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- Staring into nothingness
- Looking at the tree outside the window
- Alcohol
- Depending on partner's mood/expected reaction, fooling around
"It is easy to decipher extraterrestrial signals after deciphering Javascript and VB6 themselves.", ISanti[ ^]
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omphaloskepsis
«The mind is not a vessel to be filled but a fire to be kindled» Plutarch
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Cleaning the litter box 
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I kinda wished I had that problem.
I'm at a point in my life where no matter how much time I spend in bed, I'm pretty much always tired anyway. And I cannot simply stay in bed, say on weekends, for X amount of additional time, no matter how hard I try.
"They" keep saying 8 hours a day as the standard recommendation for an adult...and while I can stay in bed for 8 hours, there's no way I ever get 8 hours of actual sleep during that time period.
I think I got off on a tangent...what do I do with my time at midnight? During weekdays, I'm sleeping (or trying to). On weekends...I might still be playing some game or watching a movie...but if I'm still up at that time, it won't be for much longer anyway.
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Oh I'm tired all the time. I don't stay in bed. 
Real programmers use butterflies
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Back in my college days (middle 70's) I went to a friends birthday party. Being the innocent I was back then, I ate a number of brownies snacks they had until someone told me they had hash in them. I immediately went back to the dorm, went to bed (about 10pm) and woke up at 5pm the next day!!! Maybe a magic brownie or two may help you sleep!.
On a more serious note, have you tried meditation? I can waste a good hour or more meditating.
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sasadler wrote: On a more serious note, have you tried meditation? I can waste a good hour or more meditating.
You're not selling it describing it as such...
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When I end up in a similar situation (albeit less "burned on coding" and more "brain still in overdrive from coding"), I grab my kindle. My girlfriend doesn't mind me reading at low brightness. When that doesn't help, I get up and do something explicitly passive, i.e. watching infotainment with headphones.
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You need to break this habit. I go to bed at 21:00 and get up at 05:30. I am much more productive.
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Some ideas:
- watch stars, constellations, moon etc (you might buy a telescope or even build one)
- study weather patterns and clouds by night
- study the animal kingdom at night.
- night photography (no success for me)
- redo thought experiments,
- train memory by reliving a past holiday (whatever) in as much detail as possible
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Wireless headphones are a joy. I use mine for audiobooks, podcasts, and music. If I'm antsy enough to not want to lie in bed, tightly snuggled by hubby, I play Minecraft (very calming).
If you want to actually sleep, I recommend a great podcast called 'Boring Stories for Bedtime' by Sharon Handy.
Sweet dreams ... or not 
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Yoga, meditate, read some classic tomes?
Friends I have say that Mary Jane gummies ingested late in the evening help sleep. (This stuff is now legal in my neck of the woods). 
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I have to stop coding after about 9pm. If I continue after that, I am up much of the night and wasted the next day.
Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend; inside of a dog, it's too dark to read. -- Groucho Marx
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Check with your doctor to make sure there isn't anything abnormal afoot.
Perhaps you should lean into your tendency and try biphasic sleeping ( [^] )
If you want to become a "traditionalist sleeper" stop using screens ~1 hr before bed, minimize your exposure to the blue light part of the spectrum, and meditate ~ 15 mins before going to sleep. If your head still insists on waking you up after 3-4 hrs, try doing some non-stimulating things like, gentle stretching, warm bath, meditation to see if you can get to sleep again.
People are different and this just might be your body's strong preference as to sleep. If you need to fill those strange quiet hours, consider taking up an art, like writing, drawing, painting, etc. it will encourage the non-logical side of your brain to come out an play.
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- Meditate
- Read
- Watch movies with headphones
- Scroll social media until I get to the end of the Internet
My wife knits while doing the above.
I would practice playing the piano, except they complain of my pounding on the keys even though the sound is off.
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You could start porting some games to run on your hardware projects.
E reader/backgammon.
Chess checkers etc
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Final Fantasy I 
Edit: Actually I could probably build an NES emulator on one.
Real programmers use butterflies
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I was thinking much smaller😊
I am not surprised that you would add a few orders of magnitude.
You could also try writing a screen play or something along the lines of Halt and Catch Fire
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I liked that show. It reminded me of when I was a kid. Also I completely identify with Cameron. What a great character.
Real programmers use butterflies
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Exercise that makes you sweat at least a bit helps you sleep longer and better.
Or Netflix.
Or 10-hour long YouTube "videos" of falling rain might help. (Just audio with a black screen.) Make it quieter than you think. In the dead of night, everything seems louder. Works.
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Been there done that - and it does not end well. In my case 10 years of 4 hour sleeps ended in hospital.
4 hours is _not_ normal. I'm not saying it's bad, just not normal. All the current research does indicate that it is also bad.
If you are sleeping 4 hours and always tired, you have a problem that needs addressing. Coding can be an obsession (burnt out or not) - solving the puzzle consumes the mind. Obsession is a form of angst that can cause the brain to wake up before it is fully rested.
In my case, I (mostly) solved the problem using the following;
1) Use the end of the day to 'unwind' - slow the brain down and quiet the conscious, forgo all drugs for this (particularly alcohol and tea/coffee).
2) Just prior to ending your work day consider one problem for the sub-conscious to work on. Then forget about it and go to step 1 (it is for sub conscious, not conscious mind).
3) Use all means possible to eliminate blue light during 'wind-down'. Close your dev system and physically relocate away from your work space (and leave your phone).
4) Using this regimen, after 12-14 hours work and 2-4 hrs wind-down, you should start to feel really tired. It may take a week or two to get in the zone.
Using this regimen I can assure 6-8 hours good sleep. Any time I let coding angst intrude it drops to 4-5. It has completely inverted my work schedule - now I get ~4 good hours work in before breakfast, ~4 good hours after breakfast and another ~4 generally solid but sometimes interrupted by life after lunch. By then I'm getting organized for the end of day 'un-wind'. No calls or work after dinner and if anyone asks me about work during that time, I'm unavailable and can't remember anyway.
Usually puts me in bed fast asleep ~9pm through 3-5am. If I wake up too early, I feel groggy and can't focus (burnt out). Basics, but often overlooked - make sure you are not too hot while asleep (most people are) and have a comfortable mattress.
Outside stimulants like caffeine or alcohol can screw this up for a week or more before I can get back in the zone.
Oh, and that sub-conscious problem; usually solved by the morning or at least moved along.
modified 2-Dec-21 10:01am.
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Some latitude is to be expected when judging height (8)
"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony
"Common sense is so rare these days, it should be classified as a super power" - Random T-shirt
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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Altitude ? don't know why
"Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well-preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming “Wow! What a Ride!" - Hunter S Thompson - RIP
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