Night Stimming/Sleep Problems

Post Reply New Topic

Here's my problem. I can lose hours researching health topics on the internet. My thoughts? We all have a body, knowing how it works is the ultimate user's manual, no?

Thing is, it's not reasonable to do this during the day. I have kids and I am in college. I also have a husband and a home to take care of. I end up staying up until the wee hours of the morning, as if driven, researching medical science journals on the internet. Sometimes it's just programming HTML, building websites or adding to old ones. I almost never go to bed with my husband, though he is okay with it since we do spend time together at other times. He does wish I would straighten out my body clock though because it shifts the household. I'll admit I miss the very early mornings. But this is definitely a stim for me. After a long day, particularly the rough days, getting to my computer is like a craving.

My body clock being off, I thought it was related to seasonal depression (I stim waaaay more in the winter than in the summer) but clearly summer doesn't cure the problem. And I forget what 7-8 hours of sleep regularly feels like. I've had major issues with my body clock since childhood.

I've seen this mentioned a couple of times. I wanted to see how many people were experiencing it and if you have suggestions.

I do find I can replace the stim with reading...but I have to make myself go to bed with the book.

My body clock is way off too, ever since I was a baby.. People would call me a vampire because I was up all night and slept during the day. If I didn't sleep the night before, sometimes I would force myself to stay awake during the day, so the next night I'll pass out.. Which always doesn't work because somebody always messes up my schedule of sleeping, so I'm going to try melatonin, see if that works any, usually I don't take medicine because any kind of medicine makes me really messed up, either mood swings, aggression, or sucidal thoughts.
I would recommend to you to try maybe putting weight on you at night, maybe it will help you stop night stimming and calm yourself down enough to fall asleep. I do that now, I don't own a weighted blanket, but I do have tons of pillows, comforters, cats any kind of weight I can throw on there usually helps. I know when I did have a sleeping schedule before people throw it off, weight helped a whole lot, and taking away all lights like turning the alarm clock the other way, closing all my shades, things like that helped.

I definitely crave the computer, especially after work, especially especially late into the night! It's such a good way to zone out of the real world and focus entirely on something interesting and best of all, all by myself!

I've always been a night person. I think it's because it's the best and easiest time to be alone with my thoughts and interests. I'm also addicted to TV late at night, because I can get lost in a movie or program. Sometimes the tv engages one part of my brain while another happily daydreams away.

My clock has been off since childhood. I always fell asleep late and slept late. I miss mornings, too, but I do my best sleeping then.

I work 3rd shift, so the hardest thing is coming in when the sun is just coming up and trying to sleep, especally during the summer when its hot as hell out already.

I used to have a hard time sleeping, but now its getting cooler out, so its easier, indeed, something like a comforter and fan help a ton!! !

In answer to poll, I wanted to pick 2 options (since one doesn't preclude the other) but cannot: "Yes, I'm almost totally nocturnal" & "Since childhood my body clock has been screwed up".

http://www.wrongplanet.net/modules.php? ... 00&start=0
I posted this in thread (that's linked to above) on napping:
My natural shift is to stay up an hour later & wake up an hour later, each "day"-more akin to 25, not 24 hour cycle. Made charts to show it, too.
Sometimes I go with it, other times I hover/linger around certain preferred times, such as going to bed around 6 or 7 a.m. & waking up around 2 or 3 p.m. I'm a night owl, except when I'm not. Overall, I'm less likely to be up (or feel good) before noon & am more likely to be alert & feel okay leading up to midnight. Morning sun looks nice, but it also translates to me (nonverbally) as "time to curl up & go to sleep, I'm tired..." School years (except for summer vacation) were bleary weary nightmare (okay, I exaggerate). My internal/inherent schedule was the complete opposite of the hours school required-having to be there from 8 a.m.-3 p.m. was something I don't miss. So I sleep during "normal business hours", which most people assume means someone will be awake & available but I just turn off the phone's ringer. I'm not lazy-I merely sleep different hours, not more hours.

http://www.wrongplanet.net/modules.php? ... 80&start=0
(Another thread asking people what their sleep habits are like).
http://www.wrongplanet.net/modules.php? ... highlight=
(An even older thread in which I posted, it's about having an irregular sleep cycle).

I typically don't fall asleep until 4 to 11 in the morning! But when I do wake up, I just stay up until that time again.

Yeah I realized in hindsight I should have made an option for both too. Because that's my story too.

http://www.wrongplanet.net/modules.php? ... 80&start=0
(Another thread asking people what their sleep habits are like).
http://www.wrongplanet.net/modules.php? ... highlight=
(An even older thread in which I posted, it's about having an irregular sleep cycle).[/quote]

Also...is there a scientific basis for this? Is it universal with autism or just an aspie thing?

Yes, my vody clock has been messed up since I was a kid. And I would be totally nocturnal if I could be. My ideal would be to sleep from 4:00 am to noon. Unfortunately, the rest of the world doesn't agree with my body clock, so I'm forced to be sleep-deprived and miserable because I have a VERY hard time falling asleep before 2:00 am and I havet o get up at 7:00 to get the kidlets ready for school at 8:00.

My body clock is up the creek. Mornings I am a zombie, afternoons bit better, then zomb and 4pm I pick up around 8pm with a high at 10pm then I am usually awake till 2am.

By the time I was 11 or 12, I was staying up 'til 2am, sometimes later. It just seemed natural to stay up and read, and if I tried to get to sleep, I'd just lie awake anyway. Why waste the time when you can instead do something useful or interesting? IIRC, this is at least in part part of being a teen going through puberty - your body's melatonin production kicks in later in the day, and most teens can't get to sleep 'til after midnight (although of course there are individual variations). It never seemed to stop for me, though. I'll still happily stay up 'til 1am or later into my 20s, but I try to force myself to go to bed earlier nowadays. Since we got a dog, I need to get up at 5:30am to walk her. Still, I'm rarely in bed before midnight, and I feel like I spend most of my time as a zombie, feeling like crap because I'm so tired. I'd always assumed this was just me, and in part it's simply a time crunch these days, there's too much to do and not enough hours to do it in. Still, I need my decompression time at the end of the day, which means if I don't get hosehold chores done 'til 11, I'm likely to spend another hour just processing the day before I go to bed, and that I suspect is an AS thing.

I think I should add to what I posted above that it's pointless for me to bother going to bed at all if I don't have a med to put me to sleep. I take Trazadone for that. I absolutely do not sleep without it. And before I started antidepressants, I would lie there with thoughts racing through my head. When I started the meds, I actually missed the racing thoughts and kind of resented losing them. Even resented sleeping, if that makes any sense. I don't know if racing thoughts or insomnia can be considered stims!

You're talking about Delayed Sleep Phase Syndrome (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delayed_sl ... e_syndrome)

This guy on youtube with Aspergers claimed that many people with AS have this disorder. I know I do.

I've got good old fashioned insomnia!

My sleeping partern is a little awkward, I generally end up going to sleep at around 2 am and get up for 8 am the next day but sometimes if i have an exhausting day i can get tired and go to bed at 12pm and have even more trouble getting up for the next morning than i would if i had less sleep, i usually feel mostly awake during the evenings as well between 9-12pm for example so i can hardly go to bed early if i tried. Body clock, what body clock!! ! Sometimes i have seen myself have around 3 hours sleep in a night and even had those dreaded all nighters.

Yeah, me too - I find it very hard to get to sleep before 2am, and quite often stay up till 4am or later. For some reason I just feel more relaxed at night, guess it is in part because there is less noise, other people are asleep and I know i'm far less likely to get disturbed. Though I then sleep in till late morning or early afternoon, then I'll wake up feeling depressed about my abnormal sleep pattern, only to do exactly the same thing the following night.. argh.