Do you stay up all night frequently?
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On one hand, you say your sleep pattern does not bother you but on the other hand, you said by the time you’re tired, you have to go to work…that should be a bother. Not being able to sleep when you should and not being able to sleep when you finally get tired.
You said you have many other health issues…do you think those could be related to your erratic sleep pattern?
I don’t think you should worry about “a major complication later in life”, as long as you catch up on your need for sleep on a regular basis.
Usually, people need at least 6 hours of sleep a day, which usually translate to about 7 or 8 hours in bed, depending on how fast one can fall asleep. You also have people who only need 5 hours (think Napoleon) and people who are cranky if they don’t get their 9 hours in bed.
Then you have people who are “night people” and have a hard time sleeping at night and staying awake during the day.
I think your problem just comes from a lack of discipline.
I was exactly like you. When I was a kid, I was allowed to stay up as long as I wanted and then I would “go around the clock” (sleep 12 hours or more) on the week-end. This was because my mother was raising me and my siblings by herself and she worked evenings until 1am, not because she had to but because she liked to work at night. So there was never any bedtime hours for me and on the week-end, everybody slept till noon.
Then I got a 9am to 6pm job and since I could never go to bed before 1 or 2am, I would sleep about 5 hours everyday and then catch up on the week-end. Sometimes, like you, I would just not go to bed because I had other things to do like dancing in a club all night (I did not sleep for three nights in a row once). The nice thing to know is that when you’re catching up, you need about one third of sleep, like if you need to catch up 9 hours of sleep, you will only need 3 hours to do so.
After a while, I got kids and could not sleep late on the week-ends anymore so I adapted and forced myself to go to bed earlier and sleep 7 or 8 hours every nights. I never used medicine, I used deep relaxation yoga techniques and now, my head hit the pillow and I’m gone to dreamland.
If I would not have discipline, I would sleep during the day and stay awake at night. I did that for a while, just as an experiment when I was not working, and ended up going to bed when the sun was rising, but then I started to miss the sun and felt like a vampire so I readjusted to sleeping at night, which took me several weeks of forcing myself to stay awake when I wanted to sleep and forcing myself to get up when I wanted to stay in bed.
You do not need a doctor or medicine in order to get a regular sleep pattern so you don’t have to go to work when you’re tired. All you need is discipline and a few weeks. Since you said that you’ve tried everything, then I think you really want to sleep better and not feel like sometimes you have to sleep forever just to catch up.
What you need to do is choose the time you have to get up (like to go to work), then how many hours of sleep you need (start with 8, if you’re not sure), then you will know the time you have to be in bed. Let’s say, you have to get up at 7am, then you would need to be in bed and sleeping at 11pm.
If you’re tired before 11pm, try to stay awake until then.
If you’re not tired at 11pm, do not go to bed. Only go to bed when you practically falling asleep already, even if it’s 4am…then at 7am, get up, even if you still want to sleep.
The point is to never be in your bed when you’re not tired and sleepy. If you wake up in the middle of the night, just get up and do other things, watch TV, whatever but do not stay in bed.
After a while, your body will really associates bed with sleep and you will not have insomnia anymore.
For the few weeks it takes your body to adapt, you might fall asleep on your sofa, watching TV at 7pm or in front of your computer for half an hour…that is okay…just stick to your routine of 11pm-7am and your body will conform to that in a few weeks.
Also it is very important that you keep the same schedule all week, including the week-end. Do not sleep late on the week-end, just because you have some catching up to do and you don’t have to go to work. Still force yourself to get up early, at the same time you did all week. It’s pretty hard but if you can do it, you will be more likely to sleep at 11pm that evening and it will be easier for you to achieve a regular sleep pattern so you will get up refresh every mornings and be more alert all day.
Sweet dreams.
Yea, it sounds like you are just nocturnal like me. I'm definitely a night person. I have trouble sleeping at night, and I just seem to have more energy than during the day.
U have imsomnia, which is what i have and u cant make up for the sleep lost. Try to take some meds to help u sleep like tylenol pm or advil pm, i have to take this every nite to help me go to sleep and generally 1 pill does the trick. but u are not getting an adequate amount of sleep when u miss a nite of sleep. hope this helps and take care...
hello.
do u mean all night? no sleeping all night 24hrs is kind of strange.. but i think ur referring to less sleep.
sleep in general is really good for the body - it is essential for your body to sleep.. and sleeping helps ur bod to function probably.
stress levels, time that u eat (caffeine, meals), where u live - noise, how comfy ur bed is all impact on how u sleep. while its good u catch up the next night, in general u should get some decent (7 hours minimum) sleep.
good luck and email me if ya want
icecreamnjelly@yahoo.com.au
Well it may cause insomnia late, if this isn;t it yet...It's just plain unhealthy to have an unbalanced sleep cycle. Try Lunesta
~a
I know what you mean about no wanting to sleep, I would love to sleep but I just have so much on my mind and I have been so busy with work, I have no idea what I am going to do once school starts. I think the only health issues that I know of are that you will feel sad and depressed and you may gain weight and your body will not be able to regenerate because it does all of that while you are sleeping at night. I think that it is ok to do it every once in a while but you should really try to sleep.
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