> Most people’s natural cycle is somewhat longer than the 24-hour solar day, which means that, left to our own devices, we would get quickly get out of sync with the external world.
I've always had very bad issues sleeping and waking "on time." In school this led to me regularly missing class and eventually dropping school entirely, and with regular work schedules I hardly ever got good sleep.
A little while ago, I made a commitment to myself to sleep when I was tired and to get up when I was rested. I eased into a schedule where every day I got up and went to bed about an hour later every day.
This has been my schedule for the past 9 months or so. I sleep 8 to 10 hours per night. Every night I go to bed about an hour later than the night before. My schedule rotates about 6-8 hours per week, and about 12-14 hours every two weeks, meaning I do a complete rotation about once a month.
During this time I've been vastly more productive and happy, I've had many fewer emotional swings toward anger or sadness, and I'm much more calm and less anxious in general.
My sleep schedule is easy to adhere to and self-corrects if I ever need to be up early/late or at a certain time. I even have an easier time making scheduled meeting times because I'm rested enough to be able to get up early when I need to.
Interestingly, I'm consistently well-rested and alert with my schedule despite having zero dependence on the natural sunlight cycle. I think this is because sunlight has a much smaller effect on me in the morning than computer light does in the evening.
With your sleep schedule constantly shifting, how do you manage day-to-day activities? You must have a job with very flexible hours for that to work. But even things like going to the store and seeing a doctor must be slightly more difficult if you might be asleep from morning to afternoon.
With 9 months of data, how consistently do you shift your schedule by 1 hour each day? I'd imagine there are fluctuations, but I guess if it's reliable you could schedule things on certain days.
I keep my own work hours and schedule my work around deadlines. If I have a deliverable Friday afternoon and I'm going to sleep in the morning, I have to get it done Thursday night. The beauty of this for me is that I know what my productive hours will be and I can work during them, rather than shoving work into a specific time frame regardless of my circumstances.
Things like going to the store I can do any time of day, pretty much. With things like doctor visits or work meetings that happen in the daytime, I'll stay up late or get up early as necessary. I can usually get back "on schedule" very easily just by going to sleep when I feel tired and getting up when I'm rested. I'll usually go to bed and get up close to when I usually do because of where my circadian rhythm is, and even if my schedule moves a few hours one way or another, that doesn't have a detrimental effect because I'm so used to the lifestyle.
It's pretty consistent. I used to track it on a sleep app but I've gotten out of the habit (it's not been necessary). I don't think there's been a month recently where I haven't completed a full rotation. Back when I was tracking data, I have graphs of my sleep schedule making a diagonal pattern across the month. It's very reliable.
If you can partner up and take some time, BUD/S...it will change your outlook on life. This isn't something to be done alone as most of us have trained an 8-hour sleep routine. Somewhere around 72 hours of 'non-sleep' you'll stop thinking and be grounded. However, at around 48 hours you'll likely experience a psychotic episode which could lead anywhere...hence, the buddy.
How much natural sunlight are you getting vs. artificial lighting? Maybe you have some problem with the mechanism that resets us to the solar day or maybe you are disrupting it in some way. Like you suggest it's possible that the light from your monitor is also messing with your body.
My sleep pattern when I'm in nature with no artificial light is very different than at home with lights + screens. In nature I wake up much earlier and my sleep patterns tend to align themselves with the solar day. At home it's a lot less aligned with the solar day and more impacted by having lights and screens on.
For me getting proper sleep is also very important. I don't get it how some people seem to be able to function well with a lot less sleep and alarm clocks ;) I think they are just in some sort of perpetual sleep deprivation mode.
I do not get much natural sunlight. I sleep beside a window with no curtains, and which faces the rising sun. Despite this, I'm able to go to sleep when I should pretty consistently.
I've tried to keep myself on a regular daytime schedule using sunlight but I found myself unable to go to bed and get up at regular times. Even with less natural sunlight, I'm consistently more rested and alert now than when I got sunlight. Even taking melatonin at night and setting numerous alarms, it was a constant, taxing struggle.
When I'm up nights I'll leave the lights on in my room to help regulate and to help me feel awake. I'm also very very consistent with my caffeine intake (same amount every day, at the same time relative to when I wake and sleep).
Regarding jetlag, I haven't traveled recently or had such drastic changes of schedule that would interrupt my circadian rhythm enough to be of any detriment.
Hah that's interesting almost the exact same thing happens to me if I allow myself desired rather than scheduled sleep.
In a way though I wish my natural cycle was closer to the typical 9-5. I found it easy to be isolated or depressed on the days when your waking life is so different than everyone elses.
I've found it somewhat easy to feel very isolated in the same way. A week of freelance work at hours when pretty much the whole of the country is asleep takes some getting used to.
I recommend finding some Discord or IRC servers with like-minded individuals that may operate in other timezones, if that interests you. It's always the middle of the day somewhere, and I find that just having that communication available—even if I'm not looking at it or using it—really helps me feel connected and not so isolated.
All of these comments have been extremely interesting to me. Before this, I'd never spoken to anybody that shared my sleep pattern, so I had no way to gauge how uncommon it is.
Registered an account just to say "Me too". I've been on this rotating cycle for several years at this point (so can't really tell how it might affect depression). It's remarkable how similar the timing is too... I go around the clock about every month or so. Though I don't think I could stay on normal time even if I wanted to. Eventually I'll have a night of insomnia, where I overshoot my usual pattern by probably 6 hours. I've seen it mentioned before as the sleep disorder "non-24". It's normal to me, but it does feel like a disability by times.
I think you folks are actually no anomaly but the norm. Most people just don't act on it. The article even mentioned that most people's circadian rhythm is longer than 24 hours and that we force ourselves into a 24 hour rhythm. I think it's quite obvious. It's pretty easy to go to bed later and it's pretty easy to sleep too long for most people I know. (maybe it's just more noticeable though because people aren't late to work because they woke up too early or late too early because they need to sleep super early). I also find traveling west almost pleasant because you just have to stay up longer and wake up unusually early which is very interesting when traveling, especially to Asia. Traveling ready is a total nightmare without medication. You have to go to sleep before tired and wake up before you've sleep enough or you sleep through the whole morning.
Travelling west is fantastic. I found that with a bit of discipline I can just skip jetlag and be a morning person for the duration of the journey. On the way back - no jetlag either and back to the usual late pattern.
Well I don't know if I can say I'm making it work. I do end up in some crazy situations, like during winter not seeing daylight for a few weeks. I still think of it as being in "Well, that can't be good" territory. Then there's the horror of thinking - "If my work situation falls apart and I have to get a 9-to-5, how will I even deal with that?".
I sometimes wonder if it'd just sort itself out if I quit caffeine completely, and stopped staring at a screen all day... but that's not exactly compatible with my career.
My stomach protested after being feed copious amounts of coffee during the late 90's. Since then I only drink coffee involuntarily (like if someone already made me a cup before asking so I sip just out of courtesy).
Today I stick to drinking mostly red teas. Which are not actually tea I hear. Anyways, my point is did you try to get off caffeine altogether at some point?
You know, I never tried, because I've never considered it a problem. I have 3 cups a day. I also know what it feels like to be too wired on coffee to sleep, so I feel like I know when that's not happening. But I've been drinking coffee for so many years uninterrupted... I do have to wonder if I even know what "normal" is.
True "tea" comes from the camellia sinensis plant. Tisanes, which we in the US like to call "herbal teas" are any number of plant infusions not made from camellia sinensis.
Same here, my schedule rotates and it's the only way I stay sane. For example, today I sleep at 6pm and wakeup at 2am. Jobs and relationships are hard tho, how do you deal with relationships especially?
Sorry, I forgot to mention relationships in my other comment!
When it comes to making your own work hours or keeping an unconventional sleep schedule, a lot of people don't have well-formed thoughts or reactions to this (it's pretty uncommon).
In my experience, as a first reaction it is characterized as an extreme version of "staying up late and sleeping through the alarm." Obviously there's a lot of stigma there. Some people will be able to get past this, and some people won't.
I'm perfectly okay keeping this rotating schedule with a partner on a regular schedule, but I can absolutely see how somebody would not be happy with this.
One interesting thing is that my sleep cycle is as fundamental to me as day/night is to folks on a regular schedule. I would say understanding this and being empathetic is essential, and it's probably best if your partner is not just understanding but also appreciative.
My close friends and family range from understanding to appreciative, and I've not had any issues staying in touch or staying friends with these people. They're also willing to compromise and work with me to accommodate my schedule because they understand that it's a very regular and deliberate part of my life.
I had a partner that was very disapproving of me staying up past their sleep time and sleeping through their free hours on occasion, and there was no chance of it working out.
I'm lucky to have a client whose expectation is that daily tasks are completed by 5pm. When I tried to keep a daytime schedule this was very, very hard for me to do. Now however, I'm able to consistently feel rested and alert each day and I work during my productive hours. If my productive hours are after 5pm, chances are I'm working on my tasks for the next day.
It's possible to communicate this with new clients and set expectations for availability and productive hours, but it obviously wouldn't work for every client or every kind of work. I'd set the expectation from the beginning—this is how I work, and this is how I'll ensure that communication does not break down on weeks when I'm keeping odd hours. If the client is happy with the flow of communication and the work, it shouldn't matter what time of day you're working.
I'm even interested in exploring what kind of opportunities this opens up that normally would not be available, like doing contract work for multi-national companies or finding international clients. It's not something I've looked into much but I'm very interested in.
Interesting, I thought I heard of a 25 hour sleep cycle before so I looked it up.
>>
Over the first two years, 25 subjects stayed in the bunker and were monitored. The researchers noted that the majority of them woke up slightly later every day.
Their average days were no longer 24 hours, but soon lengthened to between 24.7 and 25.2 hours.
However, this length then remained constant, and their bodily functions basically followed this new rhythm.
As this rhythm does not correspond to conventional
day and night, it is called the circadian rhythm (lat. circa = approximate,
dies = day).
<<
courtesy of the Max Planck Institute for Behavioral Physiology
Thanks for posting this. My diurnal cycle is also ~25 hours. But my schedule is more chaotic, in that working and sleeping times depend on work, personal and social commitments. And of course, I freelance.
I do something like this once in a while. When I get sick of staying up late and sleeping in too many days in a row, I start going to bed about four hours later each night, and reset my schedule to normal within a week. This weekend has been a good time for it, with one less hour to get past.
I've always had very bad issues sleeping and waking "on time." In school this led to me regularly missing class and eventually dropping school entirely, and with regular work schedules I hardly ever got good sleep.
A little while ago, I made a commitment to myself to sleep when I was tired and to get up when I was rested. I eased into a schedule where every day I got up and went to bed about an hour later every day.
This has been my schedule for the past 9 months or so. I sleep 8 to 10 hours per night. Every night I go to bed about an hour later than the night before. My schedule rotates about 6-8 hours per week, and about 12-14 hours every two weeks, meaning I do a complete rotation about once a month.
During this time I've been vastly more productive and happy, I've had many fewer emotional swings toward anger or sadness, and I'm much more calm and less anxious in general.
My sleep schedule is easy to adhere to and self-corrects if I ever need to be up early/late or at a certain time. I even have an easier time making scheduled meeting times because I'm rested enough to be able to get up early when I need to.
Interestingly, I'm consistently well-rested and alert with my schedule despite having zero dependence on the natural sunlight cycle. I think this is because sunlight has a much smaller effect on me in the morning than computer light does in the evening.