You toss and you turn. You rock, then try to stay still. You concentrate on your breathing. You try visualizing. You have nature sounds playing in the background. You sprayed yourself and the room with lavender scented spray. You have a soft tea light candle lit. Before bed you took a warm, sudsy shower and put on calming night lotion all over. But you still cannot sleep. In the past you’ve tried sleep medication, both over the counter and prescribed. They did not work. You know why you can’t sleep. It’s 1a.m., much too early for you to feel sleepy. Although you enjoy the spa-like environment and continue to incorporate it in my life to relax, unwind, mediate and create an overall soothing ambiance, you know I can’t use it to fall asleep.
Insomnia?
You don’t have insomnia. You know what that is. Insomnia is experienced by approximately one third of Americans. In their case a person suffering from insomnia displays the following symptoms: they have occasional problems falling asleep, they don’t feel refreshed when they wake up, or they wake up during their sleep and can’t fall back to sleep. This can last for weeks or months. However, there is treatment for insomnia. In some cases it can be improved using behavior modification, as in changing your routine before you sleep and changing what is termed bad sleep hygiene (another word for bad sleep habits).
The general description of bad sleep hygiene include, having irregular bed times, poor diet including excessive caffeine and/or alcohol, using bed for things other than sleep or sex only, sleep deprivation due to work or other distraction, sleeping with your television on, having the room too warm or too cold, etc. I don’t particularly agree that all of these behavior or situations constitute a bad sleep hygiene, but as with everything else, some of changes should be tried to see if it makes a difference in your ability to have a good night’s sleep. If you want to see if you have a sleep disorder then you can go to sleep clinics and try to identify your sleep pattern and see if there is something you can change to find relief. I do hope your health insurance covers it, if you have insurance, that is.
Sleeping disorders such as sleep apnea, snoring heavily, narcolepsy, sleep paralysis, sleep walking and night terrors should be ruled out first. It if there is nothing that can be done with behavior modification, some have found relieve with over the counter sleep aids or had their doctors prescribe anyone of a growing family of sleep medication that seems to be helping some, at least in the short term.
These techniques didn’t and still won’t help me though. I’ve tried most of these, except the sleep clinic. I highly doubt I can fall asleep with probes on my head and body knowing I’m being monitored. Besides, I had a problem falling asleep yesterday, last month, last year, last decade and ever since I could remember. I would be up all night, restless and after hours of trying I would finally get drowsy at 6 am or later. When the alarm would ring, let’s say at 7 in the morning, I would not only press the snooze button incessantly, I would also weep a little saying aloud, “no, no it can’t be time to get up yet, help me God.” Being that drowsy actually hurt me.
The fear of losing my job or failing school, would finally be the arm-twisting that forced me to get up. If I arrived at home early enough in the early evening I’d collapse and take a four or five hour deep-sleep nap. I would then wake up at 11pm or so and be wide awake and ready to take on the world. Oh, yes, I tried skipping the naps for a few weeks, cutting down on the caffeine. I even tried the old “skip 24-hours of sleep and wait until the next night technique.” You guessed it, it did not work. All the attempts I have tried failed to bring my sleep cycle to a sleep-at-night cycle.
When I had the chance I tried working later shifts of work, took either later classes, when in school, and found that worked better. I then tried working overnight shift jobs and they worked the best for me. That felt more natural to my body. Not many people were sympathetic to my lifestyle. I remember working 12 hour overnight shifts, going home to sleep during the day and having family or friends call saying, “Why are you still sleeping?” I had to re-explain how I worked all night and they simply seemed perplexed.
Through the years however, I met many individuals just like me. They felt the same frustration in trying many techniques to achieve a so-called normal sleep cycle. Like me, all their attempts seemed to fail. It so happens that there is an actual name for night owls. The other classification is nocturnal; an animal that is up at night and sleeps during the day, as opposed to a diurnal animal that is up during the day and sleeps at night.
As of 1981 the name Delayed Sleep Phase Syndrome (DSPS) made its appearance. People with DSPS have their biological clocks or what is known in the sleep disorder community as circadian rhythm reversed. According to sleep experts the hormone that regulates our circadian rhythm is melatonin. This hormone is produced by our pineal gland deep within the brain and with those with DSPS, this hormone is released at a completely different schedule that it does for day people.
What causes DSPS (Night Owl Syndrome)?
There doesn’t seem to be any identified cause for being a night owl. As with everything else theories abound. Some think those with DSPS are simply lazy, slackers, antisocial, lax or don’t want to work. The saying that all of us night people really dislike, “the early bird gets the worm,” is particularly annoying. It is painful not to be understood, especially if it’s a loved one. Many feel depressed or develop emotional problems due to isolation, frustration, lack of success in trying to be a day person, and/or inability to function at work, school or other social events.
There is a theory that is more plausible. Some sleep experts believe a child is not put on a regular night schedule and kept up late on the regular basis during their formative years, the child’s circadian rhythm changes so that he or she becomes a night person. However, if a child is kept at a regular sleeping schedule where they are put to sleep early at night, their circadian rhythm is programmed to be a day person.
The Cure Please
There doesn’t seem to be a “cure” for DSPS. Although some sleep experts insist that trying certain techniques will correct the circadian rhythm malfunction. One of the techniques is having the person set a schedule whereby they wake up every day 15 minutes earlier each day. They do this repeatedly until they reach their ideal waking time, 7am for example. Then the person has to keep to this new schedule seven days a week. This seems a little impractical in our ever-changing world. I personally have tried this and did not get to the desired time at all. Two days into trying this method simply I could not wake up earlier. From anecdotal information, those I know who have DSPS have tried this without success. Perhaps there is someone who has another type of sleep disorder where this could very well work for them.
Another technique that is very popular and many are ready to recommend is light therapy or chronotherapy. The idea is that the light hits your retina through your eyelid while you are sleeping and stimulates the pineal gland which suppresses melatonin. It is believed that using this regulates your circadian rhythm. I have not tried this technique. It has to be done in a sleep lab with a very specific regimen. Also, it can be costly and normally not covered by traditional health insurance. Hence the third option and the one I have chosen to use. That is, accept my circadian rhythm and change my lifestyle to adjust for it while educating others as to what DSPS is.
If you were not aware of what DSPS is, take heart, now you know you are certainly not alone. Here is summary of the most common features:
· You cannot sleep at night and need to sleep during the day
· You are alert, energized, more creative at night
· You are extremely sleepy, sluggish, exhausted during the day and unable to concentrate
· All the techniques you have tried to reverse you schedule have not worked
· It takes you a very long time to fall asleep, regardless of when you make an attempt
If you can relate to most of these and have ruled out typical sleeping disorders, chances are you have DSPS. In my opinion is that those with DSPS fall into two categories.
1) Those who never thought they had a problem in the first place and always accepted themselves as night owls, or 2) those who think they have insomnia and are frustrated because nothing works. My purpose is to introduce a fresh new category those who now realize that they have a valid biological reason for having a circadian rhythm that allows them to be awake at night and sleep during the day. Now you know there are options. Think for a moment about those who were able to change their lifestyle. Many are artists, musicians, writers, 911 operators, emergency medical technicians and night shifters or practically any profession.
Of course I’m saying it’s going to be easy. You will always be faced with stigma from diurnal people, and find that the world is primarily a “day” world. But you are among millions just like you. You are capable of being completely functional, it is just that happens to be mostly at night. You can look up medical journals, magazines articles, reputable internet web sites and print or copy relevant articles You can keep them for yourself and share them with your family, friends, co-workers, supervisors, even your doctor or therapist who surprisingly often don’t know about DSPS. It is such a relief to find that when you let others know what DSPS they see things in a whole new light—no pun intended.
There is a huge online community and many web sites full of information. The more we keep up to date, educate ourselves and others the more the world will embrace that it functions 24 hours a day. Thank goodness, this night like most nights, it is private, calm, sacred, and quiet and with this I bid you Goodnight or should I say Good Morning.
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