I can't sleep when I'm supposed to and I get tired when I'm really not supposed to

So here it is, almost 2 AM. I’m up and totally lucid. My mind is more active and alert than it’s been all day. Yet I have to get up at 8:30 AM tomorrow (actually today), and have a full day of class followed by work. I know I am going to be completely out of it by the afternoon and I feel like there’s not a damn thing I can do about it. What I will end up doing is drink some caffeine to help get me through the roughest part of the day (the afternoon), and then completely crash out for a several hour nap as soon as I get home. Then I’ll be up and alert again at night, and start the whole cycle anew.

I know this is a probably unhealthy and vicious cycle. I do exercise, and although I would hate to give up caffeine, even during periods where I have given it up it seems to have little effect on the pattern. All my life I have been prone to getting really tired during the afternoons, and really active late at night no matter how much sleep I get, how much caffeine I consume or don’t consume, or how much I exercise. This is not very conducive to a 9-5 lifestyle, obviously, and it makes me mad. I’m not sure if I’m mad because I can’t seem to conform to society’s expectations, or because society fails to conform to mine. But either way, it pisses me off because I know I’m not treating my body right, and I further know that I’m not being as productive as I could be. These are golden hours of mental acuteness for me and I spend most of them lying in bed trying to force myself to sleep and getting frustrated because I can’t.

What the hell can I do? Anyone ever had a similar problem?

This is all very familiar to me. I very rarely feel tired late at night, but I can easily sleep until past 10:00 AM if I’m not disturbed.

There are things that can be done. Trying to keep to a pattern, avoiding anything too stimulating before going to bed, avoid caffeine during the evenings, even drinking a little milk can help. I would not advise taking over the counter sleep remedies except very occasionally, they are addictive and not suitable for long-term sleep disorders. I’ve had some success improving my sleep patterns, but they are wrecked right now due to my noisy and anti-social neighbours.

If you haven’t already done so, talk to your doctor.

I think it’s America that is messed up. Many other countries have a siesta system, where you take a break in the early afternoon for a nap. In China, most people get two hours off at lunch for a hot meal and a good sleep.

That said, it also seems like you are just plain working too hard. You take a full day of classes and then work, every day? You probably aren’t getting the “me time” you need to relax, process your thoughts, and prepare for the new day. Something has to give, and it ends up sleep.

I know how that goes. I once worked three jobs, and would often get no more than an hour or two of off-time a day. You have to learn to maximize that time. That means no more time waster activities- like surfing the 'Dope. Give yourself a strict time limit on mindless activities, and stick to it. I also found that just ten or fifteen minutes of focused meditation before bed could do a lot for me. You need some time to process your life, and you probably just aren’t getting it.

Is there any way you could sneak a little nap in around lunch time? I bet even 15 minutes would help a lot.

Argh, been there, done that, and have heaps of sympathy for ya.

One thing I can tell you is that going on the computer when you’re awake at night is making the problem worse. There’s something about that brightly lit screen that seems to fire up my ‘stay awake’ hormones or whatever the hell it is.

One of the problems I find if I wake at night is that I firstly start stressing about being awake, and then the stress starts spiralling up and up and up and suddenly I’m stressing about everything and anything. The best method I’ve found to ‘silence’ those voices has been to listen to something. I have a pillow with an inbuilt speaker, and the laptop next to my bed. I’ll listen to an audio book, just leaving it on, and I’ll eventually drift back to sleep.

I also found this blog post really helpful: How to Become an Early Riser – Steve Pavlina

The most helpful aspect of it was the concept of not going to bed until you are tired, but getting up at the same time every morning, including weekends.

A lot of people will tell you the trick is going to bed at the same time every night, but that’s never really made sense to me because if I’m not tired, I’m not going to sleep. I’ve found that by getting up at the same time every morning, I’ve gradually trained my body and now I start to feel sleep at a sensible time.

that is actually sounding sort of like me =)

I have always woken up at about 2 in the morning for an hour or more, it is not uncommon for me to go to bed at 930, sleep until about 2 then be up until 4, then back to sleep for an hour, wake up at 5.

http://www.sciencenews.org/pages/sn_arc99/9_25_99/bob2.htm covers sleep variances. Very interesting. I do sort of follow what is described as segmented sleep. Since I am now unemployed scum, the nap attacks are not particularly disruptive, but if I was working it would be difficult.

Actually, I just did a sleep study [my doc is convinced I have obstructive sleep apnea] and I amused the tech to no end. I told him that he could expect me to be awake at 2, and that I would go back to sleep at 4 and be up for the day at 5. I did the schedule as described without any light exposure or clock in the room :smiley: And oddly enough, not a lick of apnea. I may snore like a chainsaw, but I do not stop breathing, and I can’t sleep on my back, I sleep mostly on my stomach, with my face propped on my arm mostly down so my airway is pretty wide open.

I’m in the exact same predicament as you (it’s not at all uncommon for me to watch the sun rise before I go to bed) and believe me, you have my sympathies. Life simply isn’t geared towards us creatures of the night.

Like you, it’s not my choice, I’m just simply not at all tired. I can be nodding in and out of consciousness all day, but 8pm hits and BAM, I could run a marathon with all my energy. It’s like I’m conserving it all day to use in the evening for some odd reason. I believe it’s delightful medley of genetic, biological, and psychological causes. My father is the same way. Behaviorists would say it’s because I had grown up watching him, but I didn’t really know my father much until far later in my life. My stepdad and mother were both religious 11 - 7 sleepers and I… wasn’t.

On top of that, a part of me just thoroughly enjoys the peace and quiet of the late night. Nobody is up doing anything. Nobody calls, texts, emails, etc (except my father every now and then). It’s just so bloody peaceful that it’s almost a shame I have to sleep through it. Add to that the anxiety and anger I feel knowing that I have a busy day coming up and I’m going to feel like shit, and you’ve got the perfect recipe for crippling insomnia. It’s a vicious circle, I can’t sleep because I’m upset that I can’t sleep.

And you’re right sandra, the whole ‘go to bed at the same time’ trick doesn’t work if you can’t sleep. Lying in bed making mundane small talk with my brain about the minutiae of my life isn’t any more effective in helping me sleep than posting on the Dope. I’ve tried getting up at the same time, but no matter how staunchly I’m committed to that, if I get to sleep at 5am and there is nothing important I have to do before noon, I’ll snooze my alarm for two hours straight without even noticing.

So far, my only weapons against this overwhelming enemy have been of a pharmaceutical nature which, though mostly effective in knocking me out (provided I actually go to bed after taking them) they’re not without odd (albeit mildly entertaining) side effects.

Sorry I can’t be more helpful OP. I still haven’t found a consistant solution, but as a fellow sufferer, I wanted to add my sympathies.

Missed the edit window.

Sandra I actually found your link to be extremely helpful, mostly because it included a link to this. If I can pull this one off, I will personally deliver a freshly-baked-at-5:30am-pie to your doorstep. :wink:

I really really really hope it works for you!

Obviously, because I care about your sleep patterns.

Nothing to do with my love of pie. Oh no, definitely not. :smiley:

I have found The Meditation Podcast to be extremely helpful. The “Falling Asleep” podcast is #6. You can also find it on iTunes if you use that.

I cannot use caffeine in the afternoon, or I’m up until 2 or 3 just like that. In fact, I hardly ever use it at all anymore. I still wish I could fall asleep a little earlier (10 vs 11 or 12) because I still find myself needing some “catch-up” sleep on the weekends. I can very naturally sleep from 12 to 8, but even that doesn’t fit in with most day shift schedules here, and it really doesn’t fit with night shift, either.

Welcome to my world.

I’m under a lot of stress and anxiety. I can’t sleep more than a couple hours at a time, no matter if I’m exhausted. No rest for the wicked, I guess.

You don’t need sleep, you need spleep!

I love melatonin. When that doesn’t work, I love valerian. If neither of those works for a few days on end, I love Ambien.

When come back from nap, bring pie.

My problem is similar, but opposite. I keep waking up earlier and earlier every day, and I keep getting tired and going to bed earlier and earlier every day. I woke up, without an alarm, at 5:00 this morning. I didn’t need to be up for another two hours. But I know I’ll be tired by 9:30 tonight. I don’t need to get up this early… why do I?

Light plays an important role in governing our sleep patterns, I tend to wake up earlier in Spring than in Winter.

Ick, I hate light. Excessive light seems to produce a revulsion or “run and hide” response in me. Whereas I’m totally comfortable in relative darkness, and feel much more alert.

I have no advice to give you, but ugh, I’m like this too. I’ve had this month-and-a-half long period of not having a whole lot of shifts at work, and consequently I’ve been going to bed at around 4 AM and not waking up until 1 or 2 PM the next day. Tomorrow, though, I start a regular schedule of working 9-3, 4 days a week, which means I have to be up at 7 so I can catch the bus on time.

The thing is, even when I was at my laziest, sleep schedule-wise, I’d always find myself getting up to go to the bathroom at around 8:30 or so, give or take. I’d actually be fairly lucid, but then I’d go back to bed and sleep for another 4 hours. So what I need to do is get up when I naturally wake up, and stay up.

I don’t sleep right either. Sleepy all day, awake at night when I want to sleep. Maybe some of us evolved to be the night watchers for the tribe. I’m also excellent at famine.

ahhh…bed at 4am up at 1pm would be a lovely schedule, the one I would revert to, if only my workplace allowed it. People that are “Sleep Different” are truly one of the last minorities that don’t get any compassion or respect by the majority.

I have the same sleep cycle. I have Fibromyalgia and Chronic fatigue Syndrome. I can only work 4 hours shifts and then I lay down for an hour and a half when I get home. Try and set the alarm when you lay down so you don’t sleep more then an hour or so. Then get up and have coffee and enjoy the evening. This is what I do to get sleepy. I take a couple herbal supplements a half hour before I want to go to sleep. I take 1 Melatonin tablet and 3 Valerian Root capsules. I try and lay off coffee after 6 pm. I also keep my room dark and on the cool side. Hope this helps. I’m a night owl and always have felt best at 8 pm. Can you work evenings? My son works the night shift because he is a night person. I work 10:30 to 2:30 and this has been a big help.

I decided ten years ago that Tylenol PM <or some variant; currently, just the PM part, now that it’s not more expensive than with Tylenol, ugh> was worth it. Without it, I am not sure what my chances would be at having a ‘normal’ diurnal livelihood. I do drink Diet Pepsi and occasionally coffee. Long before sleep aids were commonly available, I recognized that my body’s fine, it just operates on a 30 hour day, not a 24 hour one. But I’ve only had one job that could accomodate such a rotating schedule, and PRN patient safety aides just don’t make that much money. :stuck_out_tongue:

I will say that a schedule that I expected to be practically the death of me…a work schedule of 6 hours on, 6 off, for weeks at a time…well…it DIDN’T kill me. Even with coffee <hell yes, coffee! every ‘day’ all ‘day’> somehow I managed to slip into a schedule of ‘sleep’ that…well, it worked remarkably well! Part of it was knowing that, even if I didn’t sleep one of those scheduled times, then big deal, I only had to get through 6 more hours, THEN I could crash.
It was interesting. I’d read <Never Cry Wolf> that wolves sleep in short spurts like that, and the author experimented and found that humans could, too, somewhat.

I am just happy that sleep aids work for me. I suspect I’d be insane otherwise.