Note: I pounded this out pretty quickly and don't have time to proofread. Sorry for any grammatical errors.
I will say some of these articles sometimes read satirically. Notably, they have a diagnosis for people who can't sleep at 'normal' hours: Delayed Sleep Phase Syndrome.
I have been struggling with being unable to sleep during normal hours my entire life. My parents would yank the covers off of me in the morning, or maybe my mother would start vacuuming my room at 8 AM frustrated that I wasn't already up. All through my school years, from elementary to HS I was barely functional. I was often late or missed the bus because I was a walking zombie, struggling to get dressed and out of the house without falling asleep.
Keep in mind that I'm 45, none of this was due to too much TV time or smart phone use. (One TV in the house, no such thing as notebooks, ipads, or smart phones back then).
No matter how much I struggled through the day to just stay awake, and how much I was looking forward to going to bed that night, at 9 PM I would be fully awake. I laid in bed night after night watching the click tick by as I tried to unsuccessfully "just go to sleep". Then, when my alarm went off I'd be exhausted again and struggle to get up and out the door. I was a terrible student to say the least.
You're told for years that you're lazy, unmotivated, a slacker, etc.
During my High School summers, I would get into a pattern of going to sleep at between 3 and 6 AM, waking at noon. I was a fully functioning human being. I had the most creative and productive days (evenings) of my life as an artist. I was naturally alert and creative Ispent the wee hours of the morning drawing, painting, reading.
Then I'd be plunged back into misery when the school year began. I once again drove my teachers crazy. I got in trouble for falling asleep in class. I was told again that I was a lazy slacker. I don't know how many times I was spoken to by faculty about not living up to my potential.
When you're told your whole life that you're only problem is that you're lazy, and you can't figure out why you can't find the motivation to do the things you want to do, you start to believe it.
After HS, I had a few menial jobs, stumbling into one where I worked from 8 PM to 4 AM. It was great, except for the fact that my mother still harassed my by trying to wake me up at 9 AM because... I don't know. I guess she just didn't want some lazy slacker sleeping the day away?
Later I worked my way into tech and had jobs requiring normal office hours. I was self medicating by drinking most nights, trying to get to sleep to maintain a normal-ish schedule. It didn't work all that well.
I was working at a company as a technical lead that I'd help get up and running with a couple of friends from school, and even though we were supposed to be "flex" hours, not surprisingly the morning people kept setting up 8 AM meetings that I was almost always late for and sometimes missed.
Out of frustration I spoke to my Dr about it, and he sent me to a a medical sleep center. I had a couple of sleep studies done, electrodes glued to my head and all that. The Dr told me I had DSPS, something I'd never heard of, nor sought a diagnosis of. This was roughly 20 years ago. I looked it up, and found that it was a real thing.
So, I told my friends that I'd started that company with what was up... I had thing thing called "DSPS" and what it was, how it worked and all that.
And I'll never forget how my best friend looked me square in the eye and told me he basically had lost all respect for me, for coming to them with some kind of bullshit made up medical diagnosis, trying to excuse my inability to keep the same schedule as everybody else. The relationship between the two of us quickly went down hill.
I spent some time after that out of tech, working jobs that were more amenable to later hours. For the last 6 I've been back in it, and it's still a frustrating struggle to stay on "normal" hours. In an effort to go to sleep when I should, I take benadryl and melatonin almost every night. Sometimes it works, sometimes it seems to have no effect.
I know that I'm not as effective at my job as I could be, my mind is often in a fog during the day. And again... I spend the whole day looking forward to climbing into bed at 9 PM to get a good night's rest, only to have my brain begin firing on all cylinders that night. I get tremendously motivated to do all of the things I was too tired to accomplish all day, and I have to try to shut it down by taking that benadryl and melatonin cocktail so I don't stay up all night. Then I get into bed and toss and turn, unable to sleep usually until 1 or 2 AM.
My paternal grandmother had it. I have it. One of my four children has it.
The article linked to here says that genetic mutations have been found that are linked to it.
And still, you make a comment illustrating society's skeptical attitude toward DSPS. You obviously don't believe that it's real.
That's what we deal with, and I don't expect that it will change any time soon.
My more charitable reading of dtien's comment was that instead of society understanding that different people have different preferred behaviors and that some of those preferences are going to have a genetic reason for them, we end up creating pathologies for normal behavior with names like "Delayed Sleep Phase Syndrome". This name does sounds like it would come from a satirist, not the medical establishment.
The quotes around the word normal to me is the clearest indicator of dtien sympathetic view toward people with 'DSPS'. In a better world, people with late night preferences are just people, not labeled people with DSPS.
>some of those preferences are going to have a genetic reason for them
It's hard coded for you, that's understood. The argument is that it's silly to have a distinguisher for everything that doesn't fit into society's majority notions, or for everything that falls outside a "normal" range (or, what we perceive to be normal, even if it's not a true reflection of the average population). Everybody has preferences that help them function-- some preferences have a genetic basis, others don't, but in either case preferences help people function and it would be productive to shift the notions held by society that being flexible towards such preferences is going to lead to a happier populace.
If there is anything I have learned from being an owl, it's that larks are self-righteous jerks.
The reality is that the first person to wake up sets the schedule, because they can prematurely awaken anyone that is still sleeping. If you go around clattering around in the kitchen making coffee and bacon smells at 6 am, you can wake me up and I have no recourse. If I wake a lark up at 2 am, before going to bed myself, they can take revenge by staying awake and preventing me from sleeping at all. They have us by the clocks, and they know it.
I've struggled with the same thing all my life, sleepless nights and foggy days. I once thought about it and determined that there were years where I DIDN'T have this issue and came to the realization that was when I was involved in high school sports or college athletics. If I don't get a 5-7 mile run into my day or 45mins of swimming or weightlifting, etc.. why should I be tired? If all I've done all day is breathe and walk around there's no way I'm going to be able to sleep until like 2-3am. So perhaps absent hard exercise I'd fall into the 25-27 hour day cycle that others have described here in tis thread. but If I want to be on the same clock as most others I'd better make strenuous exercise a priority.
Honestly, I've found marijuana functions better as a sleep aid than benadryl/melatonin/etc. It might be something worth looking into, as it's probably the most powerful 'sleep-aid' available which doesn't cause long-term dependency or health issues.
Long term benadryl use is pretty bad for your brain/body. Long term use of anticholinergics in general has been strongly linked to the development of various severe health issues, including alzheimers and dementia. Beneadryl specifically has been linked to the development of prostate issues as well.
I appreciate you and the other poster pointing out that long term benadryl use isn't good. I really wasn't aware of that.
I appreciate the marijuana suggestion too, but I find that I'm unable to sleep after partaking. I get intermittent erratic heartbeats that make it impossible
:(
I've experienced what you're describing, and have observed it in friends. It's usually indicative of heightened anxiety levels, due to the THC.
THC itself is certainly prone to triggering incredible amounts of anxiety, especially in the high-concentrations found in modern weed. In the quest for increased potency, many strains have been heavily modified to have the highest THC content possible, sometimes up to even 50x normal levels.
THC is only part of the equation, though. The "other" (there are many, but these two are primarily what people care about) cannabinoid, CBD, is linked to the 'calming' and 'pain relieving' effects associated with marijuana.
I would suggest trying to find a strain with a very high CBD:THC ratio before giving up completely. From personal experience, high CBD strains alleviate the anxiety I used to experience whenever all I could find was high-THC sativas.
Strains are usually split into three categories, sativa, hybrid, and indica. You can research these more yourself if interested, but usually indica strains are more associated with 'sleep' and 'relaxation', whereas sativas typically cause a more energetic head high.
tl;dr You might want to try a high CBD indica/hybrid strain before giving up on marijuana alltogether. The effect profiles are dramatically different between different strains, and a high CBD indica strain could be life changing when it comes to pursuing consistent sleep.
This may be more than you wanted to know, but as somebody who has also struggled with often debilitating sleep issues and has tried __every__ sleep aid, marijuana allows me to sleep better than anything non-dependency forming.
The only sleep-aids I've found to be more effective than marijuana are GABAergic drugs such as benzodiazepines (klonopin) or z-drugs (ambien). The main problem with these is that they are HEAVILY dependency forming, and once dependency is developed, can actually straight up kill you from withdrawals. They are incredibly powerful tools which will certainly allow to you sleep, but considering their addictive potential should be relied upon as a last resort. For short-term treatment of insomnia however, they can be literally life saving.
Hey Krapsna, my satirical read was in regards to the hyper scientific labels of "Delayed Sleep Phase Syndrome", "team energetic asynchrony", and "chronotype diversity".
After several years of melatonin use, I developed an irregular heart rhythm I could hear/feel, and you could see on an echocardiogram. It dissipated within a week of stopping.
Long-term inability to work is also not healthy. Obviously the parent commenter does not want to have to use these drugs as they are, but they are making a difficult choice based on the circumstances of their brain and our society. I wish they could find work that allowed them to be as healthy and productive as possible.
I will say some of these articles sometimes read satirically. Notably, they have a diagnosis for people who can't sleep at 'normal' hours: Delayed Sleep Phase Syndrome.
I have been struggling with being unable to sleep during normal hours my entire life. My parents would yank the covers off of me in the morning, or maybe my mother would start vacuuming my room at 8 AM frustrated that I wasn't already up. All through my school years, from elementary to HS I was barely functional. I was often late or missed the bus because I was a walking zombie, struggling to get dressed and out of the house without falling asleep.
Keep in mind that I'm 45, none of this was due to too much TV time or smart phone use. (One TV in the house, no such thing as notebooks, ipads, or smart phones back then).
No matter how much I struggled through the day to just stay awake, and how much I was looking forward to going to bed that night, at 9 PM I would be fully awake. I laid in bed night after night watching the click tick by as I tried to unsuccessfully "just go to sleep". Then, when my alarm went off I'd be exhausted again and struggle to get up and out the door. I was a terrible student to say the least.
You're told for years that you're lazy, unmotivated, a slacker, etc.
During my High School summers, I would get into a pattern of going to sleep at between 3 and 6 AM, waking at noon. I was a fully functioning human being. I had the most creative and productive days (evenings) of my life as an artist. I was naturally alert and creative Ispent the wee hours of the morning drawing, painting, reading.
Then I'd be plunged back into misery when the school year began. I once again drove my teachers crazy. I got in trouble for falling asleep in class. I was told again that I was a lazy slacker. I don't know how many times I was spoken to by faculty about not living up to my potential.
When you're told your whole life that you're only problem is that you're lazy, and you can't figure out why you can't find the motivation to do the things you want to do, you start to believe it.
After HS, I had a few menial jobs, stumbling into one where I worked from 8 PM to 4 AM. It was great, except for the fact that my mother still harassed my by trying to wake me up at 9 AM because... I don't know. I guess she just didn't want some lazy slacker sleeping the day away?
Later I worked my way into tech and had jobs requiring normal office hours. I was self medicating by drinking most nights, trying to get to sleep to maintain a normal-ish schedule. It didn't work all that well.
I was working at a company as a technical lead that I'd help get up and running with a couple of friends from school, and even though we were supposed to be "flex" hours, not surprisingly the morning people kept setting up 8 AM meetings that I was almost always late for and sometimes missed.
Out of frustration I spoke to my Dr about it, and he sent me to a a medical sleep center. I had a couple of sleep studies done, electrodes glued to my head and all that. The Dr told me I had DSPS, something I'd never heard of, nor sought a diagnosis of. This was roughly 20 years ago. I looked it up, and found that it was a real thing.
So, I told my friends that I'd started that company with what was up... I had thing thing called "DSPS" and what it was, how it worked and all that.
And I'll never forget how my best friend looked me square in the eye and told me he basically had lost all respect for me, for coming to them with some kind of bullshit made up medical diagnosis, trying to excuse my inability to keep the same schedule as everybody else. The relationship between the two of us quickly went down hill.
I spent some time after that out of tech, working jobs that were more amenable to later hours. For the last 6 I've been back in it, and it's still a frustrating struggle to stay on "normal" hours. In an effort to go to sleep when I should, I take benadryl and melatonin almost every night. Sometimes it works, sometimes it seems to have no effect.
I know that I'm not as effective at my job as I could be, my mind is often in a fog during the day. And again... I spend the whole day looking forward to climbing into bed at 9 PM to get a good night's rest, only to have my brain begin firing on all cylinders that night. I get tremendously motivated to do all of the things I was too tired to accomplish all day, and I have to try to shut it down by taking that benadryl and melatonin cocktail so I don't stay up all night. Then I get into bed and toss and turn, unable to sleep usually until 1 or 2 AM.
My paternal grandmother had it. I have it. One of my four children has it.
The article linked to here says that genetic mutations have been found that are linked to it.
And still, you make a comment illustrating society's skeptical attitude toward DSPS. You obviously don't believe that it's real.
That's what we deal with, and I don't expect that it will change any time soon.