I agree with everything you listed, but I have one complication. "went to bed as soon as tiredness kicked in".

Give me a night or two of good sleep...and I won't be tired until 1am. Waking up for work will then be hell (I don't function well on low sleep).

My body knows when it is tired...but that doesn't match the work schedule :( When I'm practicing sleep diligence (which comes and goes based on whether I've been tired a lot lately or not) I have to force myself to go to bed when I'm not feeling tired. That feeling of sacrificing time is almost as hard to maintain as being constantly fatigued.

First world problems, but they are my problems.

Sounds like you could have delayed sleep phase disorder/syndrome. It's just having a delayed circadian rhythm - not really a disorder except that it's hard to fit in with 'normal' schedules.

I have a lot of issues with this (my circadian rhythm delay is pretty bad). My employer tolerates me coming in at 10am but even then I'm still suffering symptoms of sleep deprivation pretty constantly and don't feel like I can survive without sleeping in to midday on Saturdays and Sundays...

It's a frustrating condition to have, because while research into circadian rhythms has generally found that you can't fight against your natural sleep cycle long-term without experiencing sleep deprivation, pretty much everyone who has a normal cycle will tell you that you just have to "be more disiplined", "just wake up the same time every day and you'll get into a better routine", etc. Even most GPs I've talked to aren't up-to-date with the latest research and it's been really hard to convince them to refer me to a sleep specialist! It's also especially bad at work, because management tend to be older (sleep cycles are usually at peak delay during adolescence, and then shift earlier as you age) and seem to have an impressive ability to not understand the condition. But if the science is to be believed, what people tell me is about as effective as telling a severely clinically depressed person to "just be happier."

But even for people with more normal (average) cycles, one sleep scientist has suggested [1] that work shouldn't start until 10am, which would make people more productive and more alert.

1. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2016/03/12/staff-should-s...

> pretty much everyone who has a normal cycle will tell you that you just have to "be more disciplined", "just wake up the same time every day and you'll get into a better routine", etc

I feel your pain. Been there many times. The way I solved it was to become the boss.

Daywalkers will never understand. Even if you're an owl rather than a lark it's looked down upon - and the standard trope of "you're just lazy" come out; but delayed sleep phase syndrome where it's possible to go in and out of sync with the day is a real killer for the regular office hours.

I now get significantly more work done than at any time in my career because I sleep and awake when I want. Of course occasionally I need to be in-sync with someone (meetings, etc.). But it's relatively easy to have a few things to get in-sync with if I get good sleep the rest of the time.

This many times over. I don't have problems with adapting ot new time zones. But it is difficult to get on a "standard awake/sleeping" schedule. It's not for a lack of trying.

I had this exact situation and it became much worse when I was working at a job I hated and had trouble dragging myself into at the best of times. My spouse has a very good bedtime routine and forcing myself to at least follow that along with her helped, though I still have trouble getting to sleep as easily as she does.

I don't think there is any one thing that helped me come out of it either. A few large changes, like a better job, and some moves like limiting caffeine intake after 3PM or so helped. I feel like it's stress, plus being a night owl to begin with, and maybe a light sleeper as well.

I used to have the same problems as you, the exact same problems as you just described. I mean this without malice, are you sure you haven't diagnosed yourself with something funky when you're actually just bad at preparing for sleep?

Using f.lux, exercising, no caffeine past 5 and establishing proper sleep hygiene fixed it for me, but it took me till my 30s to figure it out. Drinking alcohol seems to be very expensive on sleep cycles. With exercise I also found I needed to do it before 8pm or I would often still be very awake. The other thing is meditation to calm yourself down, I found that sometimes I would be breathing very fast when lying in bed, turns out I was wired still.

And when I slip, I'm back to finding it harder to get to bed on time, 12:30, 1am, 1:30am, 2am, problems start with getting to work on time. Having to catch up at the weekends, sleeping till 12. Finding it incredibly hard to get going on Mondays.

I also found when I had slipped with correct bedtime, melatonin helped me reset my sleep clock back to midnight. Taking it just one or two nights 45 mins before bedtime, will help me get back to bed at a right time. Apparantly the standard dose is 10x what you actually need (300 micro-g is enough, rather than 300 mg). I only use it once every few months.

> Drinking alcohol seems to be very expensive on sleep cycles.

I've heard that as it wears off there's a "rebound" effect, so that alcohol now means being more wakeful X hours later. I've never really been (or wanted to be) drunk enough to know for sure.

The biggest issue is when you stop drinking, sleep is terrible for few days. I found that valerian is helpful as it produces GABA chemotransmitter -- same thing that alcohol replaces.

This is hard for people with kids and a full schedule but there is an effective solution: Work. Out. More.

Seriously, part of the reason you're probably not tired is because you simply have not done enough physical exertion.

I've found that fairly ineffective with my condition (delayed sleep phase disorder). There's not much improvement at all when I'm working out regularly after work / on weekends to when I'm only doing it occasionally.

But then again, I'm fairly active at work (have to go up and down stairs between my office and the lab dozens of times a day, standing lab work, walking out to the warehouse to get parts, etc. which actually adds up to quite a lot, even if it's not very strenuous) so maybe if I just sat at a desk all day it would be a lot worse.

I went to a sleep specialist for delayed sleep disorder. He told me to take 1mg of melatonin about 6 hours before bed, and to wear sunglasses at night when around lights.

which also takes time, which you don't have enough of, which is why you were staying up late in the first place.

having kids basically just makes life impossible and painful.

Physically exhausting yourself doesn't actually take too much time -- do intervals at max exertion. If you take 'max' literally, you'll be exhausted after 10 minutes.

I got one of those bike-like thing to put under my desk. Initially for work but that wasn't working so now it's at home. I haven't been great about using it often but it is easy to use while playing games like I would anyways. It might not be terribly efficient or anything but it's something.

You don't have to dedicate 1 hours of your day to this. Take the stair, walk/bike around, do some light gardening, ect. All small everyday stuff that exercise your body - and it works.

can you take a half hour to do a workout in your lunch break?

Which type is more effective? Cardio or strength

The most effective method is something like high-intensity interval training. You need to stress your CNS to some degree. Low-intensity cardio is going to require a lot of time (like an hour 30 or more). Strength will require several, consistent big lifts and can be hard to work at home.

Buying a kettle bell or stationary bike and doing HIIT can wear you out in <20 minutes.

How many days do you do this per week? for me, everyday would totally wear me out and be unsustainable.

The point is to do is to be worn out. Initially, you start with 3 days a week. As your body adapts its energy levels you increase. I ride 20 miles a day on a bike (10 to work, 10 from).

On weekends I ski moguls for 6+ hours in the winter and hike 12ish miles in the summer.

The only time I feel a lack of energy is when I _stop_ regularly working out. You can be very efficient and get the same effect doing 20 minutes of HIIT. When the weather is marginal or I just don't have time that is what I do.

Michael Breus has a theory that different individuals tend to sleep/wake at different points in the day naturally.

So perhaps your natural rhythm is very late night bedtime and late morning wake time? Does make life in the standard 8-5 world difficult unfortunately.

EDIT: non-affiliate link to his book The Power of When https://www.amazon.com/Power-When-Discover-Chronotype-Lunch/...

When left without any external obligations even for a couple of days I seem to wake up and go to sleep later and later each day. My rhythm doesn't settle on any fixed 24-hour period. Is something similar to this discussed in the book?

I have the same issue. I progressively sleep and wake later and later until I wake up around 1pm. I then force myself to reset my cycle and go to sleep before 2am.

I work from home and I have a lot of flexibility since I live in a different timezone from my clients so I make that work but it is frustrating for my wife. Workouts don't really seem to help much, melatonin seems to improve things slightly.

I wish I could just reset it and go to sleep earlier like that. I'll either just lay in bed wide awake or fall asleep for an hour or two and then not be able to sleep again for the next several hours.

Sometimes my clock gets so out of phase that I'll fall a sleep at around 10AM and sleep until 19PM or so. It's pretty tough to go back to regular schedule after that, heh.

Oh I make it sound easy to reset in my message but it's actually more akin to jetlag... I'm usually pretty much down for the count for 1-2 days

Have you tried strictly abstaining from LCD / artificial light usage 4-5 hours before bedtime? Might easier trying this on vacation somewhere rural.

We know that blue light is a strong cue to your brain to keep delaying the clock -- perhaps your brain is unusually sensitive to it.

Not the person you asked, but my experience was the same before I had any LCD's or smartphones. I did have artificial lighting of incandescent kind and CRT monitor.

CRT would have the same effect

I use flux which does restrict somewhat the amount of blue light I have.

I do tend to work late at night because of timezone differences between me and my clients.

One thing you could try is safety goggles that block UV:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000USRG90

My experience with flux was that the screen still gave off enough blue light that it didn't make much of a difference for me.

Good idea, I'll try that

Delayed Sleep Phase Syndrome

Seems increasingly common with our modern lifestyle.

http://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/articles/delayed-sleep-...

The poster probably is: I'm much the same way.

Low functioning on little sleep, but a good night or two and I'm up at 1am.

Right now, I simply sleep when I'm tired and waking when I please most days. I generally sleep from about 4am to noon, approximately. Additionally, sleeping later in the day produces a better sleep. I sporadically sleep through alarms and loud noises.

It does make the normal 8-5 world more difficult to deal with.

Have you tried taking melatonin an hour or so before your target sleep time? That's worked wonders for my family.

Try implementing the tips in https://www.supermemo.com/en/articles/sleep

In a nutshell, with a bit of free running sleep you can readjust your cycle.

There is definitely a drift towards staying up later and later, and of course kids and/or work are not forgiving of that trend, so the sleep deprivation starts to accumulate again.

I guess just listening to what your body is telling you and not pushing it, especially if the reason is work (side-project or career), but even just staying up for something trivial like watching a movie or whatever. Maybe I can use a lack of dreams to tell when I've gone too far.

This is me as well. There is so much to do, see and make. Both workwise and a million odd projects outside of work.

A serious complication to the variable length of sleep is that when you get a bad back after sitting for 20 years, you can't catch up on sleep anymore as the back hurts after X hours in bed anyway.

Mentioning lack of dreams is on point. As a student I would do at least 1-2 all nighters (~36+ hours without sleep) a week. In the rest of the week I would probably be partying. In hindsight, it was pretty stupid as I was incredibly inefficient at everything, my health was poor and I was cognizant that my mood would get depressive the more sleep deprived I got.

One of my benchmarks of my tiredness, and conversely how rested I was, was if I was having dreams. When I was exhausted, sleep would be pure black abyss and the time between sleep and awakening could have been the blink of an eye for all I knew. When I was sleeping reasonably (~6.5+ hours) I would start to dream again after a few days.

I take things a bit easier now, it's much easier to resist distractions like Facebook or the news when I'm rested than when I'm extremely exhausted.

Heavens knows what happens during parenthood and you simply have no choice, presumably there must be some psychological instinct that takes over...

> Also, having small children affect sleep although not directly

Hah. Haha. Hahahahahhahaa trails off

One of ours woke 4-6+ times per night, every night, for nearly a year straight. It's beyond just "affecting sleep" and well into Gitmo-style sleep deprivation.

That dreams returning thing has a cool name too: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/REM_rebound

wow im going to name my band tha... damn..

It would be a good name for a tribute band.

I used to have trouble sleeping as a kid, was always the last one wide awake at the sleepovers; always up at the end of a teenage conversation with a girlfriend noticing she had passed out like an hour earlier an hour later (maybe my convo was that boring).

After my first kid, I've had no problem at all catching and cherishing a nap. Dreams, I think, are the brains garbage collection mechanism. Without them, the system just grinds to a halt.

I sleep when tired and wake up when I wake up. I thought that would lead to 12 hour sleeps but I average on 6 per day. But I do sleep two times (at night 4 hrs and afternoon 2). I work best nighttime but Skype meetings are during the day so this works perfectly.