my sleep cycle is FUCKED

[Ewasiuk]

So far this shitty summer, I've progressed from staying up until 2 in the morning, then 4, 6, and waking up at like 3 or 4 in the afternoon. How can I get back to roughly going to bed at around 12 or less and waking up at around 9?

[Khaos]

wooo me too XD *high five*

what i plan on doing when i can be arsed is stay awake for a whole night then falling to sleep at the right time the next day haha and hope it resets my body clock haha

[Ewasiuk]

I tried doing that but I still end up waking up at 3 or 4 and go back to sleep the same time where I was having problems with lol.

[Aiden Bloodaxe]

Tools that should help: Caffeine, Alarm clock(s), Stuff to do.

You should be able to conjure up something just those three. It's easier than you think, it just seems like it's going to be hard.

[Kris]

just get up early and keep yourself busy until the evening, then get up the same time the next day.
or work your way down from 11 am to 10 am to 9 am until youre satisfied.

[Jackamaideshwang]

Don't sit on the computer. When it gets to one hour before you're meant to be asleep, get all ready for sleep and just turn out all the lights and be in darkness. No TV or computer at night. Do whatever you can in the dark if you want, or you could just lay down in your bed and ponder.
To really set your circadian rhythms right you could use no artificial lighting at all, and that includes computers. You will probably end up going to sleep an hour or two after dark and waking up near sunrise.
Make some appointments in the morning as well, then you have a tangible reason to go to bed earlier.

And to go to bed earlier, use Aiden's advice, but opposite. Don't have any caffeine/stimulants and don't give yourself anything to do around the time you should be going to sleep.
Oh yeah, it helps if your day beforehand was busy or quite active or read/learn/research lots, then you'll be tired enough to need to sleep earlier, instead of needing less and less sleep as you do very little during your day.
I would say leaving bedtime free and having no artificial light for an hour would be much easier than staying up for a whole day. Wake up at the time you want to wake up normally on the morning that you attempt to get to bed earlier that night, if you know what I mean. It just takes a little bit of effort to go to bed good time, and you have to consciously give it that effort.

[saunders]

i have it too. it sucks.
i stay up til 3-4 am smoking weed and waking up at 11 am - 1 pm. i fucking hate it because im so slow the next day so i cant trick. im gonna quit smoking, reset my sleep cycle and trick moar.

[Aiden Bloodaxe]

use Aiden's advice, but opposite. Don't have any caffeine/stimulants and don't give yourself anything to do around the time you should be going to sleep.
Just to clarify, I never gave a particular time to use any of those "tools". There could be many useful times for them to be used, I left that to the discretion of the OP.

[Nicholai]

Just go to bed earlier and force yourself to get up at a decent hour by means of an alarm clock. After a few days you'll feel normal.

[DeMaar]

Search for a job and train after work!
then you will find well sleep :-)

[Dave C]

actually you're probably acting pretty normal, since evolutionarily you'd be the one out hunting for the tribe at night/standing guard and so forth.

[Ewasiuk]

actually you're probably acting pretty normal, since evolutionarily you'd be the one out hunting for the tribe at night/standing guard and so forth.

Cool :juji::pwing:


But in this age, hunting for game is replaced by filing papers or doing technical work :dead:

[Ashtar]

The reliable way to do it is to set your alarm clock progressively earlier and get up at that time and stay awake until your appointed bed time no matter how shitty you feel.

It won't always work right away but if you maintain that eventually it will adapt to that.

[Jackamaideshwang]

Hhmmm, it seems to happen to many people of different ages though so it might not be an evolutionary thing, seems like the teen social setup allows it. Unless it's an evolutionary trait based on social order, and whoever is in that social position seems to go to bed later. Thats getting a bit far fetched though.

[540Ninja]

You can get a full time job that requires you to be there at 6am like me. It sucks but my sleep patterns are very consistent now.

[ButtHash Hero]

get fucking pumped and do some crazy sports with some friends, like hittin the beach for a good 4 hours, then swimming in a pool for 3, then jumping off bridges for an hour and using a homemade slip and slide for atleast 2. it will knock you out.

Also stay away from the internet before you want to sleep. it'll keep you awake.

[ninjohn22]

Because I need to use the family computer (I have to wait until august to get my school laptop)

I only have time to work on my new project during the night hours.


Here's my schedule:


Wake up at 2 pm eat breakfast.
8pm eat lunch
midnight eat dinner
goto sleep at 4:30

[Dimitri-]

go to fucking sleep at a normal time then

[Duddyboy]

yeah I stay up late and get up like late i the afternoon. But I like staying up late cause more tv programmes are on ect. Some stuff that is good happens at night! and I want to change but it will be a bitch

[Jackamaideshwang]

You mean it will require you investing a small amount of effort.

[Vegetable]

actually you're probably acting pretty normal, since evolutionarily you'd be the one out hunting for the tribe at night/standing guard and so forth.

'Evolutionarily' he should be acting within societal norms, not as if he were living in the savanna.

[Chance]

my FUCKED cycle is sleep

[synd7]

'Evolutionarily' he should be acting within societal norms, not as if he were living in the savanna.

social norms have nothing to do with evolution, at least not in the darwinian sense.


Melatonin supplements can help resetting your sleep cycle. And turn the lights out for an hour or so before you want to go to sleep, watch tv or whatever but do it in low light conditions. Light inhibits the production of melatonin, blue light specifically.
magnesium supplements give me a really deep sleep too, 200mg an hour before bed does wonders. It doesnt help me get to sleep though, just makes it better once i do.

[Churoflip]

What butthash said, just do some hardcore physical activities, and like 2 or 3 hours before you go to sleep, turn all the lights off, it will get the job done.

[Vegetable]

social norms have nothing to do with evolution, at least not in the darwinian sense.

What? Explain how humans adapted to living in a society without evolution.

...Unless you're a Creationist.

[ButtHash Hero]

What butthash said, just do some hardcore physical activities, and like 2 or 3 hours before you go to sleep, turn all the lights off, it will get the job done.

YEAH! what butthash said! HES SO SEXY! :smile:

[synd7]

What? Explain how humans adapted to living in a society without evolution.

...Unless you're a Creationist.

You're confusing psychological evolution with physical evolution.

The human body has made no changes in order to live in groups and form societies. There have of course been large psychological changes as we develop social norms and progress socially.

Sleep, however, is physical, controlled chiefly by body & brain chemistry (i know theres psychological aspects but chemistry wins overall). The human body has made no significant changes in thousands of years. Physical evolution happens over vast timespans as a response to external stimulus. most social norm dont last more than a few decades/centuries, a completely insignificant time in evolutionary terms.

There were absolutely no physical changes NEEDED to live in societies so they didnt occur.

/off topic

[Ashtar]

You can get a full time job that requires you to be there at 6am like me. It sucks but my sleep patterns are very consistent now.This is true, when you're obligated to be somewhere you are more likely not to go back to bed. It still might take you a bit, but it pulls you. Also: you won't fall asleep at work if you climb ladders, or you'll die or crush a child's skull.
go to fucking sleep at a normal time thenThis isn't very helpful. You can't just forcibly go to sleep. You can go to bed even if you're not tired and do stuff like read a book or do other stuff to try to become drowsy. But really, to fix it you often have to force to keep awake while tired and rely on exhaustion to take you out.

[Vegetable]

The human body has made no changes in order to live in groups and form societies. There have of course been large psychological changes as we develop social norms and progress socially.

The brain was already physically equipped to deal with complex social situations, however I find it difficult to believe that the general design hasn't improved, or at least changed throughout the history of civilization. Those that slept when it was time to hunt would have been either thrown out of the tribe or left to be eaten by predators. Those that questioned the Gods were sentenced to death, those that acted abnormally in public were thrown in an insane asylum. All these are acts disregarding social norms, most often leading to a failure to propagate the actor's genes, discouraging behavioural anomalies from passing on.

The human body has made no changes in order to live in groups and form societies. There have of course been large psychological changes as we develop social norms and progress socially.

...

There were absolutely no physical changes NEEDED to live in societies so they didnt occur.

You're making an assumption here. We don't have any perfect specimens of ancient brains to compare. Disregarding that, you also seem to believe that a difference can be classified as an evolution only if the mutation is significant; people have differing sexual attractions, food preferences, artistic ability, mathematical ability, and so forth. These differences are dictated by the structure and physical state of their brains, causally affect their offspring, and can be classified as evolutions, even if the changes are ever so slight.

Physical evolution happens over vast timespans as a response to external stimulus. most social norm dont last more than a few decades/centuries, a completely insignificant time in evolutionary terms.

Not when an entire group of people can be wiped out via conscious selection.

[saunders]

ive been changing my sleep cycle for the past few days and i must say it works quite well!
i stopped smoking marijuana and went to bed earlier, it cost me a few bad nights but now im pretty much back to normal. sleeping at 12-1 AM, waking up at 8-9 AM
i have more energy and more motivation to trick, and i dont feel so slow and useless anymore/ :smile:

[Jackamaideshwang]

Good on you Saunders, its like you're a much better person when you're well rested, I find anyway.
And synd7, you're getting a bit too mixed up with the relatively permanant structures and characteristics in the brain which ultimately dictate what we can and want to do and the fluid environmental adaptations that we all have undergone to create these norms and behaviours. Vegetable's argument seems much more plausible.

[Tatsuji]

Don't listen to these fools!, unless they are right

I was also like this if not worse and i found that it easy to go to bed at 4Am and then 3:30Am and then 3Am so on. and just try wake up earlier, remember if you wake up earlier you will be tired when you need to be.

and alarm clock is essential

[Lobo]

Just go lie in bed at 12, regardless of whether or not you can sleep, and get out of bed at 9, regardless of how tired you are, then do that every day.

[Ashtar]

Basically if you get up a half hour earlier, you will probably be able to go to sleep an hour earlier the next night. That is because you shift it half an hour earlier but you will also want to catch up on a half-hour's sleep. An hour earlier wakeup may mean 2 hours earlier to bed.

If you're not especially tired it doesn't work that easily though.

[Origional]

So far this shitty summer, I've progressed from staying up until 2 in the morning, then 4, 6, and waking up at like 3 or 4 in the afternoon. How can I get back to roughly going to bed at around 12 or less and waking up at around 9?
STOP MASTURBATING.

[Lobo]

Basically if you get up a half hour earlier, you will probably be able to go to sleep an hour earlier the next night. That is because you shift it half an hour earlier but you will also want to catch up on a half-hour's sleep. An hour earlier wakeup may mean 2 hours earlier to bed.

If you're not especially tired it doesn't work that easily though.
Circadian rhythms don't work like that.

[Ashtar]

I am just trying to approximate it Lobo. Obviously they take time to adapt, but they will adapt if you force and maintain new habits.

[Lobo]

No, what you said wasn't an approximation, it was entirely incorrect and unrelated to how circadian rhythms and sleeping cycles actually work.

[Swartz]

My sleep schedule has been similarly fucked but one day I felt the urge to nap and just ended up laying there forever through until the next day for a total of probably 14 hours. Woke up at a more decent hour that I had in mind and since then it's been more or less fixed. So long as I wake up at the time I want and keep myself busy throughout the day (not a problem) I never have trouble falling asleep fairly quickly 16 hours later. The key is not trying to find more stuff to do even though deep down you know you're tired. Just listen to your body and make sure you get to sleep early enough.

Lately due to my work schedule I've been aiming for a 1am-9am on weekdays and 3am-11am on weekends. It used to be much worse, going to bed anywhere between 4am-6am most everyday and waking up in the middle of the damn afternoon. Old habits die hard but it's worthwhile for me to enjoy more daylight and shit, not to mention that I prefer working out right away in the morning and not late at night after work like I sometimes do.