does anyone have delayed sleep phase syndrome

Fellow, night owls, do you know anything that helps.

I had 30 years and can't fix..very erratic sleep schedule but lately going to bed between 8 am and noon and this is totally ruining my life. Plus I get little sun which causes many problems. I had a book on this once and it was amazing the bad effects this has on someone.

I just found out that erratic sleep schedule is a cause of sleep apnea especially in first part of night an during REM sleep.

I think if I could fix this my life would be better.

Tired sleeping around the clock or staying up two or three days ion a row to try to reset, but I just revert back within days.

Also if antyone knows how to build a lightbox using full spectrum light bulbs (that is how to build the thing to put the lightbulbs in), please share it.

Thanks, to my fellow nightowls.

ps--your stories are welcome

Sleepyjane,

Have you thought WHY you do this?
I'm guilty of some of what you've written myself; I 'think' that by continuing the pursuit of whatever it is that I'm doing at the time, it will at least be ONE completed 'whatever', and I'll feel better the next day. Unfortunately, I tend to do many things at once (you know, one thing leads to (or is interrupted by) another)), so it's difficult to stop when ONE is completed. Before I know it, it's either "too late" to go to bed, or the sun is shining, and I don't want to waste that by sleeping, until I'm dead-tired! Like one who cannot tolerate liquor, I swear I'll never, ever do that again - but I do! I've always 'come alive' around 10:00-11:00 p.m., and if not in bed, or sleepy by then, it's curtains for me. Also, I worked for some years on a rotating shift, so I'm "pretty flexible", ha ha...when it suits me, of course. Also, personally, it could just be plain stubborness, who knows for sure.
I can only suggest some personal reflection on the "why" you do this. I have, but it hasn't helped, even knowing I'm truly not helping myself any, but the reverse!

I have noticed that even though circidian rythms are involved so is self will as many times I am sleepy and I force myself to stay awake to do something like read or computer or clean or whatever...I am not consistent with bedtime at all and some is habit but the fact I always revert back tells me it is more than just that.

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CPAPopedia Keywords Contained In This Post (Click For Definition): clean

SleepyJane:
It could possibly be due to not receiving 'quality sleep' on your cpap.
Mine may also stem from YEARS of undiagnosed sleep apnea, and knowing that going to bed and 'sleeping' just didn't do me much good anyway! But now, I know better. It's a matter now of determination, as in exercising in any form, daily.
Do you have a regulated eating schedule? I'd guess not - only because I don't, which is another really harmful thing I do to myself.
I don't always want to "take the time"...I eat to survive, whereas some people survive to eat. Both are extremes, and neither are healthy.

Do you work outside the home? That 'regimented' (lack of better word) routine helped me - until I 'retired' (early, of course, ha ha).
Please work on getting to bed at a set time, and be determined to get a good night's rest, to be at your full potential the next day. I'll try my best to do the same

Maybe we need to PM, and be each others 'sleep watchdogs' for awhile? Together, we may be able to get back in the 'routine of thngs'. Let me know. .
Kathleen

TWIMC: these are merely suggestions, not meant to be dictatorial.

aren't there more people on here who can identify with this or who are nightowls out of sync with the world or shift workers.

A friend told me about a book called "Lights Out". Before the electric light was invented sleep was much more natural. Melatonin kicked in at dusk and stopped at dawn when the sun came up. The book claims that we have become a generation dependent on light to keep going beond when out bodies are telling us to stop. Like I'm doing, now for instance.
It says that we need to sleep in a room totally void of light. Even the LED lights in clocks bother us more than we know.

Something to think about.

Also working on a computer at night gets me hyped up. I need about an hour before going to bed to calm my nervous system down. But then I'm very sensitive. I have a friend who drinks coffee before bed and has no trouble sleeping. If I drank coffee I wouldn't sleep for days.

I have worked all three "shifts" and in my younger days it wasn't much of a problem. As I get older I feel the need to be more consistant with my sleep patterns. Of course in the old days I didn't snore as badly or have apnea.

Many younger people experience DSPS. I can tell the above posters personally that it is NOT a simple issue of will. Will plays a role, but it is by NO means a simple issue.

Take me for example. While taking a morning class, I would set my alarm every morning for 6AM. I'd get up with it, all week, and still not be able to get to sleep until 4AM. Then on Friday night I'd go to bed at 4AM and sleep until about 6PM, only ready to be ready to go back to bed at 4AM again. This was Pre-CPAP but still, it doesn't matter how zonked you are, you still can NOT fall asleep until that horrible time.

And now I'm on CPAP and usually only need 8 hours a night, and we're talking without an alarm clock. Last night I couldn't go to bed until 6am. I normally go to bed at 4am. Just couldn't sleep.

The only way they usually treat DSPS is light boxes and extremely regular sleep hygene. It's not interfering with with my life that much right now because I'm taking night classes, but if it were, I'd be working with a sleep psychologist that specializes in treating circadian rhythm disorders. In fact, my sleep doc already referred me to one since it took me 8 hours to get to sleep during the sleep study that started at midnight. It's hard to treat, but is something that really needs a bigger hammer than suggestions from an internet forum. The psychologist can drill down to why it is that you feel compelled sometimes to stay up, and also can give you very real tips that work for you to progressively reset your circadian rhythms without having to resort to staying up 24 hours and then being exhausted for a week while you sleep deprive yourself into submission.

offrocker

Well, I do not think I have had good sleep for at least 25 years. I do remember a time in my late teens when I slept a full 8 hours with no wakeups..refreshed and jumping out of bed cheery as heck.

Somewhere along the line, I started staying up late, never and I mean never feeling refreshed and always and I mean always exhausted, and gaining weight. Who is to say which came first and how they are all correlated..I had symptoms of sleep deprivation for at least 15-20 years prior to diagnosis of sleep apnea 15 years ago and I have since been on cpap or bipap. But pressure is never right I just found out due to machine breaking and needing to o another sleep study which last one was 5 years ago, that the recommended pressure 16 (but I used 15 as that was high as machine went and insurance wouldn't buy a machine) is too low having apnea at 16 an 17..they tried me up to 21 (last week) and said I had no problem on the higher pressures but he settled for 18 due to risk of central apnea (another thing I didn't know) at higher pressures but now said he will listen to what people on here said and go autopap. I am trying to see if he will order auto biopap as I am retaining carbon dioxide he said and I just found out they made bipap (and auto pap too).


Also just told I have periodic limb movement disorder (which I must had had all along and that may be why I felt no better all these years as I remember them telling me at the last 3 or 4 sleep studies I was jerking my leg but doctor never mentioned and I forgot to say something as I figured if it was important he would have said so. I am so mad I suffered due to lack of knowledge and doctor errors.


Depression also kicked in back then and other signs of sleep deprivation. Also I had a c section where doctor told me he had to remove and reattach my bladder and I have had bladder problems every since. I get up about every hour to use bathroom.

I am a sanguine melancholy by nature and they are real organized and non schedules (at least the melancholy) and no concept of time--always late,,never sleeping or eating at the same time ..very irregular..hate schedule..very compulsive...life a mess.

Not working..when I was student teaching some time ago...no sleep due to overdoing everything but did get up on time every day because I had to I guess.

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CPAPopedia Keywords Contained In This Post (Click For Definition): bipap, CPAP, auto

vdol52..I have a book kind of like that. I will have to see if that is the name of it..It was scary..it equated all types of illnesses with modern lights messing us up..and the deep harm that comes from lack of sunlight. The benefits don't come through windows or car glass. some people (like me) only spend miutes in the natural klight of day outside.

I also remember back when I had breast cancer reading about a correlation between articial light (florescent). My doctor looked at me klike I was insane when I mentioned it but now many years later, the idea is much more widespread.

I have heard if light touches like the back of your knees it can mess you up so even if one waers a mask and tries to block out light from window, it is still getting through..even a clock radio can mess it up in some people as you stated.

I think a lot of my stuff could be improved with tremendous willpower and rearraging priorities.

blarg..reading your post is so familiar and touched a little on the hell that this disorder can be..

I never heard of a sleep psychologist. Maybe I will ask my doctor about that.

Well, I rty to set my schedule around it since I have been waking up between 3 and 8 pm it is hard. I miss a lot of appointments from oversleeping.

Nothing has seemed to work and can't afford light box but I just read a doctor suggest putting ull spectrum lights in the bathroom vanity as it usually has 4-6 sockets...maybe adding a few small lamps will also bring it to the right lux...I checked wild oats and they don't sell full spectrum lights anymore.

does anyone know of a cheap place to either get bulbs or light box??

Also, if you're going to use a light box, use it first thing in the morning. Eat breakfast in front of it. The idea is to tell your body "WAKE UP, IT'S MORNING" so that you'll feel tired sooner.

But basically, yeah, at this point see your doctor. You need help with your sleep hygene probably first.

People don't understand that a "full spectrum" light is a standard light bulb. Flourescents emit much less of the spectrum. Sunlight is not full spectrum. If all you have is standard light bulbs, then that's fine, make it nice and bright in the morning and then be a nazi about lights at night. And I do mean nazi. Dim dim lights, no computer, no TV. This is while you're adjusting back to a standard schedule.

vdol 52..after you mentioned that book, lights out, I looked in my books and found that was a book I had read some of and it just scared me to death linking for many disorders with lack of sunlight and such.

But some of the recommendations like different diets in summer and winter and the number of hours of sleep they recommend are so hard and extreme. But it was a fascinating book and I believe electric lights do affect our health.

Who knows someday we may change that as a society but it seems it will be through light boxes, and different types of lighting rather than going back to humanity going to bed at sunset and rising at dawn.