Fixing a mucked up sleeping pattern?

West said:
I work rotating days and nights. I turn round by waking up early on my last shift. So in bed for 8 and up for no later than 1. I often find then i'm sleepy by 9/10pm so I then sleep till about 8/9am the next day.

Failing that I just stay up for the day.
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This. I do 2 days, 2 nights, 4 off and do the same. Though I get to bedfor half 8, and up at 12.
 
I work nights only, but on my days off I'll get home at around 7am, sleep until 1pm, then I'll stay up until 1-2 am. That way I can wake up at 10:30 ish the next day and then I'm back to normal person hours. :p

I used to try and stay up all day on my first day off but I was way too zombified.
 
MisChief said:
Lack of sleep can shorten your life apparently... Or so I've read in some article somewhere... :o
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Makes sense. Sleep deprivation kills brain cells, I believe.

That being said, I find an all nighter is the simplest way to reset my body clock. It's not fun, but you gotta do what you gotta do.
 
Thanks for the advise guys! :)

My shift only ended up being 8-2 so not so bad. I'm usually a lot more tired than I am at the moment after pulling an all nighter to all going well so far. :) Will hopefully fix my sleeping pattern and will be in bed by 10pm tonight. :cool:
 
Just woke up 2 hours earlier each day until it's fixed.

All nighter might fix it in one go...however everytime I do this, I severely regret it!
 
Yeah I'm starting to feel it now! Almost fell asleep watching a youtube video. uurrrrghhh
 
Duff-Man said:
I've faced this for years.

In times gone by I used to stay awake for the night, caffeinated if needs be, and correct my sleep pattern that way (as you are planning to). These days it does not seem to work any more...

It's been years since I've had a "proper" sleep pattern. If I try to go to sleep "too early", say more than an hour or two before I went to sleep the day before, by body will sleep for 2hrs and wake me up - no matter how tired or sleep deprived I am. Highly frustrating, as I can often lie in bed for hours trying to sleep but unable, so simply giving myself a "set time for bed" is of no use. Sometimes I can be exhausted but unable to sleep - my brain runs circles around trivial problems and won't let them go - sometimes it's as simple as a random phrase, or a name, that my brain just runs over and over and over for now apparent reason...

For the past few years I've accepted that I can't get a real sleep pattern. I simply wake up when I have to, and sleep when I can. I spend a lot of my time (well, most of my working days) exhausted, but I have begun to get used to it. I learn to "see through the fog" somewhat, and I save the most complex tasks of my job for days when I have had enough sleep.
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Can relate to this, my natural sleeping pattern is something like 3am to 11am which doesn't tend to fit around real life that often which results in throwing my sleeping pattern off entirely and takes ages to get it fixed again and even one day having to get up earlier than normal throws it off again for months.

One of the reasons I've stuck with a fairly dead end job as it lets me for the most part work around my sleeping pattern rather than pursuing a career I'm more suited to where I'd have no choice but to work 9-5 and spend half my life feeling like a zombie.
 
Ween yourself off caffeine, go to bed and get up at regular times.

As a student I'd naturally fall into a 7am-2pm sleep pattern during the summers, now I can't sleep past 9.30, even if I only went bed at 6. Don't buy into the myth of "I can't sleep at normal times". Patterns are environmental, not genetic and just doing it will make it easier every day.
 
Did you manage to sleep OK KD?

I went to sleep at 9, head touched the pillow and I was gone and woke up at 8:30am. Feels weird being up this early without multiple alarms going off. :)

Hopefully the all nighter reset it.
 
Fasting naturally resets your sleep cycle:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7414437.stm


Also try supplementing with magnesium and chamomile tea in the evening, I have this most nights now and sleep for around 8 hours no problem. When I'm 'wired' or really stressed I will also take a low dose of vitamin b6 and 5-htp about 30 minutes before bed to boost serotonin levels (which can then be converted into melatonin for sleep), it does the trick :p
 
Eat your dinner earlier and don't drink any caffinated beverages after tea time.

Do a big shift in the gym.

Stay up all night if all else fails : /
 
Telescopi said:
Ween yourself off caffeine, go to bed and get up at regular times.

As a student I'd naturally fall into a 7am-2pm sleep pattern during the summers, now I can't sleep past 9.30, even if I only went bed at 6. Don't buy into the myth of "I can't sleep at normal times". Patterns are environmental, not genetic and just doing it will make it easier every day.
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Never been able to change mine, had about 2 years where I avoided caffeine, didn't eat any heavy meals after about 5pm, etc. even tried the fasting trick, making sure I had plenty of exercise and so on - nothing worked.

I partially blame having a light on at night as a child, I don't seem to have developed a light/dark cycle linked sleep pattern that many people do.
 
I work rotating 12 hour day/night shifts and sleep fine, whether it's with an empty or massively full stomach. Prepping for nights is easy (just stay up later and later) but coming off can be a little bit of a pain, although I usually just set my alarm so I'll get about 5-6 hours sleep after my last night shift, then spend the next few days going to bed slightly earlier, although it's never usually enough that I enjoy my first 6am start!

I find activity makes a big difference - if I just come off nights and sit about all day it's more of a struggle to go to bed earlier, where as if I've been to the gym or got out the house and done stuff I feel tired and can get back to a fairly normal sleep pattern quicker. My bed is purely for sleeping and I never play with my phone/tablet in it, or try and do anything on a computer right before bed as my brain gets going and it makes it harder to sleep.

Having some present-moment-awareness helps too since you can distance yourself from mental noise and focus on relaxing and nodding off rather than laying there wondering when you'll fall asleep.

I still sometimes wake up randomly but then I work odd hours so it's kind of expected. Hopefully my next job won't be as weird so I can have a normal day/night cycle, as I always feel more productive if I get up earlier/go to bed a reasonable time, plus 90% of the reasons for staying up stuipdly late are either completely pointless (browsing the web which you could do any other time) or slightly psychologial (a common one is trying to 'postpone' the next day for as long as possible by staying up as late as possible).
 
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