Always woken up early

Probably a very common question, but I could do with some advice.

At the moment I’m not getting enough sleep (this mainly refers to during the “working week” – Monday to Friday, although I still struggle to sleep much later on the weekend). More info is below. For reference, I tend to go to bed between 11:30pm and 12:00am, and set my alarm for 7:45am.

My problem is that I tend to be woken up between 60 and 90 minutes before my alarm goes off. This is because I live on the ground floor of a shared house and two of my housemates get up/leave for work between 6 and 6:30am, hence the disturbance. I don’t think they’re being particularly loud (maybe I’m just not sleeping deeply), but I’m consistently woken up by them. Once awake, I can never really get back to sleep; I just sort of doze until my alarm goes off (or just before) and then I get up. Obviously this means I’m losing an hour (or so) of “proper” sleep per night, which then means I feel tired at work throughout the week. The obvious question here is “What can I do about this”? I’ve had a think and I just want to mention a couple of things right off the bat I’ve already tried/considered…

- Sleep while wearing earplugs. (I’ve tried this. They’re ok for trying to get to sleep, but they always (always) fall out in the night, so they’re no good for when I’m woken up early in the morning)
- Go to bed earlier. (An obvious solution and I try it where I can, but I do a lot of sports/social clubs – particularly Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday – that don’t finish until at least 10pm (sometimes later), and they aren’t the kind of thing I can leave early. These are a big social thing for me, so I really don’t want to stop doing them if I can, as it’s how I see a lot of my friends. (I can provide more context if it will help))

To clarify, the tiredness isn’t so bad I feel I’m struggling to stay awake during the day at work, but I just never really feel well-rested and, obviously, feeling tired/groggy doesn’t help your mental state either. I also wonder to what extent tiredness affects my mood and how I feel about certain things. It would be very helpful if I could either rule out tiredness, or confirm it as part of the problem. I’m just not sure how to do that. I’m guessing part of the problem is that, perhaps, I’m just a light sleeper. Also, perhaps I stress about not being able to get back to sleep when I do wake up? Is there anything I can do about this? I’ve never really tracked my sleep before. Are there any good tricks/techniques for this?

If anyone wants more information/clarification on anything I've written, please just say so and I'll happily provide it.

perhaps you are a light sleeper, yep.

perhaps your body is just used to getting up at a certain time each day

perhaps you need a new matress? (I hear it's a good idea to replace them every 4 to 8 years)

perhaps you have some anxiety about something- or other thoughts

perhaps it's the light from outside waking you up? (do you sleep with the curtains open in summer, for example)

their are some thoughts... good luck

Interesting. Thank you for your response. Here are my thoughts.

Maybe I am a light sleeper. Is there anything I can do about that? The same question goes for the anxiety. Maybe I am anxious about things and I am trying to find a cause for them, but, until that happens, it might just keep causing me problems.

I don't think waking up at this specific time is causing me problems – I’ve been getting up between 7:30 and 8 for the past few years, so I’d say I’m quite used to it. The light *may* be causing me problems (I do have east-facing windows), but I sleep with the curtains closed, and the windows are closed as well, so it isn’t the noise.

Buying a new mattress probably would be sensible. Unfortunately I’m only renting the current place on a 12 month contract, so I might move out next June (not guaranteed, but I don’t know right now). I don’t own the furniture here, like the bed and the mattress, so I’d need to leave it all behind when I move out. If I was going to buy a new mattress, I’d need to find somewhere to store the old one, so I could leave it behind when I do leave. The house doesn't have an attic, so storage space would be an issue.