Sleep

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This is not working.

I usually wake up naturally at around noon. Maybe at one in the afternoon if I'm tired. I slept till two one day a few weeks ago. Rarely I wake up earlier for no good reason; often I get woken up early.

I can function when I get to bed (not to sleep) at midnight. Lately I haven't been able to manage that. It kept shifting later and later from midnight to one to two to three or four, until I got so tired now that it's stable at between one and three, fluctuating night to night.

Naps become possible when I'm so tired that they would never be sufficient, and anyway the instant I get enough sleep to just be really tired I quit being able to nap. I have to be so tired there's no hope of getting anything done at all before I can nap.

By the time there'd be any hope of sleeping, my executive function is gone. Try to remember to go to bed? Maybe. Try to make the transition away from my computer (it generally is)? Hard, but okay. Remember to walk down the hall? Okay, engage pacing mode, don't shift out of that for half an hour. Get into my pajamas? That means standing up and walking around my room. More pacing. If I even get into my PJs while I'm doing it. Then there's my diary. And I forget what all I did. And then I write something which reminds me of something interesting, so I get up to pace and don't stop until someone tells me to. Then I remember that I haven't brushed my teeth, so I walk to the bathroom. And I pace the bathroom and stim and pace and stim constantly and since I'm stimming with my hands I can't pick up the toothbrush...

Luckily, I live with my parents, so at some point someone will ask why I'm taking so long. So I brush my teeth, and after I get into bed, of late I fall asleep somewhat faster than in the past, but of late I'm always completely exhausted. When I'm functioning on enough sleep I have horrible insomnia (still do, but my ability to sleep seems to improve just enough that I never quite crash, not quite enough for me to not be too tired), but now I usually take maybe an hour or less to fall asleep. (Too tired to do anything all day, too. I find myself practically falling asleep in class.)

I know all teenagers are sleep deprived. Every time I try to get sympathy from peers I'm told that. But this is ridiculous. I have permanent dark circles under my eyes. When I get enough sleep I can make my eyes both look straight ahead most of the time; now I don't even do that half the time. I live with one eye shut!

There has to be something to do about this. Isn't there?

So, I have learned to:
Not waste energy on making it "not ok".
Use that energy instead to do or think of something at least interesting,
and maybe usable sometime else.
Write it in a simple textfile if nothing else (so I remember it}. Or draw it.

I am assuming you have asperger's? If so ,we were told (by our sons doctor),that Aspies tend to have normal disruption in sleep patterns. My son would go to bed at 11 .m. and wake up at 1 a.m. and not be at all tired and then say up til 11 the following day. Maybe you just need to get on a reg. sleep schedule. Try taking melatonin. It is natural,already found in our bodies,and it does work to help you sleep at night. Take it 30 min. before you want to go to sleep. If not ,talk to your doc., there are some meds. they can give you that is a bit stronger than melatonin.

Assuming there is no underlying medical issue, one good way to regulate sleep is exercise. It has to be vigorous enough and regular. Just don't exercise right before bedtime. It revs up your body and you need to have some time to wind down.

I think to really alleviate your insomnia you would have to stick to a very regular schedule of going to bed and waking up at the same time every night/day. This is easier said than done. Executive functioning difficulties interfere with my ability to do that. I keep saying I am going to fix my circadian rhythms, but I have a lot difficulty disengaging from whatever activity I am involved in right before bed. When I finally do disengage I have a couple of rituals that I must follow before I go to bed at night…they are a bit time consuming. Also when I do go to bed it takes me variable amounts of time to fall asleep, as it is difficult for me to "turn down my thoughts" about the day, or my daydreams about special interests,(which are over stimulating) ,or to stop worrying about a particular problems. Therefore even when I do go to bed at the same time, I fall asleep at different times.

Thank you, everyone.

lollipop4u, I've heard that that comes with the territory; that's why I asked this here. That is very interesting, though; only two hours of sleep a day? That's really cool.

daydreamer84, the time when I need to wake up is different on different days.

I have been taking honey before bed of late, actually. I don't know whether it's had any benefit. I don't drink tea.

Exercise does help.

going to bed routinely at the same time, and relaxing and avoiding overstimulation for the half-hour beforehand, too.

OP, I also have to get up at different times on different days. I am a university (undergrad) student and have different courses at different times. I was always told by my doctors to wake up at the earliest time possible , regardless of when I had to get up (i.e. wake up at 7am every day even when not necessary). I have not had any success with this. If I have a class until 10 pm one night, and therefore get home at 11pm, I still need a few hours to wind down and do the things I need to do before bed or I won't sleep. Therefore I don't go to bed at the same time every night, some nights I go to bed very late, on the nights when I have late class, and I am too exhausted to force myself to wake up at 7 the next morning. Nonetheless, the #1 recommendation for treating insomnia in the psych literature is going to bed and waking up at exactly the same time everyday. I am an a fourth year psych student and have read a lot literature on sleep, and know exactly what I am "supposed to do", but I just can't seem to actually do it(by the way... if you want I can give you a whole slew of strategies that have been shown to help people sleep...but I have found most ineffective)!

I've found that I tend to shift. Like I'll be very sleepy around say 2 pm one day, but the next I'll be sleepy at 4pm, the next at 6, something like that. It usually happens twice a day. Every now and then I'm fortunate enough that it coincides with the right time, but then it begins to shift again.