#dspd

[alliartist]

Let’s talk about sleep disorders

My family is rampant with sleep disorders. My brother has narcolepsy, my other brother has insomnia, my mom appears to have narcolepsy, my sister struggles back and forth with sleep apnea, and I have delayed sleep phase disorder.

Let’s talk about mine. Delayed Sleep Phase Disorder. DSPD.

No one has ever heard of it, then they hear about it and are like, “Oh, yeah, I’m a night owl too!” You may also have it. Or not. I can’t tell you. Go to a doctor. 

Let’s talk about what it’s like.

DSPD means my body’s clock is different. It runs longer than 24 hours, and it goes through the preparing for wakefulness and preparing for sleep at different times than the societal norms. This means that my body starts to cool down for sleep in the early hours of the morning (4 or 5am), and to warm up for awake in the evening (4pm or so). It means my body reacts to sunlight by becoming tired for bed, and reacts to night time by wanting to become alert. I am literally nocturnal.

ALL OF THIS SUCKS LIVING IN A DIURNAL WORLD.

I basically live in perpetual jet lag. I am always exhausted and can sleep anywhere at anytime. I am forced to sleep out of my cycle, so my sleep is low quality, which makes me more tired, then I get sleepy during the day and all I can have is more low quality sleep at night. I keep a “normal” sleep schedule (9/10pm to 5am--a majority of my prime wakefulness time) so I can hold a job, but I feel like garbage. The longer I have to do this, the worse it gets. During a work week, by Thursday or Friday, I am painfully and breathlessly exhausted by 2pm and falling asleep around my house by 7pm. I use days off to sleep in until 3 or 5pm, getting some of the quality sleep a person needs to survive. The long term effects are that eventually I can’t get up as early as I need to. I get up at 5am for work but after doing that every week for 3 months, I physically can’t get up until 6am now. In my normal sleep cycle, that’s all bedtime. I would be going to bed but I am getting up.

Not everyone with DSPD has their clock set that late. Some are earlier in the night, like 1am. If you stick to a strict schedule and never ever waver, you can usually adjust your clock by an hour, but if you don’t maintain it, it will return to its normal times pretty much immediately.

Additionally, there is actually no cure or treatment. There are no drugs, exercise won’t help, weight loss won’t affect it, changing time zones won’t circumvent it (boy did I consider that). You just have to live like this. On top of that, normal jobs don’t exist for us in the desired wakefulness time. We can have low income night shift jobs as security or toll guards, or the like. And the normal jobs we force ourselves into don’t understand this disorder can disrupt your expected normal behavior, so you’ll struggle with being late and not being at full capacity for work, all of which only gets worse the longer you do it. And try to explain all of this to people. If I tell you I’m exhausted and that I have DSPD, don’t try to tell me you understand because you also get tired. Nothing feels worse than people trying to tell you that it’s normal, telling you that you just need to go to bed earlier or get some caffeine. I already feel like a societal failure because I can’t function.

I feel like people need to know this little known sleep disorder is super real. It’s not just being a night owl, it’s not just being a sleepy person, it’s not just staying up too late. It’s permanent exhaustion, diminished mental capacity, mental illness (depression, anxiety, etc) from sleep deprivation, and inescapable. 

I apologize if this isn’t incredibly coherent. I did my best, but I’m exhausted.

[sparklyeevee]

You don’t stay up too late “for no reason”. You stay up “too late” either because you’re busy as fuck and you actually need time to relax at the end of the day, which your schedule doesn’t allow, or because your natural chronotype won’t let you sleep when you need to/think you’re supposed to. 

[uniqueaspergirl]

Thanks to Tumblr

I’m on my way to finally accept myself a lot more.

[lordevren]

Me: I have delayed sleep phase disorder.

Mother: it's because you don't sleep at the right time!!!!!!!

Me: that's the point?????????????

[violet-phoenix-nebula]

If I hear the term 'sleep hygiene' one more fucking time...

[kleeklutch]

ADHD and DSPD (delayed sleep phase disorder)

Just learned about DSPD (delayed sleep phase disorder) and its very close genetic link to ADHD and I'm like !!! It all makes sense now! A lot of ADHDers are dx'ed with chronic insomnia but it could also be that our circadian rhythm is offset from the normal which makes us feel like we're living with perpetual jet lag. AND it explains why I need Complete Dark in order to sleep and why it takes me a couple hours after opening my eyes to actually wake up. And why most of my kids have sleep issues despite solid lifelong sleep routines and most of them need sleep meds. It's such a close tie that docs really need to get in it and have better advice and solutions for ADHDers.

[hellbrainspeaks]

I really hate that I have to refer to my sleep cycle as a disorder. If I can sleep with no other difficulties besides when my natural circadian rhythm decides it’s time to wake up and fall asleep, why am I considered the problem. Humans socially engineered the 9-5 schedule, that’s an artificial barrier we constructed for ourselves, and is a very recent development in history. Why is that the norm and me the problem. Evolution didn’t design us with jobs and schedules and money in mind

[neverreallythoughtaboutthefuture]

DSPD (Delayed Sleep-Phase Disorder) is also genetically linked to ADHD by findings of polymorphism in genes in common between those apparently involved in ADHD and those involved in the circadian rhythm and a high proportion of DSPD among those with ADHD...

(x)

Welcome new Becket brothers headcanon!

For more on Raleigh and adult ADHD

(x)

Note: Many people with DSPD can (and often will) fall asleep at any time during the day.  So you force them to go to sleep at 11pm (ex: they have a strict work-related schedule to follow), they *will* eventually fall asleep (usually within the hour). 

Problem is, they don't experience deep sleep (phase 3 and 4) until morning. 

So it's like you are "asleep" without actually "sleeping", if I'm making any sense.  And you aren't able to awaken by yourself, and/or feel rested and easily alert, if you need to wake up before 11am / noon (or later, depending on the delay).

You absolutely need to use an alarm, or someone needs to wake you up, and it will take several minutes for you to feel clear headed.

Late evening is typically when you start feeling really good, and getting some shit done.

So with the description of Yancy having a hard time starting the day and reaching full alertness by the time he's ready to go to sleep again, it strongly reminded me of that.

[anemptyfear]

I have just found out that Delayed Sleep-Phase Disorder (DSPD) is a real thing where basically some people just don't function on a regular "9-5" type schedule and so they tend to fall asleep after midnight, wake up late morning/midday, have trouble waking up, it shifts your peak alertness period, you have trouble regulating body temperature etc. all of which describe me in a nutshell and it pretty much explains questions I've had my whole life like HELLO USEFUL INFORMATION

[wiz-witch]

Body at 8/9ish: *starts getting sleepy*

Me: Yay we're gonna be normal this week!

Body at 1130: That was a nice nap!

Me: ...dammit.

[mylifeiskindacrazy]

i hate when people only ask "when did you get up" but never "when did you go to sleep" like no brenda i'm not lazy for only getting up at 2pm because i literally went to bed at 6am so we probably slept the same amount of hours just delayed so fuck off

[uniqueaspergirl]

It's nice that I have a delayed sleep rhythm. The house is dark and quiet. Finally time to concentrate and think, without background noises.

[starkie-md]

Guess who just annoyed their mother into letting them get a bottle of maximum strength melatonin magnesium which specifically helps with delayed sleep phase disorder?!

[oncillaphoenix]

having a circadian rhythm disorder counts as Horrors Beyond Your Comprehension i think. i mean. not beyond my comprehension, i've lived like this my whole life. but it certainly seems to be beyond everyone else's comprehension, including sleep doctors.

[featherlight-whispers]

What living outside of your natural sleep-wake cycle feels like: a (long) DSPD symptom list for writers

Note: This list is based on my experiences as someone who’s been living (almost) constantly outside of my natural sleep hours. For reference, my sleep-wake cycle is from 7.00-8.00 to 16.00-17.00 and I’ve been sleeping from 00.00-01.00 to 05.00-06.00 for the past two years. This isn’t intended to be a diagnosis checklist, just my personal experience as someone with DSPD. This is for authors who want to write characters with this disorder or people who want to know more about this topic. Full detailed list below the cut.

Dry eyes. When I wake up, I feel as if I’ve been staring at a computer screen with the brightness to the max in a dim room for 14 hours. This feeling usually goes away within 2 to 3 hours of waking up. Eye drops help with this.

Alternating bursts of energy and sudden sleepiness. I’ll elaborate more on the sleepiness, but the excessive daytime sleepiness isn’t linear nor consistent. I can be nodding off one hour and being perfectly awake the next.

Sudden sleepiness. I wake up groggy every day, but there are some where I get energy quite soon. However, that doesn’t mean I’m going to be energetic all day long. I usually nod off when I’m doing something passive like writing something down from a board or listening to someone talk for a very long time without being able to make it into a conversation (for example, being in a lecture).  I know when I’m going to fall asleep. I’ll start feeling heavier and notice my focus getting worse and worse until I nod off for what feels like a few seconds, wake up for a minute or two and then fall asleep again. It’s a very light sleep, so if I get called my name I usually wake up, and some people can fall asleep sitting up (like me), so the situation goes like this: I’m paying attention in class, and within some minutes of noticing the tiredness get worse I’ll be dozing intermittently, sitting upright. Getting up and walking around can help with preventing the sleep, but as soon as I sit down it happens again. Now, this is a pretty extreme case. It started happening when I was 16 (symptoms worsen during adolescence), but before that it was a tolerable tiredness. The fact that I could lay my head down in class and sleep probably helped too.

Melatonin pills will make everything worse. I’ve had melatonin and natural sleep-inducing herb-based pills prescribed. Neither work. They make you fall asleep fast, yes, but the sleep quality is even worse than usual and I fall asleep during daytime more easily than without them

Shit sleep quality. For as long as I can remember, I have never woken up refreshed and fully rested. Sure, there are days when I wake up fine even if I don’t sleep in my natural hours, but they’re extremely rare. I usually wake up more tired than when I went to sleep the previous night.

You get more awake as the day goes on. In my case, the sudden sleepiness stops abruptly after 18.00, and the closer I get to my bedtime, the more awake I am.

Sometimes you want to take a nap and you can’t. When I wake up later in the day (12.00 and after), sometimes I want to take a nap because I’m still tired at 15.00, but because I don’t have that extreme tiredness of waking up at five/six it can be hard to actually fall asleep, no matter how tired I am.

Less patience and more sensitivity to light and noise. The worse you sleep, the less patience you have. It’s only natural. Now, I’m not sure if the second part is because of my sensory issues, but if you’re going to write a character with DSPD who isn’t autistic/ADHD/doesn’t have sensory issues, you may want to be careful including this, but I have noticed that I’m more sensitive to light and noise when I’ve slept worse than usual, sometimes to the point of headaches and a strong urge to bawl my eyes out.

The amount of time you sleep means absolutely nothing. The reason why I sleep five to six hours is because it’s as good as my sleep will get. If I sleep, say, three hours, my memory and focus would be seriously affected, but I could sleep eight or ten hours and, as long as I wake up when I’m not meant to, I will have the same symptoms. As I’ve said before, it’s also hard to fall asleep early, no matter how tired I am.

Waking up is a nightmare and you have a lot of pent-up frustration. The first part is pretty self-explanatory, but the second one is due to a myriad of reasons: I want to sleep well, why can’t I? Why have I been dealt such a shitty luck? You also want others to understand you, but, besides the dismissive and ableist people, no one truly realizes how exhausting it is to live like this.

You realize how many parts of life are dictated by sleep-wake cycles. People who are/have diurnal lifestyles have things way easier than people with nocturnal lives. Not only is everything closed at the wee hours of the night, besides emergency services, bars and clubs, but socialization is near impossible. All your friends in your time zone are asleep for most of your waking hours, and even people in other time zones go to sleep before you. There are some advantages to this, such as being paid more for doing the same thing as your coworkers during the night shift, but this is not the case always. Some industries do not have night shifts (obviously).

You get a lot of time for yourself. The good part of being awake while everyone else is asleep is that you can do anything (within reason) and the chances of being walked on/being seen are pretty low.

And finally...

You switch to your natural sleep cycle incredibly fast. I can go from waking up at six to going to sleep at eight in two days. It almost feels like getting out of an uncomfortable, stuffy suit and changing into your favorite pyjamas. It’s more comfortable and you feel better all-around.

There’s not a lot of research on DSPD, it’s not diagnosed often and people with this disorder often have other comorbid disorders, such as ADHD. There’s a high number of people with DSPD who have depression as well, but the causal relationship between them isn’t known yet.

I hope this post is of help with your characters and it was informative. My DMs and asks are open, please be nice and don’t even think about giving me “tips” to “improve my sleep” (istg I have heard the term sleep hygiene so many times im sick of it) unless it comes from someone with DSPD.

[nocturnallyfree]

The world will be a better place when society acknowledges and makes room for those of us who do not naturally sleep from 9pm-6am (or thereabouts)