Same thing when I was having massive sleep issues with years of constantly having symptoms of chronic sleep deprivation. Turned out I just had a condition called ‘delayed sleep phase disorder’. Being diagnosed and reading about sleep cycles was also a bit of a revelation to me. DSPD pretty much just means that as an adult I have a similar circadian rhythm to an adeloscent. As soon as I started regularly getting up at around 10am instead of 7-8am and just going to bed when I felt tired, all the symptoms disappeared, with no meds or anything.

It’s lucky that I have a flexible workplace and a supervisor who has a kid with a sleep disorder, because the hardest thing about having this disorder is that it’s so hard for anybody with a normal cycle to understand how inflexible circadian rhythms are. You hear all sorts of BS about “you just need to be more disciplined”, etc. which just doesn’t work.