Are your circadian rhythms whacky?

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I experience something similar to this. I go to sleep at like 1-2am most nights, but I'll periodically go through periods where sleeping becomes more and more difficult over the course of a few days. It usually culminates in one or two sleepless or near-sleepless nights. After that, my body gets back into a more regular pattern (or at least "regular" by my standards).

Between the two jobs I have, I only get 4 hours of sleep on a good day (the hours aren't always consecutive either as the one job has no set schedule).

heck yes....

wish they were consistant

I never really thought much about my sleep schedule. I sleep when I'm tired and get up when I'm not. If it's not when it's "normal" to be asleep or awake it doesn't concern me.

Lately I go to sleep and wake up somewhat around that same time each day but many times in the past I didn't. I also take an afternoon nap most days now since I have fatigue from having surgery, chemo, radiation, and now from neupogen shots.

"In people with this disorder, the body essentially insists that the day is longer than 24 hours and refuses to adjust to the external light/dark cycle."

Sounds familiar to me except there have been times where my body insisted the day was less than 24 hours and every day I'd go to bed earlier and get up earlier.

What external light/dark cycle? I don't notice it much, especially in my old apartment where I kept my bedroom curtains closed all the time. I don't get much sun and I sleep with my bedroom light on. I don't really see it being light or dark out as a reason to be awake or asleep.

Look. As a neighbor to their south I for one do not care if Canadians have rhythm. They have pretty good beer and they're super friendly.

Up until about a year ago I had a software business that I ran from home and my preference was to work late into the night, mostly until 3am or 4am.

Now that I work for a company as an employee who has to be in the office at 8am, I don't stay up late anymore. Now I find myself waking up at 3 or 4am in the morning and not being able to get back to sleep. I also moved from the east coast USA GMT-5 to Pacific GMT-8.

-L

I usually go to bed at the same hour every day (for 11 p.m. to midnight), but it takes me a lot to get asleep. I usually start sleeping near 1-2 a.m., and I usually wake up at 4.30-5 a.m. For 5 a.m. to 6.45 a.m. (that is the time I should get out of bed) I am awake. Well, I don't really care, I'm not tired during the day, even if I only sleep for 2-3 hours.

I usually go to sleep within a minute or two after going to bed, but then I try to only go to the bedroom with the sole purpose of going to sleep. I don't read in bed, watch tv in bed, or listen to the radio in bed.

Before I started doing that, it took me forever to fall asleep. Sometimes I'd go to bed at midnight and not fall asleep until 4 or 5 am.

I'm so good about falling asleep every time I go to the bedroom that if I go into it to change to more comfortable clothes while fixing supper, it's all I can do to not fall asleep then. More than once I've started supper and then gone to the bedroom to put on something more comfortable for around the house (t-shirt, shorts, and house slippers) and fallen asleep before I could even change and woke up two or three hours later to severely burnt food. Because of this, if I'm going to change clothes before eating supper, I'll try to go in before I start supper so that if I fall asleep, I won't fill the house with smoke.

On those rare occasions when I go to bed and can't sleep, I get back up and leave the bedroom to go do something else until I'm more tired.