Comments | chaoticidealism: Autistic Inertia & Sleep

chaoticidealism

Autistic Inertia & Sleep

Oct 05, 2009 00:39

As you probably know, I've been having some severe problems at school and, as usual, my sleep schedule is at the root of it. From what I can tell, it's some kind of circadian-rhythm issue--as in, my body doesn't like a regular cycle, doesn't really know when to sleep. I hear of it happening a lot in blind people (I'm not blind) who can't see light ( Read more... )

executive dysfunction, sleep

Comments 11

Is there any way that you can start a new sleep-time routine? aenea1964 October 5 2009, 11:05:32 UTC

You've already got the alarm clock warning- can you reinforce that with activities that start to relax you when the alarm clock goes off? Bath, relaxing yoga, non-thinking reading, drawing, soft music, tea...whatever you think might work for you. Maybe if you can start slowing down before you get into bed it might help.

I sympathize with you- my husband and 2 of my kids have sleeping problems, and they affect everything else in your life. We haven't found anything that works for my husband yet, but at the moment things are working out for at least one of the girls. Her bedtime routine starts about 2 hours before bed, and God help all of us if anything throws it off. Transitions are so difficult for her to begin with that when we help her find something that works, we do everything in our power to make sure that she can stick to her plan.

imps85 October 5 2009, 14:22:44 UTC

May not help you but maybe you have heard of the experiments of putting a person in a totally enclosed room. (it comes from space faring experiments) so they neither have day or night experience and neithe a clock, and it the sleep/wake cycle turned out to be 26 h there.

Possible reading anonymous October 5 2009, 16:50:49 UTC

Bora Zivcovic (Coturnix of A Blog Around The Clock and other places) has written a great deal about sleep and sleep phases (he's a chronobiologist); you might want to search for his writing.

polygonia October 5 2009, 20:51:02 UTC

I don't even know.
My problem is when I have a job I have to force myself to go to bed by at least 10 or 11, but it's hard because when I don't have a job I'm up until 3 or even 4.
I'm a night person. Plan and simple.
When I work, I've started taking tylenol sleep.
I've tried relaxing myself with valerian sleepy time tea or chamomile tea...
Some folks are night people and it's a pain
The morning people don't understand.

anonymous October 5 2009, 23:32:06 UTC

Have you tried keeping a sleep log to see if there is an underlying pattern to when you sleep, even if it is disrupted by classes etc, or whether it is really random? I had serious problems with sleep and although I got as far as a masters degree, that is only because my student schedule was flexible. Once I tried working regular hours I was unable to continue and made so many mistakes that I had to give up, despite all the sleep hygiene attempts and despite sleeping pills. That was many years ago, now, but I remember how awful it was ( ... )