My Sleep Cylce is Ruined (Polyphasic Sleep)

[Buddy]

Funnily enough, I wouldn't be posting here if my annoying sleep patterns didn't yield ridiculously long lucid dreams with zero effort...well, aside from trying to stay awake long enough to fall asleep at a decent hour! I figured I'd ask for some advice regarding how to best approach fixing my sleep schedule. I run a business from home so I really hate sleeping part of the day away when I could spend that time being productive. I don't really have a consistent schedule but I typically fall sleep between 1:00am to 4:00am. I pretty much always wake up around 10:00am naturally regardless of when I fell asleep, but I don't have much recall of any dreams I may or may not have had. Last week, however, and especially last night (As I type this at 4:30am), I've been having a hard time staying awake all day to the point where I'm taking multi-hour naps in the middle of the day due to sleep exhaustion. These naps give me much more vivid dreams with a higher chance of becoming lucid over my nightly sleep. Yesterday I tried to coax a full night's rest by powering through and not taking any naps. I was pretty miserable near the end there and could barley stay awake if I sat still. I fell asleep a little after 9:00pm and it felt incredible to finally lay down. I woke up just 4 hours later and can't get back to sleep. I had what was probably the longest lucid dream I've had to date, so, silver lining... It's typical for me to wake up in the middle of the night if I try to go to bed early, though, which is why I stay up so late before going to bed. If I could just stay asleep all night, I'd be happy. As it is right now, if I go to bed earlier than ~1:00am, I'm almost guaranteed to wake up just a handful of hours later and won't be able to get back to sleep. I haven't tried taking any sleeping aids yet, but I figured I'd check here first for any advice before doing anything on a whim. I'm getting some traction with my business so I can't be stuck taking naps in the middle of the day or when I need to travel for work! ------------ TL;DR: If I go to bed early I wake up in the middle of the night and can't sleep. Now I'm taking naps in the middle of the day and it sux. halp pl0x!

[DarkestDarkness]

When you go to bed between 1 and 4AM, do you ever wake up before 10 at all? For how long has your sleep pattern been like this anyway?

[Buddy]

I'm honestly not sure when it started, but at least the past couple months. I think it just happened naturally over time. Sometimes I'd wake up earlier for meetings (7:30am) but they're not too often. Eventually I noticed if I went to bed at a "normal" hour, Id wake up in the middle of the night and wouldn't be able to get back to sleep easily. I just started staying up later and later and I think that's where I ruined myself. Also a large portion of my work involves being on a computer for long periods of time...a lot of the times at night too. That's definitely not helping things. At all. But it's never been an issue before recently so who knows... I might be making another huge mistake today by not getting back to sleep after a couple hours like I usually do. I've been up since waking up at 1:00am and it's now 12:30pm. I have nothing major to do today except for some house work so hopefully I'll be busy enough to keep myself occupied. Last night was kind of my wake up call to figure something out. Like, there's no way I should be waking up after 4 hours after feeling that sleepy. I've got tons of books I can read to further my business so I'll start cutting out the late night work on the computer to see if that helps.

[DarkestDarkness]

Last night was kind of my wake up call to figure something out. Like, there's no way I should be waking up after 4 hours after feeling that sleepy. I've got tons of books I can read to further my business so I'll start cutting out the late night work on the computer to see if that helps. That's probably a good idea, but also consider getting a blue light filtering program (if you don't use one already), like f.lux. It's the only really decent one I've come across, as it feels more natural than others. My suggestion here is more as a "if you really have to be on the computer" kind of thing, at least, make it not as bad. It does sound like it's a combination of factors, and while I can't personally attest to how going to bed late affects sleep directly, my parents have always advised me and my siblings against going to bed very late, regardless of our age. My personal limit is around 2AM but I'm not a normal case because of my condition, and so I usually only start getting "sleepy" around that time anyway (with sleep supplements and blue light filtering, though some times earlier). Which reminds me, the amount of physical activity during a day seems to be particularly important for some people, so perhaps think of consider how your routine works in that regard too? Hope that's of some help.

[dolphin]

Given your passion, I'm guessing you are thinking about important things related to your business while trying to fall asleep in the middle of the night. This would be the root of your problem. Learn to direct your focus away from things related to your business and towards something that will slow down your mind enough so you can fall asleep. For instance, focus on your breathing. As you do this, you may find you have an urge to return your focus to things related to your business. Whenever this happens, try to simply redirect your focus back to your breathing, or whatever else you prefer to focus on to slow down your mind. Like, there's no way I should be waking up after 4 hours after feeling that sleepy. Yes, there is a way. Sleepiness is not always correlated with consciousness. There are stages of deeper sleep during which it is difficult to become conscious (NREM 3, NREM 4), but there are also lighter stages of sleep during which it is easier to become conscious (REM, NREM1, NREM2). We go through these lighter stages of sleep no matter how sleepy we are. It is not a problem to wake up in the middle of the night as long as it is easy to fall back asleep. Wakefulness will interfere with sleep, but not consciousness. Wakefulness is not always correlated with consciousness.