sleeping my life away: circadian rhythm problems

hi all:

i am having circadian rhythm problems that i was ineffectively battling before cpap. The main difference before and after cpap is that now i can get up early in the morning; i just can't stay up all day after getting up, whereas before i just couldn't get up early in the morning. does anyone have any good tips on how to get yourself back to a normal wake-sleep cycle?

i used to have a doctor who told me the critical thing was to wake up early and force yourself to stay up all day--do not, do not go back to bed during the day. if you need to go to sleep then at 8 pm, so be it. i can do this for a day or two and then i am back to my old habits of staying up until 3 a.m. and sleeping until 10 or 11 or noon. sometimes, as in today, i wake up at 7 a.m. but am so zonked that i go back to sleep until late morning. yesterday i was up early after a few hours of sleep but had to crash around 5 p.m. for a few hours. so then i was up until 3 a.m. and i start all over again.

i must admit i'm not crazy about mornings. i'm conflicted about what i have to do during the day, so i'm pretty sure i'm using this as an avoidance strategy to deal with depression and anxiety/fear, but then at 6 pm when i see that i've lost my whole day and can't do things i would actually like to do/wouldn't mind doing during the day, i'm disappointed. maybe this is just "grass is greener" thinking.

this isn't quite cpap stuff, but i hope you don't mind because it is sleep. i have been thinking about posting about this for a while, but was reminded by the other sleeping my life away thread and didn't want to hijack someone else's thread.

it's long past time that i learned to get up in the morning and face the day.


thanks.

caroline

Well Caroline, I am not sure exactly how to help you, but I will give my thoughts for you to consider.

A regular routine schedule that you plan to follow each day may help. If you wake up early, you certainly cannot help that, but you can make plans for when you are going to turn off the light at night and get in bed. If you try to work from the end of the day first, you may have more luck.

I would establish a routine for myself, like I did for my children when they were little. For example there was dinner, and a little TV and then baths and a bedtime story, prayers and then tucked into bed.
I did the same thing every night as much as I could. This got their minds geared for sleep.
I suggest an adult version of that for yourself.
Maybe a regular dinner time, if possible before 7.
Then some sort of relaxation, I love a bath for relaxation, maybe with some soft music, then a warm cup of tea for me. A nice wind down from the day. Maybe even writing in my journal.
I also have a brain that will wake me at 4 AM sometimes, so if I know I have a lot on my brain I will take some time to write some notes for the next morning before turning in. That way I can stop trying to remember things I am concerned I will forget.

I hope this helps you, but as they say YMMV.

Take care Caroline. I hope you are sleeping better soon.

Karen--

I think your plan is a really good one, to put the focus on preparing myself for winding down, no matter how much is not done during the day, at a reasonable hour and calming myself about tomorrow's tasks rather than throwing myself into the early morning when i don't know what i will do.

Your "like a child" analogy is apt in many ways.

i like it. i really like it.

on another note, what does YMMV mean?

Thank you so much. I think if I can get myself calmed down for the day and into a reasonable routine that I don't find so threatening, this may be a lot easier. You have already made me feel more confident that I can do this.

Looking forward to getting your forehead pads.

Caroline

YMMV is a short hand way of saying " Your Mileage May Vary"

Sorry Caroline.

Karen

chdurie2 wrote:i used to have a doctor who told me the critical thing was to wake up early and force yourself to stay up all day--do not, do not go back to bed during the day. if you need to go to sleep then at 8 pm, so be it.

FWIW, that's exactly what I've had to do everytime I've came back from Asian trips. I've tried other things, but nothing else worked. The body's clock doesn't wind in reverse. Once you get that far foward in time your circadian rhythm has to wind around a full day. It sure sounds like that's where you are at.

I've tried other things but nothing has ever wound the clock back for me. It takes over a week to get the clock back forward enough to seem like night and day are happening at the right time.

Basically, sounds like you've got "jet lag", only without the benefit of traveling. Only solution I know of is to tough it out. Get up, make it through the day as best you can, then go to bed a few hours early. Worst case, you'll only have to keep it up for a week or so.

Regards,
Bill

Caroline,
My sleep times are wacky also. If they were at least somewhat consistent, even if not at the times one would expect to sleep, I would plan around them, but they're too erratic. I'm going to take one particularly wise piece of Karen's advice for myself, and that's to work on the evening time first, since that I have more control over. I've been working against myself by trying to force early rising before achieving earlier sleep, then beating myself up for failing. Thanks for posting your problem - it made me take a real good look at mine. The truth is, I expect results without due diligence on my part. Ouch!

Oh, don't feel bad about YMMV. I recently had to ask what ROTFL (Rolling On The Floor Laughing) was during our little run of funny poems. And nobody posted a "where has this chick been?" reply.

Okay now, we're not going to see each other's names logged in here at 2:00 am, right?!

Kathy

Hi, girls......Gidgie's back!.....Have had that problem every spring/summer for years...because this time of the year it is light here until about 9:30 pm, and light again at about 4:30 am........it gets worse later, like in July.....However, the old doctor I had backwhen would give me about 4-5 sleeping pills, and I would cover the windows, take a pill, put on some very quiet, soothing music........and (supposedly) go to sleep. Darkened room plus pill kept me from waking too early, and after a few days of this my internal clock was reset. Now I have room dorkening blinds, a small tape player in my bedroom.........and I need to find a way to get off this computer at night, as I see the ol' problem starting to rise again......

If it doesn't interfere with your plans or your partner's plans, does it really make a difference when a person gets their sleep? I am very much a late owl -- go to bed about 2 to 3 am, get up around 10 - 11 am. I admit the "go to bed" time has gotten later, but I've been a evening person for many years. I think it started with the need to have some quiet time to myself after the kids and hubby went to bed. Is there something about the circadian rythym that makes this an unhealthy routine?

linda--

if it works for you, that's great. i'm not making a judgment about you or any other night owl. i have theoretically justified it to myself similarly, but the difference is that it doesn't work for me. i appreciate the support of all of you who have offered your support to help me change it.

i'm going to sleep now, before i hang out here until 3 a.m.

caroline

caroline,

Some people have tried melatonin for jet lag, or for re-establishing a normal circadian rhythm. (3 mg before bedtime). This topic has been discussed/debated at length on this forum. There is quite a good rationale for using that, as it is the natural neuromodulator of the circadian cycle. One important point that usually gets dropped from the discussion is that TIMING IS EVERYTHING!

Establishing a regular cycle, as Karen suggested is important. To use melatonin effectively, it should be used precisely "by the clock". There may be other benefits touted, but for the sleep cycle it's not a case of "more is better". Likewise time-release forms are not advised for the same reason. It probably won't HURT you either.

The pineal gland is sensitive to light in some species, and controls the synthesis and release of melatonin according to the light-to-dark transition (day to night). In humans the retina does most of the photo-detection function. Little wonder the process gets goofed up with our artificial lighting and our ability to translocate ourselves quickly across multiple time zones. Here's a link to some information about the timing issue:

http://www.ceri.com/melaton.htm

and some more general information on the topic for you molecular biologists:

http://physrev.physiology.org/cgi/conte ... 687#SEC3_2

(TONS more information out there)

-Ric

Ric wrote:Anything not worth doing is not worth doing well. (G. Bell)

I've always like the reporter's variation of that: Anything worth doing is worth doing poorly. Which, I think means: it's better to do something poorly than not at all.

Regards,
Bill

NightHawkeye wrote:

Ric wrote:Anything not worth doing is not worth doing well. (G. Bell)

I've always liked the reporter's variation of that: Anything worth doing is worth doing poorly. Which, I think means: it's better to do something poorly than not at all.

Yes, interesting corollary, sad but true. Quick wrong answers usually trump thoughtful right answers. And if caught, bury the errata on page 29 in the Saturday edition.