I somehow managed to sleep until about 5pm.  How horrible is that?  I guess it doesn’t surprise me anymore.  I had some nightmares.  Why is it that I can never remember my good dreams?  Who knows, maybe I only have nightmares haha.

Well, I’m now heading to bed.  I was really tired all day but I couldn’t get enough done apparently because I’m going to bed again at 6am.  I don’t have sympathy for myself today…I think it’s my fault on this night I’m going to bed this late.  My body was really tired earlier in the evening but I knew if I stayed awake that my body would move past that point.  I guess I was right because my body went way past that point and now I’m back to not being tired.  Maybe not such a good plan.  Can someone give me a good nap plan? haha

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/ 

I flipped my mattress a couple of weeks ago thinking that it would do the mattress some good, without thinking about myself.  I’ve been sleeping like crap ever since.  I don’t know what it is but I’ve narrowed it down to pillows.  I wake up with back pain and sore muscles.  It almost feels unnatural to be using pillows (like my head is up too high).  So, last night I decided to put the pillows on the floor and see how I’d sleep.  Turns out it worked quite well.  I felt better rested and less sore.

Isn’t it bad for your posture to have pillows in the first place?  I would think so, in the fact that it keeps your head pushed in front of your body.  I mean, think about when you’re standing-up during the day…for proper posture it’s best to keep your shoulders and head up high.  So, why do we spend half of our life (sleeping) teaching our bodies that our heads should be extended in front of our body (with pillows)?

That being said, I’m going to try sleeping without pillows for a bit until this problem goes away or gets better.  I love the feeling of pillows or other soft bedding but that’s only while I’m awake and I’m trying to fix my sleep problems…priorities, priorities.

Well another late day.  I woke up at around 4:30pm today.  I had set my alarm for around 12pm so I guess you could say I slept in :-P.  I don’t know what it is but when I’m asleep, it’s nearly impossible to wake me up.  I think it’s the concentration that it takes me to get to sleep.  It leaves my brain in a subconscious state that doesn’t like to be disturbed.

Yes, you read that right…I am actually exhausted.  It’s 5:20am and I am just heading to bed.  I would’ve actually liked to have been able to go to bed about an hour ago but I’ve been working on some projects I needed to get done before tomorrow.

When I say that I’m “going to bed”, that doesn’t necessarily mean that I’m “going to sleep”.  Going to bed represents lying in bed and trying to sleep.  They say it’s not good to be in bed when you can’t sleep.  You need to train your body so that your brain believes that your bed is only for sleeping (well and maybe a couple of other things :-P).  So, they say that if you don’t fall asleep within about 25 minutes, that you’re supposed to get back up from bed and go do some other things…then try again in 45 minutes to an hour.  This idea doesn’t work for me, as then I’d never fall asleep but it might work for some other people, so who knows.

So, you can use drugs or other means to try to get tired but one of the best natural ways would be to do some exercise. I went for a run around 1am and it seems to have helped. I went running late because being tired earlier in the evening would just of made me lazy. I’d say a good 45 minutes to an hour of exercise is best. If you can do it earlier in the day, then that will usually work also but you might not feel too “active” afterwards so productivity at work might go down :-P.

When you write a blog, it’s important to constantly update it.  It’s important for people reading the blog, otherwise, why are they reading it if they’re not getting updated news?  So keeping this in mind, I will try to update this blog as often as possible.  This doesn’t mean it’ll be updated daily, but I will try to update it daily for a while and maybe cut back a bit once I get most of my information across.  Also, comment away on things!…it’ll give me more incentive to write more ;).