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Comment by eecks | Hacker News Reader

I wasn't diagnosed with this but I had the symptoms and the consequences you mentioned.

It took a long time to fix. Here's some things I tried. Some may have helped or none may have helped.

* I bought blackout blinds and use a sleeping mask (sometimes earplugs)

* I bought a bright light (https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B07FFJYMVS) and a smart plug. 15 mins before I wanted to wake up I would have a timer turn on the light.

* I eat healthier in all regards

* I started working out

* I started walking a lot more

* I stop drinking coffee at 11am (and drink tea after that)

* I stopped some doing some things late at night (after 23:30) (gaming, programming, eating, using my phone)

* I started listening to audiobooks

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This year I found the most effective method, I have tried everything but wasn't enough: sunshine, flux, sleep hygiene, diet, exercise. Basically the method is as soon as you wake up you start working out, the longer and harder you work out the earlier you will get up the next day.

You're probably right, but it's annoying we need to apply this perfect regime just to fall asleep.

Why can't we just be tired in the evening? I have friends who would fall asleep on the couch while watching a movie if it went past 11pm. Meanwhile I have to do some bullshit ww2 pilot exercise just to fall asleep at 1am.

They probably aren't getting healthy sleep, which is why they fall asleep so easy. They're actually starved of quality sleep

Anecdata: Have kids and a full time job. Play sports. Normal stuff. Problem solved

Before kids it was much much harder to fal asleep. Now i can fall asleep faster than them during sotry time.

Its like night and day. Pun intended

I think some of us genetically are more sensitive to the impact of light, caffeine, etc on the circadian rhythm. There's also other factors like work. Cortisol levels are higher coming off of work and it takes time to wind down.

Think of it this way: there's nothing special about a time zone, and yet we know that if we moved several time zones away, we'd shift. The differences are in light patterns, timing of work and social life, food intake, etc. Incidentally, many of these factors are within our control.

Reminds me of wozniaks advice: https://supermemo.guru/wiki/Curing_DSPS_and_insomnia

Hey, thanks for posting that! It's exactly the information I've been looking for, all in one place.

Bookmarked for reading later, I think I suffer from this. I normally can’t fall asleep before 2-4am, even if my body is physically tired I often feel like I can’t turn off my brain, once I’m asleep I sleep well and wake up naturally after 6-8 hours. It does seem cutting off screens an hour or so before bed and melatonin sometimes helps.

I have a threshold that if I surpass quickly becomes a chase. My solution is to go to bed at around 8pm and read until I fall asleep, which is sometimes immediate but never usually much past 10pm. That way, I can wake up fully refreshed at 4am, or I can sleep until 7am if I need it.

I use melatonin to reset my sleep cycle if I mess up and end up staying up all night. A mg or two at around 5pm helps me back into my target range, and from there I usually don't need it.

Routines are important. If I didn't try to actively control it, I'd stay awake until the sun came up and then sleep until noon, and I much prefer working in solitude when I first wake up than when I'm mentally fatigued at the end of a day.

That's a great resource, thanks for sharing. Maybe I will start drinking in the morning :)

To add to this, I found something that seems to help when getting to bed - focusing on the visual artifacts that are there with the eyes closed and wondering what's there. Often I will soon not remember anything else, and other times I will be aware that the mind's eye has started creating vivid and detailed imagery, followed by not remembering anything beyond that.

Alas, poor aphantasiacs.

Can confirm that similar steps plus mindfulness meditation plus becoming father has dramatically changed my sleep patterns. - And I have had sleep disorder for decades. It took two years (and becoming father) and another two years until I adopted the new sleep pattern.

My wife seems to have this but nothing we've tried helps. She wasn't always like this, prior to my meeting her, she spent a few years working at her family's restaurant where her daily schedule would be something like: - Wake up at 10:00AM - Go to work by 11:00AM. - Get off work at 10:30PM. - Eat "dinner" at around midnight-1AM. - 1AM-2/3AM is free time. - Go to sleep at 3AM, rinse repeat.

She was not like this when she worked an office job (fashion designer), but now she can't get back to a "normal" schedule.

Daily gym is the only thing that really helped me, which makes the corona lockdown very hard for me, basically staying awake all nights since 6 months.

Thanks for the tip with the sleeping mask, I will try.

Have you tried melatonin? I had something similar to this and taking melatonin 1h before my desired bedtime has changed my life.

I have DSPS and 10 mg melatonin works very well for me too.

Does it make you drowsy in the morning? I typically take 7mg and it helps me fall asleep but I feel drowsy the next day.

It's quite high, you only really need 0.3mg for an effective dose and you get diminishing returns after that in the form of grogginess.

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