OT: Nightowl??

[Valerie13Ann]

Anyone else here a night owl? and then sleep until noon or past the next day? Any ideas on how to get a better sleep pattern? I find that even if I'm tired, at 1 a.m. I always feel my best and am wide awake. For example: if I work 9-4 and only got say 4 hours of sleep the night before, I still feel wide awake at midnight-2 a.m. I want to get on a regular sleep pattern before school begins at the end of the month! Thanks for any input!

[Truegryphon]

Yup.. I can easily stay up til 2 AM and feel active. What's worse, is that I'm the type of person that has to get 9 hours of sleep or else I'll crash during the day. This phobia really messed up my sleep pattern even more, too... As for fixing it, I have no clue, either... I've tried staying up for 24 hours, little sleep with naps during the day, melatonin, and so on. Nothing has worked for me >.< Probably doesn't help that I don't have a job and can be free with my schedule as much as I want, lol.

[shootingstar]

Yes! I feel my best late at night. I have to force myself to go to bed at 2am so I can be up early to get the kids up & ready for school. The alarm goes off & I wish I had gone to bed earlier I have tried but I just lay there for hours & hours so I think I might as well be up. I think it all started from my emet, not wanting to get up & face the day incase someone was sick, so I would sit up & enjoy the night while I new everything was fine- silly I know. Now I think it maybe a habit that I haven't been able to change yet.

[leo905]

Oh yes Valerie... I am a nightowl and always have been. I make myself go to bed no later than 2am and sometimes it makes me mad because I feel so good that I don't want to. I sleep until 10 or 11am. I am not working and if I was, it would be afternoon/evening hours. This is not my pattern because of being an emet, it is just the way I am. I must admit though that when my kids were little and one of them was sick, I'd make myself stay awake unitl after 3am because I feared catching it and waking up to *v*. At least if I was going to be sick at night I was awake to "control" the situation instead of waking up to it. I know that is irrational but so is this fear.
One cause of people feeling good at night is their coritisol levels being high at night when it should be non existant. It should be high in the morning instead of at night.

[Valerie13Ann]

I feel exactly the same! and its not because of emet (although, when I do feel sick I will do the same thing as you and stay awake so I can "control" it if I have to v*). But I have been this way since I was a kid. I would fight sleep and be extremely tired and not want to go to school the next morning. (I am also a terrrrrible morning person). I just want to get a better sleep pattern when I start school so I can be a better morning person. When I went to school in the past, sometimes I would sleep right through my alarm and not even go to my morning class because it was so early and I was so tired and grumpy lol. I don't want it to be that way this time. I want to be able to get up and get to school with a good night's rest. I hope I can!

[claire43]

Up until I started work last november Id always stay up til the early hours sometimes til 7am and then sleep most of the day! Of course this had to change but even now I find it hard to sleep before 1am if not later, this then means when I do get home from work at 5 I nearly always fall asleep whilst watching tv so I am wide awake later on! I have found it does get easier getting up even after just a few hours sleep to go to work on time and every now and then I seem to get into a healthy sleep pattern which can continue for several wks at a time until some blip occurs and I slip back into my old ways again.

[Valerie13Ann]

Thanks Claire! My problem is, when I do get into a good routine, the weekend hits, or my days off come, and i end up staying up late and sleeping in...and i get messed up. But I will be working on the weekends and going to school during the week with no work. hopefully it'll get easier

[leo905]

I have learned to work with my sleeping pattern. I don't do mornings. If I have to make an appointment I always say anything after say...11AM or lunchtime is even better. My last two jobs were mid afternoon into the evening hours. On a rare occasion, I have to do an early morning waking but I just tell myself that it won't kill me to do this, it is only an inconvienence. Since I am also a terrible morning person, I do whatever needs to be done at night so I don't have to get crabby over doing it in the morning. My outlook on life is so much better after lunchtime and even better after 6:00pm.

[meir446]

I can almost never get to bed! I stay up really late and wake up really early!

[tabster]

I'm a night owl but I also have Narcolepsy so here are some tips my sleep doctor gave me:

-it is easier to move your bedtime FORWARD than to try to push it back. For instance if you find you can't fall asleep until 1am, instead of trying to go to bed at 9 (which would never work) gradually push your bed time forward. So then you stay up until 2, than 3, 4 etc. etc until you get to the bedtime you want. You have to have time to do this though, because for awhile you will be sleeping all day.
-Wake up at the same time every day, even weekends. The weekends will mess you up if you sleep in, then your schedule will go out of wack.
-No naps. If you absolutely have to take one, only allow yourself 20 minutes.
-Nothing with a screen for 2 hours before bed. There is some type of light in cell phones/tvs/laptop screens that tricks your body into thinking it's daytime and it makes it harder to go to sleep.

Hope this helps! Waking up at the same time every day is the hardest. Right now I'm waking up at 7:30 every day, even weekends, to get ready for when school starts.

[tabster]

Oh and here is the other thing! It may not be possible if you are living in a dorm, but the bedroom is supposed to be just for sleeping. No TVs or desks or distractions in there. Even if you don't think it's a distraction it could be. If your desk is always there when you are trying to go to sleep, then you can't ever put your work "away". If you live in a dorm, then use your bed just for sleeping. No reading in bed or homework, or laptop etc. Good luck with that one though, I always read in bed.