Well, I didn’t do too bad for a wake-up today.  My friend came over and woke me up at around noon. I say that’s not bad because I ended-up falling asleep at around 7:30am last night (this morning). So today I was super-tired but I figured maybe that was better for going to sleep later on.

Well, I seem to have tired myself by doing something (what, I’m not so sure). I went to dinner and a movie this evening…both were very good. During the day I didn’t do all that much, the weather wasn’t the best.

I just noticed something that I should inform you of while reading my posts. When I say tonight, I usually actually mean yesterday for most of you. I’ll walk you through how my “times” work. My 24 hour day is basically:

1. wake-up at sometime after noon (I still call it my afternoon and try to eat breakfast)
2. do my daily “things” until night (usually until around 11pm or midnight)
3. be awake the hours where everyone else sleeps until I am tired (this usually lasts until about 4am-8am depending on many things and I still call this my night. This can be my night, right? I mean we can share your morning as my night…well, I’m going to keep doing it anyway no matter what you think )

So, I am going to try to get some sleep. It’s just about 4am, which is better than usual for me. Good night all! Or, should I say good morning?

So, before I get too much into this blog, I’ll give you an idea of the closest thing to my problem. I’ve been researching my problem for a while, both on my own and with doctors…nothing’s ever been conclusive. I’ve been to a couple of sleep clinics but for the most part I can’t fall asleep and when I do it’s for such a short amount of time that they can’t get any good data. I’m not sure why that is, since I can usually sleep anywhere, in any position (not on command that is, but when I’m over-tired, I wouldn’t say it’s hard). I’ve actually fallen asleep standing-up once! How many people can say that? (How sad!)

I’ve explained my problem to so many people that it’s become quite repetitive. Try to explain to your friends why you’re awake at 4am on MSN looking for a conversation. It used to be embarrassing…these days I could care less. However, it is still embarrassing to see friends call at 12pm or later and find out that you’re still sleeping. You have a sense of guilt…like you shouldn’t be allowed to do that. It’s not like you’re sleeping for hours on end, just that when you do get to sleep…you want to stay asleep because of how much effort went in to get you to that stage.

Getting back to my self-diagnosis (sounds dangerous, doesn’t it?). I was researching the Internet looking for every possible sleep disorder or syndrome I could find. I came across a couple of them that were quite interesting (well not just a couple, there were tons…but two I was interested in). One was called Delayed Sleep Phase Syndrome/Disorder (DSPS or DSPD) and the other that is the opposite disorder is called Advanced Sleep Phase Syndrome/Disorder (ASPS or ASPD).

I am just going to focus on DSPS for now, I may include ASPS with other disorders and syndromes in future articles. DSPS is similar to what it sounds like. Everyone has a wake and sleep cycle, these can also be called phases. Think of when someone gets jet lag from traveling…their sleep times are all messed-up because they’re used to going to sleep and waking at certain hours. When you move someone from one time zone to another (usually more than a couple of hours of difference), it takes a few days for their internal body clock to adjust to the new time zone. DSPS is similar except that your internal body clock never adjusts to THAT particular time zone. It’s as if your internal clock is set to a time zone maybe +4 to +7 hours from where you actually are. The messed-up part is that DSPS doesn’t care what time zone you’re actually in. Some people may suggest just moving to a country +4 to +7 hours in a future time zone. That doesn’t work, I’ve tried it (not thinking that it would work, just out of coincidence ). Your body adjusts after a while, just the same as your body when you get jet lag. I think it takes on average a day per hour or something to that effect.

People who have ASPS have the opposite to DSPS. Basically they go to bed very early…maybe (as an example) around 6pm and wake-up around 4am or so. So, those of you on “regular” hours should count yourselves lucky! I almost think ASPS is worse than DSPS…although I can’t fairly say that since I haven’t suffered from it (let alone can say that I suffer from DSPS).

With all of that being said, no one (including myself) can say for sure if I suffer from a form or another of DSPS. I fit a lot of the diagnosis criteria but there are other things that I don’t fit. Also, the treatment often recommended of going to bed 15 minutes earlier and waking-up 15 minutes earlier each day until you’re on a proper sleep pattern sounds like BS. If only it were that easy. <sarcasm>I’m sure it’s easy for a doctor to come up with a treatment like this when they don’t even know what specifically causes DSPS or similar problems </end of sarcasm>.

If you want to read more on DSPS, I recommend the following two links for some general information:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delayed_sleep_phase_syndrome

http://www.sleepdisorderchannel.com/dsps/