Messed up sleep pattern for extended period of time - how to fix?

[Fryguy]

Ok, so a bit of background about what exactly the problem is:

From age 17 to age 21 I was a sous-chef at a hotel/banquet place, mostly doing wedding receptions and the like. I worked weekends during school and fulltime in the summer from 5:30am to whenever in the afternoon (usually 2-3:30, sometimes much longer depending on what was going on). I've always been a night person. Because of this, and the fact that working as a sous-chef is pretty physically draining, I'd take a nap when I got home from work, every time. Usually for 2-3 hours. Naturally this caused me to be awake until late at night. This was alright with me.

After a while this late afternoon / early evening nap became more and more normal, and I began doing it during school. Get home from school at 2:30, take a nap till 5:30, wake up, eat supper, be supercharged to do homework etc, be up till 2-3 in the morning, sleep for another 4-5 hours, end up getting ~7-8 hours of sleep total, and the cycle repeats.

Then I got into college, where I lived at home and commuted, so the situation was much the same, especially for the first few years of college, where my schedule was quite comparable to high school.

The past year and a half of college it's been slightly different. I'm 22 now (turned 22 in Feb), and I quit the job when I turned 21. I had some money saved up, and made some money on a computer programming contract I picked up. Got to finally enjoy the college lifestyle, partying a bit on weekends etc. And in August picked up poker as my main source of income (micro-limits, I don't need much $$ since I commute to college from home).

But the sleep pattern is still there. Nowadays I have tuesdays and thursdays off, so my sleep usually goes something like this:

Monday, get up at 10:00 for school, get home at 3:15. Go on internet for a bit, usually eat around 5:00 and sleep till 8, be up till 3-4 in the morning, go to sleep, wake up whenever on tuesday. Because of massive amounts of sleep on tuesday, I usually wake up in the noon-1pm ballpark, and don't get to bed on tuesday until late, wake up "early" for school on wednesday, get home, take a nap, cycle continues.

You get the idea at this point. Now here are the 2 problems with the situation:

1. I feel SO good when I wake up from this nap. It's almost like I have an extra couple days in the week for me. I feel supercharged when I get up, and do a LOT of work around this time. I fly through homework etc because I'm not tired at all. I get a similar feeling when I wake up from the "normal" sleep period, and thus feel supercharged at school. So I'm either sleeping, or a I feel supercharged. I probably have the same number of "productive hours" a day as a typical sleep pattern.

2. I've tried to break myself out of this spell, but I can't. If I skip the nap and force myself to stay awake, and fall asleep at say 10 or 11pm, I wake up a couple of hours later, and then I'm up through the night and fall back asleep at 4-5 in the morning, pretty much like my normal schedule just pushed forward a bit.
From what I understand this is the correct way to fix a sleep pattern: just keep going to sleep at the time you want to until it works. This doesn't seem to work for me, although I haven't given it much time. It's hard to force myself to stay awake through this nap period, and I can usually only do it for a week before I "give in" and take a nap, and wake up supercharged again.

At this point, 5 years later, I realize that this is unhealthy for me, and want to fix it, especially since I'm going to be finishing school soon, and work a typical 9-5 job, where this pattern doesn't work out so well.

Ideally at this point I'd like to have a 1am-10am sleep schedule, every day, with the ability to scale it back eventually to something like 12am-7:30am when I start working a normal job in a couple of months and then sleep in on weekends until 9 or 10, like normal people seem to do.

How can I go about this, given that repeatedly staying up till 1am and going to sleep doesn't really work, as I still feel dependant on the nap eventually?

I HAVE managed to get my sleep schedule on track previously. The longest it lasted I think was 2 weeks. Eventually there comes a day when I get home from school, feel tired, lay out and relax, watch tv or something, and either by choice or not by choice fall asleep and take a nap, and just like an alcoholic, after this first slip, I'm fully back into the old pattern. Not sure if comparison to alcoholism is appropriate here, and I apologize if this offends anyone, but it seems like an appropriate comparison.

[neverforgetlol]

what i did was, if i got up late and needed to get back on track, i'd go to sleep later each day and then i'd catch back up in about 3-4 days.

[Fryguy]

[ QUOTE ]
what i did was, if i got up late and needed to get back on track, i'd go to sleep later each day and then i'd catch back up in about 3-4 days.

[/ QUOTE ]

This is how I managed to get back on track a couple of times. But like I mentioned it only lasts for a week or 2 before I slip-up again [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img]

[Aver-aging]

Just to inform about regular sleeping cycles, the regular sleeping cycle of individuals who do not live in an artificially lit environment is to sleep about 5-6 hours in a night, daily activities, eat around 5-6ish, nap for 2-3 hours, and stay up being active until around 1 A.M. That is the regular human sleep cycle. Sadly no one in western society seems to recognize that (Why do you think there are so many depression and fatigue syndromes in western civilization?)

I bet you never thought that you were the oddball who happened to be doing it nature's way, while the rest of us suckers abide to civilized standards of sleep instead of nature's standards.

[neverforgetlol]

what do you mean by "regular" sleep cycle? how is that defined, and what evidence do you have that's correct?

[Fryguy]

[ QUOTE ]
Just to inform about regular sleeping cycles, the regular sleeping cycle of individuals who do not live in an artificially lit environment is to sleep about 5-6 hours in a night, daily activities, eat around 5-6ish, nap for 2-3 hours, and stay up being active until around 1 A.M. That is the regular human sleep cycle. Sadly no one in western society seems to recognize that (Why do you think there are so many depression and fatigue syndromes in western civilization?)

I bet you never thought that you were the oddball who happened to be doing it nature's way, while the rest of us suckers abide to civilized standards of sleep instead of nature's standards.

[/ QUOTE ]

WTF!?

So I'm doing it the right way? LOL that's awesome!

[3 minute hero]

I am a shift worker and do rotating shifts every week, i am 38 and have been doing shifts since i was 17. My advice is sleep when you can, and count yourself lucky that you can sleep, i sleep for maybe 3 hours a night and then go to work for 14 hours, it kills me but i have to do it.
I have to work overtime (it is not optional) and on occasions do 24 hour shifts - the strange thing is - i sleep well after one of these shifts! Sleep when you can is my advice and don't worry about patterns.

[iSTRONG]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Just to inform about regular sleeping cycles, the regular sleeping cycle of individuals who do not live in an artificially lit environment is to sleep about 5-6 hours in a night, daily activities, eat around 5-6ish, nap for 2-3 hours, and stay up being active until around 1 A.M. That is the regular human sleep cycle. Sadly no one in western society seems to recognize that (Why do you think there are so many depression and fatigue syndromes in western civilization?)

I bet you never thought that you were the oddball who happened to be doing it nature's way, while the rest of us suckers abide to civilized standards of sleep instead of nature's standards.

[/ QUOTE ]

WTF!?

So I'm doing it the right way? LOL that's awesome!

[/ QUOTE ]

Have you considered moving to spain? Everybody does it there.

[blinky]

I have had lots of troubles with sleep and insomnia, and heres some tips i can give ya:

Do nothing but sleep in your bed; no reading, eating, watching tv.

To force yourself to sleep sooner you need to get up earlier, but if thats super hard for you like it was for me then try this: when u awake look outside ur window where its bright. The light will alert your body that its time to get up, and within 20 seconds you will feel awake enough to get up.

[3 minute hero]

Good points but, in winter it is dark when i go to work and dark when i come home. Winter is from mid-October until March here.