Aversion to bed? How to get over it?

I kind of have what's called "Delayed Sleep Phase Syndrome".....(but technically I don't, because having OSA excludes you from truly having it).....

In other words, I go to bed super late (like 5 AM) and since I need like 10-12 hours of sleep (probably because of OSA, but who knows).....I end up sleeping so late into the day. It's crazy, and I hate it.

But I think part of my problem is that I seem to have an aversion to going to bed. All day, I am drowsy. So drowsy that my eyes don't always focus, etc. But for some reason, I HATE going to bed at night, and I put it off, even though I'm sleepy (though I do get a "second wind" at night too). But even with the second wind, I should be wanting to go to bed because of my drowsiness, but I don't.

Even during the day, I don't nap (despite being drowsy). Again, averse to bed.

However, like I said, I obviously do need sleep, because in the "mornings" (which is more like noon) when my alarm goes off, I always turn it off and go back to sleep, craving more sleep until I finally roll out of bed hours later.

So I hate "going" to bed, but once I'm there, I like staying in it for a long time, to keep racking up hours of sleep.

Someone in the chat room told me that it seems on these forums, there are quite a few people with OSA who have that aversion to bedtime? Is that true? How do you guys get over this? I don't have many things to blame for it, so I am wondering if my subconscious just knows that I don't get quality sleep? (because in my conscious mind, I'm not aware of having any "issues" being in bed, like tossing, etc).

I have even considered if I have some kind of repressed memory from childhood...like a PTSD thing, but I don't think I do. I honestly don't know what it could be....but having OSA does make sense as a reason. If your body wakes itself up every 5 min, no wonder you have a subconscious fear of the bed!

What do you guys think? And more importantly, how do you get over this? I am almost like an addict...I'll come up with any excuse in the book to avoid bedtime....staying up until all hours of the night is like a drug to me....and I try to break the habit, but can't. I am even considering hypnosis. Help?!?!? I think if I were able to get up at a decent time, I would go to bed earlier, but I can't force myself out of bed....I literally need a human being here, pulling me out of bed, or I shut off alarms and go back to sleep. And it's like, if I'd just go to bed early enough, maybe I wouldn't sleep so long and disregard my alarms. So it's like a vicious cycle, but I don't know what part of the cycle to "break." I have tried both going to bed earlier, and also getting up earlier, and neither work. I need advice.

I am fully compliant with my CPAP equipment, but since my machine is so basic, I have no data. So I am wearing my CPAP for about 10 hours a night.

Try this post
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=53836&p=516114&hilit=echo#p516114

Thanks.

Yes, I read that post. I decided to start my own separate post, because I can't even get to the point where I "reset" my "delayed phase," until I get over this aversion to even getting into bed. So I was wondering if anyone else had this same aversion....aka, "bed dread."

I'm sorry you have this difficult time.

I get the same bed aversion at the beginning. I think my brain or my body knew I was going to plug it to a weird machine and a mask and didn't want to go to bed My problem was not as bad as you, the latest I went to bed was around mind-night or the worst 1am. I was so tired and still didn't want to go to bed and when I decided to go is as if the sleep had gone somewhere else, then not able to fall asleep easily.

I started speaking to myself trying to convince me that I was going have a good time the next day and it was a waste of time to wake up at 10am.

Well, now after a couple of months I'm doing good, my body/mind stopped to dislike the bed time. I started to sleep very sound and wake up rested and I appreciate it.

I'ts a fact the latest you go to bed the latest you wake up and it's like a circle. Try to find good reasons for you to go to bed at a reasonable hour, good sleep habits are necessary to fully recover from the accumulated fatigue. I wish I had an easy solution for you but I think the only way is to make you some violence and kick you to bed if necessary. Once you will sleep normal nights you wont have problems with the alarm or to go out of the bed in the morning. Discipline is the name of the game, I didn't like it I should say but I know I have no choice if I want to be functional.

All the best

good name for that BED DREAD!

Well, I guess I have had that since I was a kid.. and the older I got the worse it got..

If you have severe osa, your body is NOT looking forward to being suffacated every night..

thus, the cause of my bed dread.. but mine is getting better after six months..


there is a thread around here probably on the second page or so about the latest A.W.A.K.E. MEETING,
and there is a wonderful bit of information on insomnia..

I think you can change your circadium rhythm, because yours is all out of whack.. but it will take some time...

There is something called CBT cognitive behavior therapy that the sleep doctor suggested to me, but it turns out
my insomnia and delayed sleep was just OSA terror!

After a few months of treatment, I started yawning at ten pm, instead of just starting the house hold chores and grocery shopping..
Intsead of going to sleep when the paper man came at four thirty, I started to get to sleep at midnight!

so, the apap pretty much took care of my weird sleep time problems.. My body is happy to go to bed now, my husband couldnt believe
it the first time he saw me yawn..

I think you just hate to give up your day....is that so?. Your a night person? Some people are.
A great book to read is

Sound sleep Sound Mind
By Barry Krakow, M.D.

I believe my aversion to bed was instinctual - an avoidance of misery and even danger. Once those patterns get ingrained, it seems the brain wants to do what it is used to doing, and takes retraining to develop new (or redevelop old) habits. I initially tried at my doctor's insistence, as she said it could help my quality of sleep to work with the body's natural circadian rhythms and hormone fluctuations. The other motivator is being tired of missing out on the lives of friends and family due to my sleep habits. Most nights now I'm in bed between 12 -1 am and that's good for me. My quality of sleep still isn't so good (unrelated to OSA), but at least it's not utter misery to be avoided at all costs. If your sleep is good and treatment therapeutic, and the bed nothing to be dreaded, hopefully your mindset will change and your sleep patterns will follow. It may take a concentrated effort on your part.

I don't think it is "bed dread". I have been the same as you my whole life. As a kid I used to not want to go to bed early and hated to get up for school. This lasted well through college and into grad school. When doing the research phase of my grad work, I went to bed at 4am and came back in at noon. I loved it!

I met my wife about 20 years ago and it turned out she was exactly the same type. I don't think we would have hooked up if we weren't in sync. She had been married before to a "morning person" and she said it was dreadful being on a totally different cycle and no one would take her seriously. She has no apnea, doesn't even snore and I've watched her sleep (although she won't let me sleep in the same room because of my snoring). Years ago I was an IS director in a couple of Silicon Valley companies, and my assistant used to call me to wake me and tell me to get in. I just couldn't show up at work until 10 each day. Certainly not for more than a day or two could I make an exception. If I had to go to an early meeting it would mess me up for a day or so.

I do not think it is fear of sleeping. I think it is enjoying the nighttime. I feel invigorated after midnight. And yes, I get tired much of the day - but I think that is totally irrelevant to the late night cycle. As I've posted elsewhere, when my wife and I have traveled to say - Europe - with a 9 hour time difference - we both are all jumbled up at first and then end up on a 2-3am bedtime in Europe - sleeping till 10am routine (at best). Its 9 hours earlier here - so it has to be sleep rhythm. Going to bed at 3am European time is like going to bed at 6pm California time. We must have adjusted to our natural rhythms somehow.

Maybe its the ex-biologist in me, but I think there are populations of people like me that are sleep rhythm variants. We tend not to be morning people and want to be up during the late night. I've spoken to graveyard shift people and lots of them have told me that they prefer things that way.

There is so much of a stigma in this world of being "different" that I bet there are lots of people with a sleep cycle that is off-normal. My wife's uncle was a college psych professor for many years and would never teach a class before 1pm. He admitted to her (after many years and quietly) that he had the same "problem" that she and I do for many years.

Maybe its time not to look at what you do as a problem - and time to think maybe you are just a bit different. Sorry, but Dr.'s don't always know that much about things like this - and I don't think most of them have a good idea of what sleep patterns can be different for some people.

Oh yeah --- and if you are like me --- you can go to bed early all you want and you will just lie there. I've tried and tried to sleep the same hours as most people but cannot. Luckily I work for myself and do not have to regulate my hours anymore.

Hi CAsleep

This may not be you CAsleep, but it might be someone else who reads this thread.

My post from the thread already quoted by cflame1 -

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=53836&p=516128#p516128

Postby mars on 01 Sep 2010, 22:22
Hi All

A strong desire not to go to bed can be due to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder in some people.

If a traumatic event (usually in childhood) has occurred whilst in bed (sleeping or otherwise), this can manifest itself in a mental barrier to going to bed, until one is absolutely tired out.

The traumatic event, or events, need not be in conscious memory.

The ways to deal with this can include seeing a Sleep Psychologist, or an experienced hypnotherapist, or an experiential therapist with knowledge of PTSD, or a massage therapist used to dealing with blocked emotions.

If it is PTSD I doubt that the usual sleep hygiene methods will work.

Mars

CAsleep wrote:
What do you guys think? And more importantly, how do you get over this? I am almost like an addict...I'll come up with any excuse in the book to avoid bedtime....staying up until all hours of the night is like a drug to me....and I try to break the habit, but can't. I am even considering hypnosis. Help?!?!? I think if I were able to get up at a decent time, I would go to bed earlier, but I can't force myself out of bed....I literally need a human being here, pulling me out of bed, or I shut off alarms and go back to sleep. And it's like, if I'd just go to bed early enough, maybe I wouldn't sleep so long and disregard my alarms. So it's like a vicious cycle, but I don't know what part of the cycle to "break." I have tried both going to bed earlier, and also getting up earlier, and neither work. I need advice.

I am fully compliant with my CPAP equipment, but since my machine is so basic, I have no data. So I am wearing my CPAP for about 10 hours a night.

No it makes total sense. For years sleeping has been a very dangerous habit where you get choked - your subconscious knows this. It may take months before it will believe that you are not going to die if you fall asleep.

Wait for a while before you tackle this. First you and your subconscious have to believe in cpap's effectiveness. You don't believe yet it is working 100% for you obviously because you believe you need a better machine (smart move). Once you have that and you feel your therapy is going smoothly you may want to work with a therapist to help you.

For now just relax about it.

You might look into melatonin. It never helped me much, but some people it works very well. It's OTC and , as far as I know, harmless.

I have no idea if this will help or not, but here goes. I think I had this in some fashion off and on over the years. What worked for me was not going to bed. I made myself comfy on the couch, turned the TV on and was out like the proverbial light. I have no idea why, but I just could not do the same thing in BED. It had to feel like I wasn't going to bed, had no intention of falling asleep, etc and then it came easily. I hadn't done that since starting CPAP (until lately to avoid the damn machine but thats another story). Do you think something like this might work for you? Good luck!

Some of us are just night owls. I have always been the way you say you are too. I have never liked sleeping at night, even as a child. I do all my chores at night. I feel better at night. The only time I do go to bed at night is when I have to get up early the next morning for appointments during the day. When that happens, I feel terrible the next morning. So tired. Like I didn't rest well or get good sleep. I sleep wonderfully during the day, much better than at night. When I have to sleep at night I turn on the TV and grab a book to read. It takes about an hour for me to zonk out. I just feel hungover the next morning. Like now.

Mimmie wrote:Some of us are just night owls. I have always been the way you say you are too. I have never liked sleeping at night, even as a child. I do all my chores at night. I feel better at night. The only time I do go to bed at night is when I have to get up early the next morning for appointments during the day. When that happens, I feel terrible the next morning. So tired. Like I didn't rest well or get good sleep. (

This is precisely how I feel, my wife, even my birth family (mostly siblings). There were 4 of us - 2 "must" keep a night owl schedule, and one can overcome it though she prefers night time.

Since I only have to be accountable to myself at this point in life (as I work on my own - when I want), I find that not only is this sleep pattern a necessity, but I totally prefer it. Sorry but I think on this one people are looking for problems where problems don't exist. We just have differences here. Everyone has had childhood trauma and worse. I think that we look at these events and give them more meaning than they really deserve.

Well I was a night owl for forty years until I was on my apap for several months..

I found it very disconcerting that I was no longer the energizer bunny at night..

I LIKED driving around when everyone else was in bed, all the lights are always green.

I was just getting going, when my husband was already sleeping in his "man" chair..

I was pretty upset when I felt tired in the evening, I was now "one of them" those daytime people..

yawning at ten pm, in bed my eleven or midnight.. the horror of it all!

How was I going to get anything done with the sun shining? eek!

Really, I do much prefer my old night owl ways.. the essence of the night, the knowing that it is ALL yours while others sleep.. the intrinsic
energy one feels with the moonlight, the cool breezes... communing with the crickets, coyotes, owls and bats.... there is nothing
quite like it....

To feel the dead quiet of the night when all these creatures stop to take a breath.. that is when you can feel the blood beating thru
your heart.. oh... true existance, the aloneness of life... the hour before the sun rises.. when the vampires must hide..
oh how I loved that!

I miss that time... . thanks to my apap, Im a boring daytimer now

For you night owls, I know your secret powers! Rock on!