How do I quickly fix my sleeping schedule?

Factual Questions
1

I’ve been unemployed for a while, but I just found out that I have a good temp assignment starting on tuesday. The thing is, I’ve lapsed into a really atypical sleeping schedule for the past few months - staying up until about 5:00 am and sleeping until one or two p.m.

How can I break this schedule in the next three nights’ sleep? I tried to go to bed at midnight last night and I lay awake for hours, only to sleep all day and wake up at 2pm again.

I know that this usually takes a gradual change, but what can I do - should I stay up all night tomorrow, then try to stay up all day and sleep at a normal time that night?

2

I’m on the same schedule (I work evenings), and I’ve found it’s easier to wake up early than to fall asleep early.

Set your alarm to around 9 AM. Go to sleep at your usual time. Then when your alarm goes off after 4 hours’ sleep, force yourself out of bed and have a few cups of coffee. It’ll be a while before you’re fully alert, but you’ll be tired sooner that night, so it’ll be easier to fall asleep closer to a normal time. If you can keep that up for a couple days, you should be all right.

3

Yep, get up at a sensible time in the morning, even if you didn’t get to sleep till late.

You’ll feel like total crap for the rest of the day, but resist the temptation to nap.

Go to bed at a normal hour - 11pm or whatever - and then get up again in the morning.

It’s that first day that’s the killer, but if you can force yourself up and hardcore it through the rest of the day you’ll be well on your way.

4

The advice given so far is good, but it has not worked for me, personally. If my schedule is really off, I tend not to get on schedule even if I force myself to get up at the “right” time.

Suppose I’ve been sleeping from 5 to 2 like you (and I’ve been on this schedule myself). I go to bed at 5 and get up at 9, as advised above. I will be tired all day, but will per up again late in the evening and not feel like sleeping again until about 2 or 3. Or if I do go to bed at, say, 7 or 8 or even 10, I will wake up early and not be able to get back to sleep.

I think there are some people whose desired sleep and waking times adds up to greater than 24 hours. I typically like to sleep for 10 hours and stay up for 16.

I have a system that can conquer this problem, but it requires 2 days, which you say you have.

Get up at your “normal” time of 2. Now you want to stay up to your normal time of 5. But now you “push” your schedule twice. First, try to stay up not to 5 but to noon, 1, 2, 3–however much you can stand. Then, try to sleep as much as possible.

So, if you go to bed at noon, try to sleep until midnight. If you can do that, you are already set. If you want to stay up sixteen hours, you will be dead tired at 6 pm and then can “push” your sleep once more to wake up about 6 am.

At worst, you will push it to about, say, noon, and then sleep 8 hours until 8 pm. No problem. Stay up 20 hours until 4 PM the next day, and sleep 8 hours until 12 midnight. Now you are on a waking schedule of 12 to 6. This is compatible with a regular work schedule with a little gradually tuning until you work it out for good.

The virtues of the system are as follows:

  1. You force yourself to stay away only 4 extra hours or so a day, whatever you’re comfortable with.

  2. You get to max out on sleep after that; the more you sleep, the better.

  3. It puts you eventually into a schedule in which you’re waking early in the morning and getting tired early in the evening (i.e., a “virtuous” schedule).

Good luck!