Trouble waking up...

I suffer insomnia... I got used to that, but in past few years I had extreme trouble waking up. I feel always as if I was waking up after an anaesthesia or something like that. Almost every morning. It takes me about half an hour to hour to fully wake up. I usually need some coffee or RedBull too, although I am trying to cut back on that...

Since my childhood I was an "owl". I hardly ever go to bed before midnight... I will just to fall asleep sooner. My body is actually set on going to bed at around 3:00AM and waking up around 11:00AM. That would be an ideal schedule for me... but well, it's impossible to live according to it...

I do yoga and different relaxation techniques... help me with the tiredness (is that a word?), but not with this weird feeling when waking up.

I know how you feel. I have trouble waking up after going to sleep. I am a night owl by nature, but work a day job. I worked the night shift when I was going to college and it suited me. I could sleep during the day. Funny it was my goal to get my degree so that I could stop working nights and work days. Now, that I work days I feel out of sorts. I suggested a night shift to my boss. She laughed. ( I am a tax specialist with an accounting degree.) She did compromise and lets me come in at 10 and work the evening appointments.

http://www.psychiatrictimes.com/prin...6&rememberme=1

I wish I could find a work to work in night... it actually seems as the only solution for me.

Currently, I don't really need to get up everyday (I guess the only advantage of not having a stable job), but i still feel bad, even if I wake up on my own. On days I have to work, I need RedBull just to get myself out of the appartment door and not to faint on the subway.

I, too, have my "days and nights mixed up" and I read somewhere that there is a name for this. Can't recall it right off hand. I take meds for insomnia, but on the occasional day when I have to get up for some reason [I am now disabled and not working - not as neat as it sounds], I skip the insomnia meds, and am better able to get up. But I don't think you are talking about meds. I know the feeling of not falling asleep until the wee hours and then feeling as if I were anesthetised, once I do fall asleep. I don't know how to reset this clock, but I agree with you on the Red Bull! If not for that, all of us with this backward sleep schedule would probably be disabled!

The problem is, I feel I am sometimes dangerous to myself in the morning...

when I still lived on the dorms, I once woke up (it was around 9:00AM but I was writting a paper late in the night and I did not plan on getting out the dorm till afternoon) and went to the bathroom, which we had on the hallway... and I forget my keys and lock the room... Than I had to get the keys in another buiding about five blocks away... it was winter and all I was wearing was my "Harvard funds" t-shirt and sweatpants and slippers. And I am normally a type of girl who would be never caught in sweatpants outside of the gym and never leaves without doing her make-up and hair. People looked at me as if i was crazy when I went onto street like that...