Delayed Sleep-Phase Syndrome

From Wikipedia:

Does anyone else suffer from this?
I've never been diagnosed, but for the past... um... 7-ish years of my life, when not impended by things like college (which I rarely go to) or work, I've always gone to sleep at 3-4 AM and woken up after midday and always felt it's the natural rhythm for me.

Me too. I prefer to work night shift.

I have that diagnosis. Basically. I have DSPS with progression meaning if I let things be I tend to go to bed later and later on. I used to always be sleep deprived as a kid because I never got enough sleep, getting up in the morning for school was like torture, I just washed, got dressed and left. I could never even eat in the morning, I would have puked.

More and more my pattern is turning into the irregular type. It is kind of when you lived with DSPS and non24 for such long time what little order you have falls apart.

Umm . . . just sounds like this is people who have fallen into a bad sleeping pattern. I find it hard to wake up on time when i fall asleep at 4am too.

It is more than a bad sleeping pattern IT. My peak productivity is usually between 10pm - 3am.

Can't say I haven't been told that one before With DSPS, your entire biorhythm gets bumped off course and stays that way, this being the main difference between DSPS and a messed-up sleep schedule that can be remedied within a few days to a week of easing back into a more socially-acceptable pattern.

A thing I've noticed with my DSPS is, although there are times when I can (barely) maintain a "wake-up-in-the-morning" pattern - with great effort - it will always, always snap back to what I'm most comfortable with.

I've always felt best and worked best when I went to sleep at the crack of dawn (in summer) or close to it (in winter). My most productive working hours are 10PM - 2-3 AM. It's been like this for years. When I was a kid, I used to wake up a few hours after bedtime and read until morning because that's when my energy was at full. That hasn't changed since. I'm sure other people can relate.

Yeah I can't sleep until way later and no matter what my efforts were in trying to go to bed early and get up early they proved futile. I would lay awake restless in bed. I much rather enjoy reading a book or listening to music instead of rolling around trying to go to sleep when I'm full of energy.

I still get up early, however...responsibility calls...but I am SO tired in the morning, every morning, it never mattered how much coffee I had it made no difference. I've given up caffeine all together.

I get my energy in the evening and night. I think we all have different biorhythms, no big deal.

Bad pattern? Dunno if I want to laugh or scream.

This is actually something that IS biochemical. There is an enzyme deficiency connected to these types of issues, ie has more proof being so than any mental illness.

I know some people think they can simply decide when to sleep and be awake but try to go to bed at 6 pm and up 2 am and make it natural! LOL.

Yea right....

We should get 7-9 hours sleep a night. If one goes to bed at 3 and wakes at 10-Noon, that's the right amount of sleep but this phase "snydrome" (not something wrong with you, just a pattern) is mostly about young people and/or people working shift work; they have moved themselves out of a bed at 10:00 p.m., up at 6:00 a.m., bright-eyed-and-bushy-tailed for school or work pattern.

Do you not go to school because you don't get up? That can be a problem and it is because you have adapted this particular set of waking/sleeping time periods as "yours". Now they're a habit and you can't adjust to a more usual one for school/work (without a whole lot of work on it to move it to a different pattern).

Normally, people who go to sleep at 10:00 can stay up an hour or two longer every now and then, have no trouble going to sleep, etc. But if you lay down at 1:00, say, you can't go to sleep, can you? Even if you want to. It's about choice of when to go to sleep. If one sleeps 8 hours, say, then one is awake for 16. Trying to get to sleep in the middle of those 16 (or to wake before the 8 is over) is the issue. It is part of sleep habits. Some have an easier time setting them up and others are set up by them :-)

That's how I felt when I first read about this syndrome too, but then I read that someone with DSPS can't go to bed at a "normal" time, no matter how hard they try. As a college student, I've had pretty messed up sleep schedules at times. My freshman year, I'd often go to bed at 4 AM and get up around 11. But, if I needed to, (such as when I was at home with my parents, who expected me to go to bed at 10 PM), I could go to sleep earlier. That is the difference between me and someone with DSPS.

Last time I had to get up in the morning on a day to day basis, I got up at 7 or 8 depending and I fell asleep at 5 am. That is how it works. I did that for 10 months straight. My body just wouldn't accept sleep before 5 am, no matter how tired I was in the day. When night came, I was wide awake. I did my physical health a lot of harm that way, because I need 9-10 hours of sleep and I got 2-3, because then I had to get up. i didn't take any naps because that ruins it even more. If I could fall asleep at say 10 pm I would wake up at 1 am (often with night terrors because I went into deep sleep too fast) and then I was up for the night and the next day.

People kept cheering me on not to sleep at weekends, so at the start I tried to keep the same "pattern". I ended up so sleep deprived I got suicidal. It wasn't worth it. So I let myself sleep in on Saturdays mostly. Then I felt better and tried to put myself on the "right" pattern again with getting up at 8 am in the weekends too, lasted maybe 3 weeks, then I crashed again. After a few rounds of that I decided it wasn't worth risking my life over something I obviously couldn't change with sheer discipline.

When I say discipline I mean it. It doesn't mean cheating and messing things up. I really gave it some really hard tries.

When I talk to my parents they told me I had this pattern from I was 1 year old. So I guess I actually should accept it and not try to be what society finds acceptable. Because it's not like they accept me in any other way either.

I'll just add that this thing really caused me issues and even in communities like these people say it's just bad habit, they LAUGH at you (because obviously this is so "funny" you are THAT BAD) and they refuse to believe it exists, even being both in ICD and DSM. So not only do you have something that is ruining your life, your "own kind" is making fun of you or questioning you.

How would you feel if someone here said your anxiety or bipolar or depression was just "bad habit"? Please think about that.

Thank you, jimi.... Took the words right from under my fingers.

DSPS is not something you choose to have anymore than depression or BPD. I'm honestly saddened that people who suffer from some form of mental issue themselves would think like that.

I don't suffer from this, although I do have very disturbed sleep and the pattern varies.
It is interesting to analyze wake/sleep patterns. I was telling my analyst that I feel less anxious and depressed in the evening and night. We talked about how it feels different. How daytime means something - people are out and about doing things, living their lives, and how daytime can just feel so "out there" and exposing and vulnerable.
Evening is a slowing down, a time of coming 'inside' and quieting down. The day is 'over' (conventionally) and expectations are fewer... etc. Anyway, it is fun to analyze.

Or it could simply be your body chemicals that make you feel better and worse certain times of day. If you choose to put "meaning" into you it is fine, but it is quite natural to go through hormonal cycles through the day. No one feels the same in the day and night.

I have repeatedly disciplined myself to follow a strict 'normal' sleep pattern but inevitably I lapse back into my preferred routine. Trying to function in a 9-5 world meant I was always sleep deprived. Now that my son is grown and I am self employed I have the luxury of being able to set my own hours.

I love the early hours of the day (midnight to 6 am) when everyone else is asleep and I can do my thing without being disturbed or interrupted. So much less anxiety to cope with when the world around you is asleep. I think this comes from being single and childless until I was almost 40. I covet my alone time enormously.

Even if I hadn't slept the day or night before I will have a burst of energy come 10pm to midnight that will last well into the morning hours. The slows will hit around 10 am and I will drag myself through the day no matter how much sleep I did or didn't log the day/night before.

I can be falling asleep in my hands at 8pm (I dare not go to bed or I will be awake again by 11pm with no possibility of going back to sleep) but by 10 pm I am starting to perk up and by midnight I am well in the swing of things and before I know it I am hearing the birds singing in a new day and I am finally ready to sleep.

The main thing for me is to ensure I get at least 6 to 7 hours sleep at a time. I will take more when I can get it but generally that's the max before it will feel like too much sleep and the triggering of depression.

I have determined that for me to be sleeping by 3/4 am and up again 10/11 am-ish works best for me. I get to maximize on those wee morning hours of high energy production while I still get going early enough to take care of business in the day.

Its tricky cuz the earlier I go to bed, routinely or hap-hazardly the more likely I will only sleep a few hours before waking. Often those are the worst sleeps. Ugly dreams and ugly feelings when I wake up making the day that much harder to face and manage.

Validating my right to determine my own sleep patterns no matter the 'strangeness' of the hours has been the best gift I ever gave to myself. I don't even hide it anymore. "Yup, you woke me. Yup its 11 am. Nope... I am not a lazy bum just cuz I sleep different hours than you. Wanna see what I did last night while you were sleeping?"

I can see myself a lot in the last post. Since my sleep pattern is unstable I'm happy if I can stick it to where I get the best type sleep, where it is at a sort of very vague balance point and lets me function. That means I fall asleep between 3 and 5 am. I have realized I am allowed to feel good about myself if I stick to that and don't break the 5 am thing I set up for myself. Before, other people's words stuck to me like lazy person think you're good for making such a lame effort...

When I have to get up earlier than I want to, I just cut sleep short that day and then I'm tired up to like 930 pm where I feel alive. People wonder why I don't go to bed at 9 when I'm still sleepy. Because it ruins everything. It gives me really weird sleep that I will wake from soon. They ask why I don't take a short nap in the day. I think it is rather typical for those with DSPS not being able to "just nap". If I fall asleep in the day, you cannot wake me. I am really disciplined when I need to be somewhere in the morning and such, but just set the alarm to nap... no doesn't work. Ask someone to wake me? Yea right. I can tell them to force me to get up. But somehow when they wake me I convince them I need to sleep more! It would take an earthquake to wake me from a nap. I assume the deep sleep I'm in then reminds of the type of deep sleep a normal person has around 1-3 am. So if I accidentally fall asleep in the afternoon I don't wake until maybe 11 to midnight. So naps are not allowed.

I don't think most people can fathom what it means to have a sleep "pattern" that doesn't build on natural awakenings and natural getting sleepy, but builds on the clock and discipline. It's like they would be put on a planet where some days are 30 hours, some are 40, some are just 15, and sleep according to that. It is how it feels for me.

There is a book called Peak Learning, in which explains that different people have different sleep patterns and you chose the most productive work times according to your sleep schedule. Some people are night owls and some people are up in the daytime. Thus, this book i got when i was taking online college courses to see where I would fit.There is no specific times mentioned in the book as a set schedule, it just explained when to do your best work and at what times.

I can totally relate to this. It's really hard to explain this to my family, because there's so little information about this online. Especially since I'm from a non-English speaking country, there's no information about DSPD at all, and most of my family members don't understand English. So I really have no way to prove them that it's really a disorder, not something I can change. I get really pissed off when someone tells me that it's just a bad habit, because it's not. I've tried to switch to a ''normal'' sleep schedule a lot of times, even skipping nights sleep and forcing myself to go to sleep at an earlier hour, but it all fails eventually in a day or two when I get back to going to sleep when I naturally need to.

Definitely not a bad habit. Sigh.

If you for example would measure your body temp throughout the day it varies, but in someone with DSPS it varies with the internal rhythm while normal people's temp vary so when they fall asleep the catch onto a sinking body temp and when they wake up, it starts to rise.

In DSPS the pattern can be chaotic or the body temp starts sinking early in the morning and keep sinking to noon or longer.

Also the hormone which is meant to concentrate urine should be higher at night so you don't have to go up and pee, but people with DSPS might have to (if they can sleep nights) because this doesn't kick in until early daytime. Me personally I almost don't pee in the day, only at night.

So yea... a real physical thing.

I wish people would understand but I can't help if people choose to be stupid.

Just now, at 1 am, my depressed mood suddenly lifted... Until 1:30 am, when I realized that this mood lift just reinforces this DSPS pattern that has been destroying my health for 5 yrs. I would often go 36 hrs w/o sleep, in order to "reset" my internal clock and my mood. I read some research using sleep deprivation for med-resistant depression, and it usually helped me, for a day or so.
Exercise had also helped my MDD, but after foot surgery 6 wks ago, my depression got severe, and my usual bedtime got later, to 4-5 am. I was skipping one night's sleep per week, until my body got so exhausted I could no longer recharge myself.
But 6 days ago, I tried the 36-hr wake time once more, getting to bed @ 11pm. I was so proud yesterday, telling my doc I had made it 4 days on a daytime schedule. But like some of you said, I am just slipping back into my old pattern, w/later bed every nite. I'll be 69 soon - I am too old for this.
Ya'll are right. People accept my other chronic illnesses, mostly. But they don't have a clue about DSPS. It has the power of a physical addiction, and I don't see a way out. Light therapy? 2 hrs later bed each nite, till 10pm? Anybody?

I think I have DSPD as well. I worked mostly night shifts in my former career. I had the hardest time getting up early in the morning as I stayed up into the early morning. I hate the fact that this disorder is looked at as someone is being lazy. Quite the contrary.

It is a common type of chronic circadian-rhythm disorder. It does not fit into the insomnia subset as most people do get sleep on their own sleep schedule. About 40% of people with this have a family history of this disorder.

As far as light therapy, it is recommended to get bright light therapy in the am and to be outside. Even if it is overcast outside, it is enough light to help. At night, it is best to only be in dim light. Melatonin taken before you need to go to sleep has some merit.

The only way I know this is by chance I am reading a book on sleep disorders written by a sleep disorder specialist ( Carlos H. Schenck, MD. )
Copyright 2007. Our library has older books! Oh, by the way, I have MDD as well.

I hope this helps!

Thanks, Sideblinded! Yes, I used to try to get out in the early AM for 30 min or so. I thought it helped, but my sleep doc said it wasn't enough light to really get me on track - I'd have to buy the light box. They don't sell it locally. I guess I could sit in front of it while I do my AM nebulizer.
As soon as my foot heals, I'm getting another dog, to make me go outside again - an old one, like me, this time. Young dogs wear me out.

I've also taken melatonin for yrs - 10 mg now. I take 1.5 mg Ativan to relax me, also. I wear an eye mask and my sleep apnea mask.

But the best tool I have found to help me sleep at ANY hour is a CD that has Delta (sleeping)brain waves under a music track. You can play it louder than other sleep tracks, and your brain rhythm quickly aligns with the brain waves it hears, so you're asleep before you know it. It's called Delta Sleep System 2.0, by Dr. Jeffrey Thompson. Lately, as I try to adjust to night sleep, I lie awake awhile. But if I turn it a little louder and concentrate on slow breathing throughout my body (head to toes), it works!

It's just getting to bed that's the problem. I've had a lot of pain lately, and I stay up trying to get rid of the pain, before getting ready for bed. Which is what I should go do right now.

I'm a totally self-absorbed whiner, BUT...

I just LOVE positive people!!

almost 5 am
dx DSPD this year but i have never had a good pattern. my mother would wake me in the night to do activities when i was a child so i was very sleep deprived when at school.
as an adult i do not work outside the home and have found my natural rythm to be 4 to 5 am-ish till about noon.
ive tried melatonin with mixed sucess but something else that i need to be strict about is blue light. i have blue blocking goggles but it makes things very dark in the house so i am not usually inclined to use them.
ive thought about using f.lux on my computer but that seemed excessive after i bought the goggles. now i just need to start wearing them!

has anyone tried the sleep advance technique to synch up with the rest of the world?