Going to discipline myself.

[Geoni]

I've been having the worst sleeping pattern lately. I wouldn't even call it a pattern, it's too erratic. I've been getting up at two in the afternoon and then going to bed at four. The next day I get up at seven at night and stay up until the next day, when I decide to skip class because I'm so dizzy with sleep deprivation, and end up collapsing on my bed at 11:30 a.m. Now I've just gotten up at midnight. I can't get any work done because my body feels so weird with this kind of sleep, and I need to get control over my life back. I'm going to take away all of the things I enjoy doing until I do, so that means I won't be roleplaying until then. Hopefully I'll get this resolved soon.

Any sleeping pattern tips would be appreciated. :\

[Drust]

If you can't sleep through the night then stay awake all night, then all day, and be sure to get an early night afterwards. Fixed.

[c0rzilla]

You might need to take it slow, re-adjusting your body. If you decide to just fall in bed at a decent hour, you'll be laying there fidgeting. Starting at maybe...3am, go to bed earlier and earlier. I'm not sure when exactly you have to get up for stuff.

Also, before you go to bed, take about a half hour to relax. Read a book, meditate, listen to chill music. Milk aids me in sleep as well.

[flammos200]

The sleep cycle is most centered around eating times. Don't eat for 16 hours and it'll reset your biological clock. When you eat again, make it a breakfast, at a time of your choosing. Then have your lunch at whatever other time you think fits for lunch. Then a dinner, at dinner-time. And that span of time will count as 'day' for your body, whereas sleep-time will count as 'night'.

Good luck.

[Geoni]

I've tried all of these suggestions except yours, flammos. Since I only had a small meal after I woke up at midnight six or so hours ago, I might try that out, starting now with breakfast, staying up long enough to eat lunch and dinner at normal times. The whole 'stay up all night and then all day' thing works for me, but the following days are always rough with extreme fatigue later in the day. Guess I'll have to fight my way through that again. I just hate it because I have tests this week and I can't afford a bad grade, literally.

[Roxas65]

Actually, a doctor who studied this came to the conclusion that the best way to get a good sleeping pattern is to keep going to sleep whenever you want to, but you need to make sure to -always- get up at the same time every single day. It will take around a week in which you'll be pretty tired, but after about a week your sleeping pattern will adjust to the time you get up. Never try to straighten your sleeping pattern up by going to bed early, you'll just lie awake and it simply doesn't work.

[Holynexus]

Try to reboot and install the latest Service Pack for your biological clock.

Linux tends to work wonders.


...What do you mean I'm off topic?

[Caravan]

It's not a change that will happen overnight (no joke intended :3 ), and you can start gradually increasing the time you go to bed by about an hour or so. Also, artificial lights (produced by our beloved computers and televisions) wreak havoc on our internal rhythms. Turn off your computer about an hour or two before you want to go to bed. Don't drink anything caffienated in the evening. If all else fails, find a boring book (my insurance textbook does the trick for me... in the daytime! ).

Edit: I also agree with Roxas -- Waking up early is a great way to make yourself go to sleep early. Tucker out your body! Waking up early, doing a lot of work, getting some exercise...all of that helps.

[Sorum]

Give this a try? Looks good to me and a friend used something alike. (Not the update thingy) It worked for her pretty much.

[Geoni]

@Roxas: I heard the same thing, but that it takes a month.

I have a feeling that I have delayed sleep syndrome, since as a kid until this point in time, my body feels best when I get up around 11:00 a.m. - 1:00 p.m. and go to bed around 3:00 a.m. - 5:00 a.m. Though, it's best not to self diagnose, and I have to be on a different schedule anyhow. I'm going to try the gradual process to get to where I need to be. Got up at three this morning, and I have a test today. Part of this absence is that I'm tired at the end of the day and I have no energy to do reading/homework nonetheless roleplay. My real enemy is fatigue, and I'm going to try to defeat that by improving my sleep, diet, and exercise. Really, I probably won't be RPing much until next week. I'll probably squeeze in some RP this weekend though. Thanks for all the replies, guys and gals.

[Psychyn]

I once had a very messed up sleeping pattern of going to bed at 5 AM, waking up at 3 PM (Or heck, even later at times). The only thing that worked for me, was to gradually reduce the times of going to bed and waking up earlier. 4:30 AM, 2:30 PM. 4 AM, 2 PM and so on. You simply can not go to bed at 11 PM in one go, for you'll lay awake for hours and start thinking about every little thing there is, and get fed up with trying to sleep that early.

Tire yourself out over the day. Walk, ride a bike, that sort of thing. If a thirty minute walk is too much, do three separate ones of ten. At the end of the day, both mind and body have to be tired.

The process entirely took me about a month, and requires a lot of discipline to really keep intact as by now I tend to go to bed at 3 AM again. It's a mood wrecker, but eventually you'll re-adjust to the 'regular' clock and feel better doing so. Right now.. I personally run on 3-4 hours of sleep and lots of coffee. Its really a common thing for gamers to have a wrecked up schedule.

[Vladdy]

While never suffering sleeping problems that I can remember, all I can to say is to take the advice of the people who've gone through it.