Posted: 2/4/2010 12:14:39 AM EDT
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Here I am laying awake, bouncing around all over the place, I am used to being up at work...for years. Now, I am supposed to be asleep. Day 7 of this. It sucks. It is effecting me at work, home and out and about. I haven't ate right, worked out well, or slept. I have been a mid-nights guy since 1999...prior to that was .mil. Any idea's? |
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Not eating for 16 hours is a recommended approach. The body remembers what its food schedule was, and how that related to sleep, but it doesn't remember what times that schedule was on, only the relative durations.
That is, it knows that breakfast is usually four hours before lunch (or whatever), but it doesn't know that breakfast is at 8 am (or whatever). Fasting for over half a day is thought to "clear" the times, so that when you do finally eat, your body thinks that it's the first meal of the day. Then continue with the normal meal cycle and then go to bed. Dunno if that works, dunno the precise mechanics of how to sleep during that fasting period, but it's something to look into. Google "reset sleep cycle" and such. When I'm timeshifting, I tend to stay up for 24+ hours, usually without eating much, then take an uncomfortable 4-6 hour nap right before the desired bedtime to "un-jazz" my sleep deprived body so that it's closer to a normal bedtime condition than a keyed up allnighter "I'm so tired but I've got my second wind" thing, and, after that nap, I immediately go to bed properly, at the desired bedtime. I'll still be tired due to the discomfort and shortness of the nap, but I won't be so keyed up that I'll wake up early. I make sure the alarm and thermostat are set to kick me out of bed 8-10 hours later, and sometimes it works like a charm. So well that within a couple days I'll be just as locked into that new cycle as I was in the old one. Sometimes it doesn't work, but it often does. The eating patterns that I mentioned above might explain the times it didn't work. |
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Sounds a lot like jet lag, it takes the average person 1 day per time zone (hour) to adjust and the older you are the longer it takes. Worst case for a 12 hour change should be a couple of weeks. While you are adjusting just be consistent with eating, going to bed, getting up, caffeine helps in the morning and consider a mild sleep aid (such as tylenol pm) 30 mins before going to bed. |
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you could ironman it just like we did when we came back from Iraq.
8-9 hour difference on the flight so it really is almost night and day from back home. We just stayed up from when we left Kuwait, through the night and slept during the day. Usually missed a few of those awesome airline meals but it takes sacrifice ya, know?  By day 3 (or was it day 2) you were almost back to sleeping on the back home schedule.
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Quoted: I usually force myself to stay up for 24 hrs. to "re-set" my body clock. Usually good to go on the new schedule after a couple of days. This will work. And spend the time that you should be awake for with a packed schedule (highly brain intensive, physically intensive). By the time your "bed time" rolls around, you'll be able to ease into it.
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Quoted: Quoted: I usually force myself to stay up for 24 hrs. to "re-set" my body clock. Usually good to go on the new schedule after a couple of days. This will work. And spend the time that you should be awake for with a packed schedule (highly brain intensive, physically intensive). By the time your "bed time" rolls around, you'll be able to ease into it. I do the opposite and sleep for 24 hours. It is much less painful.  The infantry installed an off-switch on my ass, so I can sleep on command. |