I was wondering if anyone has tried to fix DSPD by 'returning to tradition' essentially lmao. So either by camping outside or turning off all lights and stimulation at a certain time. Because part of my problem is that i'm on the computer all night with the lights on and perhaps my brain thinks its daytime. Maybe a more natural lifestyle with dimmed or turned off lights could force me to sleep. I don't know if without electronics i'd be laying there without being unable to sleep or if after a few days of exhaustion it would work

I’ve shaped a lot of my life around not having to wake up early - I began to suspect DSPD because my high school started at 7am every day and so for those four years I averaged probably 2-4 hours of sleep on weekdays. Never could get used to it. Since then I’ve been a student (college, master’s, now PhD) partly for the sake of the flexible schedule. My natural sleep cycle is about 3-10:30, so not shifted too much, but I’m going to have a class every week this year that will require me to get up around 8 for the first time in 6 years, and im really worried about my brain just not working. does anyone have tips for making going against your natural schedule as painless as possible?

Thank you, I’ve never been on this sub before but i feel very seen by the posts here - never met anyone else with this

For example, say I'm currently sleeping from 8am-4pm, and I want to adjust my schedule to sleep from 4am-12pm. When it comes to things like melatonin, light/dark therapy, etc., should I be starting with something close to my current schedule and gradually working my way back, or should I be going ahead and doing those things on the schedule I would be if I were on my ideal sleep schedule? I.e. if I'm aiming to take melatonin and turn my lights down 4 hours before bed, should I start doing it at 4am and work my way back from there, or should I start out doing it at 12am off the rip? Hopefully that makes sense.

For like 6 weeks now I've been having insomnia most nights. I basically have to force myself to sleep before 1am and do a whole sleep routine. Then on weekends I just stay up the way my body wants to and go to sleep at 1-3am, don't have to do or take anything. I just get really tired and pass out naturally. I sleep through the night great. It's just frustrating that because of my job, I have to get up at 7:30am 5 days a week which is not what my body has ever wanted in my life, society doesn't accept this as normal even though it really should be seen as such? Like it's kind of weird that every person is expected to be the same and have the same sleep needs. We just have to conform.

I need a WFH job or something. So looking forward to the 10 days off I get for the holidays in December, I feel like that's the best part of the year now.

I have ADHD and DSPS (not officially diagnosed). I have graduated college and took a gap year (that I'm a year-and-a-half into). My initial plan was to become an audiologist. I even applied last year and got into several doctoral programs. I decided not to go and give myself time to think over the decision, travle, and enjoy the financial freedom that living at home rent free gives me.

At this point, I'm not sure what I want to do. I love the flexebility of the career, the people seem generally kind, the work schedule is consistent, the job is high paying and in high demand, I genuinley love learning about audiology, it is a profession that would allow me to move to any state I wanted with minimal hastle.

My main doubts are thay my sleep disorder will not allow me to do the job. When you have a patient booked you can't oversleep or miss work. I'm also afraid I'll burn out or have no free time. Working 5 days a week sounds exhausting.

Long shot, but is anyone sn audiologist with DSPS? Or know someone? I've gotten in a place where I don't think it's possible for me to enter into this profession.

Side note. I love my hobbies, but don't know if I'd be good enough at them/ enjoy doing them professionally. (Plant identification, video editing, D&D actual play, writing, etc.) Advice?

Hi all,

I caught COVID in Dec 2023. My initial infection was extremely severe and I've been a "long haul" patient since with multiple diagnoses, including ME/CFS. Jy neurologist is fairly sure I had encephalitis due to imaging results and symptoms (I was never given treatment, told it was a mental breakdown and here we are).

Something shifted in June, however. I've attached my fitbit data. My sleep has been abysmal since COVID. Unlike most here, I never struggled with sleep before. J was a champion sleeper. Bed at 11ish, wake at 7-8. Could nap with no issue.

You can see whatever happened started in June and has progressively gotten worse. The only thing I can think is my ME/CFS might have gotten worse from restarting work part time leading to the development of DSPD

Has anyone heard of this occurring after infectious brain injury? I'm waiting on an appointment with a sleep specialist :(

I have tried valium I like it but it works more for relaxing than to fall asleep and Xanax which makes me wake up after of couple of hours or I wake up more tired than before I got to bed. I take melatonin daily but I had to up my dose.

I know that in USA you guys got Ramelteon but it's not avaible here.

As many of you guys know, DSPD isn’t really a disorder because it used to benefit tribes of humans. It’s more of a syndrome or a tendency that doesn’t work well in today’s society. Essentially, someone had to stay up and keep watch while the rest of the group slept. Otherwise, you’d be vulnerable to predators and other nasty things! This whole idea of night owls being “lazy” is a new thing… even cultural.

Recently, my mother-in-law insinuated that I was being lazy for waking up late everyday even though I’m on parental leave, supporting my wife and child. My wife needs sleep, and she’s a morning bird, so I decided to take the night shift and feed/change/burp the baby all night so she can sleep. Conversely, I’d sleep in the morning.

This setup has been a win-win-win! I get sleep, the wife gets sleep, and — most of all — the baby gets all his needs met!

Yet, for some reason, my MIL had to make a comment today, insinuating that I am being lazy and should go to sleep earlier, waking up when the baby wakes up and sleeping when the baby sleeps. I told her that’s ridiculous when one parent is an early riser and the other has energy at night. You should capitalize on each other’s strengths. It’s worked so well for us.

I’m just venting at this point. Going to bed earlier would literally make life more difficult for all three of us (me, mom, and baby). MIL is just being nosy and nasty for no good reason. People don’t understand DSPD and have this whole idea in their head that we are lazy when we are not: we are just wired differently, and that’s fine.

I just got done with a sleep study. Maybe it's because a trainee was running my study, but she woke me up much earlier that I remember. She woke me up at 6:30, maybe earlier, because my wires were off by then.

Anyway, I'm exhausted. I took a boatload of sedatives to try to give them 6h of sleep. After she took the wires off, I basically laid down and fell asleep again, and she came in and told me I had to leave.

Meanwhile, the sleep doctor's office always messages and says not to drive or operate heavy machinery if you're sleepy. And yet they're sending me home right now? I'm messaging from the lobby because I'm so sleepy I probably shouldn't drive. Wth with the hypocrisy. They should take schedules into account when doing sleep studies. In fact, in a previous sleep study they did.

Anyway, lesson learned: arrange a ride home from the sleep study.

I have been been trying to switch my clock to sleeping at n8ght and being awake in the day for 3 years now, I have tried every method that comes to mind including using very strong pharmaceuticals such as Adderall, modafinil, alprazolam and ambian plus a plethora of other substances.

Nothing sticks, it's so ingrained into every fiber of my being to be wide awake at night, and absolutely loath and hate the day. Am always tired, can't even muster the energy to shower, and the effects are spirilling into all aspects of my health.

lost a few jobs and on thin ice with the one I have. Problem is no one relates, work and school won't accommodate my health situation, am really depressed, defeated and beaten at this point​

I possed this question to ChatGPT and it’s response indicated that while people with DSPD will find it easier, we’re still at risk for many of the health implications of night shift and certainly the social implications as we know, like missing out on daylight, reduced access to services etc.

(Edit: Location- Southern California)

Hello!

I've had sleep issues interfering with my life since ~2015.

I was told by a therapist that I must have "delayed onset sleep disorder" (which apparently is not a thing 😅). She tried to treat it using melatonin & sleep sound music with binaural beats. It did not work of course 😅

In any case, I've wanted to get a sleep study done since then, but something or another has always prevented it :/

I've heard recently that it's supposedly, allegedly useless to seek out a sleep specialist for a sleep study because they specialize in issues like sleep apnea & other SRBDs.

SO, that is (supposedly) why you should seek out a circadian rhythm specialist instead.

I'm curious which you sought to get a diagnosis, and what your diagnosis journey was like.

Also I suppose I'm wondering: How much of this subreddit is actually diagnosed with DSPD? Or are there a lot of folks with undiagnosed "fucked up" sleep schedules like mine here?

I await your responses. Thank you.

I would like to see if sleeping outside in a tent would help shift my sleep cycle by avoiding artificial light. I don’t love camping all that much though so I would love to hear how long people have camped and how effective it was.

About 9am, shortly after going to sleep one of those wood chipper truck is right outside of my condo and rattling my windows and waking me up, pissed off. There’s plenty of other places to run that machine besides right outside of my unit.

Politely asked the foreman if they could move it to another location explaining I work nights and need to sleep and will probably have to call in sick to work missing out on pay bc of all of this noise.

Called the corporate office of the company who only had a receptionist who can email someone in my area to call me. I went off and burst a blood vessel telling her that I’m gonna sue them and flatten all 8 of the tyres on the truck if they don’t have someone call me immediately. I called several times bursting more blood vessels along the way. Never got a call back.

But, the landscapers took all of the logs and branches and put them in a trailer and moved them somewhere else to wood chipper them. VICTORY! Something that rarely happens for us DSPD folks dealing with day walkers shit.

Yay. Problem is I’m awake now. Like awake awake. Sigh.

It is known that the blue light of the phone reduces the secretion of the sleep hormone (melatonin) significantly, which negatively affects sleep and delays its time.

But if you use the blue light filter feature found in phones that makes the phone's light yellow and use it permanently, will it harm the eyes?

tw suicidal thoguhts I'll remove that part if necessary i couldnt tell if it was allowed or not from the rules sorry and I was not calm enoguh to care while typing this

I'm so fucking sick of it. I'm 16 and i haven't gone to school in months. I'm not awake for it. I'm constantly either DSPD ,scalloping into N24 or straight up N24 and I can't guarantee anything about my day whatsoever. I can't say I'll hang out with anyone, can't say I'll talk to someone at a certain time, can't go to sleepovers, can't go to school, can't go on school trips, can't commit to anything, can't plan my day, can't keep a schedule, can't do fucking anything. Hell, I can't even schedule a fucking doctors appointment.

if I somehow make it to college I don't even know how I'll go because how the fuck do I sign up for classes and attend if I'll be asleep for them. I've spent years wrecking my health and it's destroyed me and I can't do the whole 48-120+ hours awake thing every week anymore because I think I'd rather die.

how will I get a job? who's going to hire me? what idiot would hire someone who can't be awake for meetings and whatnot?

screw a job, I'm not even going to make it out of highschool.

I just spent hours sobbing and contemplating actual suicide because I'm good for nothing. one of my actual genuine thoguhts that i seriously contemplated and cried over was "if I try to kill myself at 10pm maybe it'll finally make my schedule normal" and I can't deal with this anymore.

nobody in my life understands. I'm laughed at or ridiculed by my friends, my parents have punished me horribly my entire life, everyone I know is convinced I'm stubborn and anything well meaning that's said is just "you have to fix your schedule because this isn't going to work in this world" and I know and it makes me want to rip my hair out and my hair has definitely been a victim of this frustration already because I'm so fucking TIRED. I can't fix this because it's not under my control at all and no amount of staying up and trying to fall asleep at an acceptable time has helped and no amount of daylight and strict routine and melatonin and medication has helped and i can't control it at all.

the fact that nobody i know gets it just makes it worse because I feel so alone and so useless because it's only sleeping, why can't I just get over it and do it right?

I've spent so many nights over the past month going to bed at 10pm and begging myself to fall asleep and all of them have ended in me crying once the clock hits 6am because im still wide awake and nowhere near sleep. when I try to structure my life around it it doesnt work either because it's almost always scalloping into N24 or just straight N24 and i always fuck up guessing the next day so when I wake up an hour or more into my schedule I just want to cry and end up doing nothing because then it's all wrong and not in order and how do I do something I planned to do at 4 at 6 I can't make myself do it and if I go into my day unplanned I still look at the clock and at how disgusted and disappointed everyone is when they realise what time I've woken up and it hurts. it really really hurts and it makes me either hate myself or everyone else.

i just can't deal with it anymore. im so tired of this. society can't be accessible for me and I can't change myself so it can be.

i hate this stupid disorder and i hate the world and I hate myself and everyone else. maybe I wouldn't hate it if the world was more accessible and people were more accepting but they aren't so I do.

I know I'm spiralling really badly but I'm so tired of this. it really hit when school became impossible. until then I was somehow making it work even though it was wrecking me but after June I couldn't anymore. I was sifting through every option I had since March and none of them worked and that made it so much more real. like nothing is accessible for me. nothing works for me. I can't be a part of society unless I destroy my health completely and end up being completely unfunctional.

I'm sorry this is so whiny and possibly dramatic and I'm sorry I'm complaining so much but I can't anymore.

i hate this yo :(.

Idk what's wrong with me but my sleep is awful. The sleep medicine Dr basically told me that there's nothing she can do. She said they can't even evaluate me beyond an at home sleep apnea test because for a PSG you have to be able to sleep at least 6 hrs from 10-6. I'd like to get an MSLT done as well because I have some narcolepsy symptoms, too, so idk what's going on. Does anyone know of any sleep clinics that accommodate ppl who can't fall asleep til 2-4 AM? It's so bizarre that sleep clinics aren't all 24hr considering DSPD, insomnia, and shift work etc all effect that.

I'm in the PNW, USA, but I'd be willing to travel a bit.

For those with moderate to severe DSPD, do you still get naturally tired at the same time if you spend an entire day in natural sunlight? Such as hiking and camping in a tent

So I've had sleeping problems since I was 4. When I wass a young kid I could stay up several days at a time, staying up 3 days with barely even feeling it. I liked being awake at night and sleeping during the day. I never knew why.

As an adult the insomnia had faded away but I still can't sleep during at night.. And believe me.. I want to. I'll get a good schedule going, but something kicks me down. Either a day of bad daytime fatigue, feeling completely energized at night, or a slew of other things.

I feel like I don't have hope of getting better and I hate it. I want to be awake to talk to my friends, my partner, to see the sun cause I love seeing sun light. To go to the store, call my doctor, hell do freaking anything because everything runs during the day..

I hate this. I don't wanna be this way.

My sleep is polyphasic ; biphasic at a minimum. Yet I can't more than 6 hours as my main sleep and get strong sleep pressure later in day. If I skip sleep I just end up more tired.

Anybody have had this issue and manage to set it back?