older. Not that I'm particularly worried about either of those things. That's what odd about it. Maybe I'd been having a nightmare about it. I am lucky in that it only happened a couple of times.

Does that sound familiar to you?

I don't know about you, but I sleep with the tv on. Some mundane station (Hallmark often works for me) - nothing too loud or interesting. It helps me sleep, for some reason. The drone of the voices in the background. It helps if I wake up, since I live alone. I don't like complete silence. In fact, if I have a power failure the silence will wake me up! I find it that disturbing. Have you tried keeping the tv on? I don't think a radio will work; it helps to have a visual to draw your eyes to, I think.

Does this happen to you often? Or occasionally? Or is this something new? Are you middle aged? My siblings' panic attacks started after they reached middle age, and the two attacks I had were after I reached middle age.

For me, 3 a.m. is the witching hour, the hour that I get really concerned if I have insomnia.

Sudden drops in blood sugar level will mimic panic attacks and awaken one abruptly from sleep.

You know, I get dizzy sometimes, and a friend told me that sudden drops in blood sugar will do that. Very interesting. Thanks!

Because if you're experiencing it, it's never because of something good.

- Awake too early
- Awake too late (never fell asleep)
- Awake because of a nightmare
- Awake when you don't want to be

When I was young, I used to try to stay up all night just because. For your information, never try to do that. I found out the hard way.

I sometimes run at 4 so I can take my mind off things.

I usually wake up about that time, don't know why.

I used to work graveyard, so that was lunch time for me.

It is really quiet at this time, just before the traffic starts.

I like to drive at this time, no one out and about.

4 AM was a very lonely time indeed.

These lyrics always tear me up. They're so intense and show so much understanding of what it's like to have a raincoat handed to you at that godforsaken hour. Hell, I'm going to have to rush off and listen to some vintage Matchbox 20 now!!

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She say it's cold outside and she hands me my raincoat
She's always worried about things like that
She says it's all gonna end and it might as well be my fault
And she only sleeps when it's raining
And she screams and her voice is straining

[chorus]

She says baby
It's 3 am I must be lonely
When she says baby
Well I can't help but be scared of it all sometimes
Says the rain's gonna wash away I believe it

She's got a little bit of something, God it's better than nothing
And in her color portrait world she believes that she's got it all
She swears the moon don't hang quite as high as it used to
And she only sleeps when it's raining
And she screams and her voice is straining

[chorus]

She believes that life is made up of all that you're used to
And the clock on the wall has been stuck at three for days, and days
She thinks that happiness is a mat that sits on her doorway
But outside it's stopped raining

[chorus]

Stitching together Leonard Cohen, Faron Young, Paul Simon, Judy Dench, and that artist whose name I can't recall.

Just for fun, I googled 4 am music and there are a whole lot of songs with that in the title at least. So I'm not alone.