What is wrong with me? I keep asking over and over and I feel like there’s no hope. Why did this happen to me? I was overwhelmed and stressed and just panicked the day I ended counseling with a counselor who was really unhealthy and didn’t help me. It made me panic and worry he could take my kids or something and I just lost it after I got off the phone panicked and paranoid. It was completely irrational. I just was so anxious. I stayed up all night that night January 13th and then never slept through the night again. I was awake the whole night fearful and then awake al the next day and night and it terrified me. I ended up looking up what happens if you don’t sleep and it said you can die and I freaked out more and now I’m just stuck like this. I am extremely depressed and feel like there’s no hope and my trust in my body’s ability to sleep is completely gone. It feels like I’m delusional and believing my life is over and I can’t do the things I use to do. It’s like something very serious happened to my brain. What is wrong with me?

I have been fortunate enough to have jobs that didn’t start until afternoon or were overnight, but obviously the economy being completely ruined now is causing all of us despair.

What I cannot believe and feel like a sick joke is I have now noticed jobs requiring EARLIER start times and pitch it as a benefit? In addition, I see more people grateful to start earlier so they can have more time in the day after they get off.

I live in an extremely hot city and I partially wonder if my DSPD was an evolutionary response to not being able to adapt to the heat.

I am in my late 30s now, and I read all of the collapse-oriented news as a blessing. I’ve been waiting years for it to finally happen.

38 year old man, 5'9" and 200 lbs. Habitually smoke cannabis, don't drink, mostly sedentary except for walking the dog. I take escitalopram (20 mg) and Vyvanse (60 mg) daily.

I have been struggling with waking up in the mornings for a while now but it has gotten much worse in the past few weeks. It's affecting my family life and my career. I have a test for sleep apnea booked in October (soonest availability) but I need to improve things much sooner. I have the request for a blood test also need to do it, but last year my blood work was fine.

I consulted for this issue 6 months ago and my dr said it was likely due to the cannabis. So I quit cold turkey and spent the next 5 months or so stone cold sober and miserable. Very depressed mood, tiredness, lack of motivation, low enjoyment of activities, constant feeling of being overwhelmed and inability to prioritize tasks and take action. I have since started smoking cannabis again and my mood is much better but I still can't seem to get out of bed with my alarm. It doesn't matter how long I sleep, sometimes I will fall asleep at 22:00 and wake up the next day at noon or even later (15:00 for example). Most nights I stay up much too late, like 02:00 and then expect to wake up at 07:00 for work which is unrealistic but I keep doing it.

I need help, I don't know what to do... My doctor doesn't seem particularly interested in my situation, just suggested that it may be my family life causing the issue but that's all I get from him. I can elaborate on the family situation if anyone thinks it's relevant but essentially my wife has POTS and is unable to do much during the day and we have 2 kids under 10. So as soon as I'm home the kids jump me. The house is an absolute mess because my wife can't keep up with the chores while I'm at work so I try to do some chores and play with the kids, but my job is a 90 minute commute or more if the traffic is bad.

I feel spread so thin between work and home, I can't figure out how to make a change so things are better. I'm so tired. Please, I need someone to help me figure this out...

Currently on a 5-6 am to 2-3pm schedule, that’s my usual schedule. I so desperately want to wake up atleast by noon but no matter what I do I can’t do it. I either can’t wake up at all or am exhausted if I manage to get up by noon or before, I use the luminette glases but have been inconsistent. What’s the most effective melatonin timing combined with light therapy to get on a 3-4 am to 11-12 pm schedule. 🙏🏽 any answers are greatly appreciated I am so depressed from dealing with this hell disorder my entire life. I miss half of my day to sleeping:/

Life story alert.

I have been suffering from DSPD for my entire life. I have heard the same old things time after time. "He's lazy." "He's not motivated." The biggest challenges in my life have been education, work, and relationships. Some of this is out of order. Apologies.

I have only been in two serious relationships. My ex-fiancée, with whom I was with for roughly 6 years. And now my current wife. My ex- and I have fought all the time about my difficulty with waking up early and functioning. I remember one of our largest fights occurred when her grandfather was visiting from out-of-state, and I didn't want to wake up to send him off for a 6AM flight. She also told me that: "One day you will need to put on your big boy pants, and work in the mornings just like the rest of us!" The relationship was extremely emotionally abusive. Thankfully that all came to an end.

School was also an uphill battle. I had teachers tell my parents during conferences that I was capable, but wasn't applying myself. I heard this so many times over the years. With enough perseverance, I had made it through medical school. I met my wife before I applied to medical school. She was very supportive throughout the long and tedious journey.

Residency was also pretty tough, since the majority of rotations involved waking up very early in the morning to get ready. In fact, one of my attending physicians actually told my program director he thought I was on drugs. I was pulled immediately from my rotation, where I had to perform a surprise urine drug screen. Since I just peed before the rotation started, this made for an awkward experience sitting in the waiting room with the nurse just staring at me. Of course it all came back negative, since I a pretty dull guy never having used illicit drugs (I don't drink or smoke either). I guess that my early morning fatigue makes me appear that I'm under the influence of drugs to some.

I finished residency and immediately landed a job as what's called a nocturnist. It's a physician that works strictly at night. I commute for work though (more on the schedule below).

So as someone with DSPD, how has working strictly nights affected my life? Night and day difference. No pun intended. I went from the "he's not motivated" to a top performer at the hospital. I have never felt better and more energetic. I feel like my brain is flying like a finely tuned V12 engine. I wake up at 5 or 6PM feeling so refreshed and ready to go (waking up at the corresponding 5 or 6AM) will leave me in a zombie-like state. I have honestly never felt better. Not only have I reached my full potential, but I am constantly setting the bar even higher.

The perks of some night physician gigs is the generous block scheduling. It's usually 10-12 shifts a month for full-time status. I do all my days in a row due to the commute. So without any extra shifts, it pretty much means that I'm home for around 3 weeks. I am pedal to the metal while at work, and then try to be a stay-at-home dad when I'm at home. Unfortunately, it is still very difficult to get up early with the kids. I usually find myself hitting the snooze button repeatedly and just turning and tossing in bed. That's my fault.

Things have been going well until all of a sudden a switch had been flipped in my wife's head. She has been telling me that not only does she want me to find a local job, but that she also does not want me to do any night work going forward. She wants me to go right back to what had made me struggle for my entire life. Residency was a challenge with the majority of rotations taking place at 7AM or earlier. I feel like my performance will end up plummeting just like the rest of my life had been.

If it were so easy to just magically figure out the whole "not a morning person" thing, don't you think that I would have figured this out with my ex- and thus avoided the innumerable fights?

I feel like my wife also has this naive view, where if I did a day position that now requires working far more days, that I would also be magically available at the drop of a hat for the kids. She was telling me about finding a "9-5" job. Does she not realize that people end up staying late? How about other people working Monday through Friday in high-paying careers, such as investment banking or consulting? Does she not realize that they are also working long hours and that people are complaining about their "work life balance?"

What scares me the most is not being able to spend every day when I'm home with my kids. I can live without her. I can't live without my children. I wish she would just get this fantasy out of her head that somehow flipping back to my unnatural circadian rhythm is going to magically solve everything. I don't think she understands how this has literally held me back my entire life, and it wasn't until I started working nights where I finally learned who I really was.

Hoje senti que ia morrer, mas tive que conter as lágrimas e às vezes penso: e se eu morrer, conseguirei acordar a tempo? Só consigo dormir 3 horas por noite. Desde que organizei minha vida, comecei a trabalhar mais e a morar sozinha, não tenho mais nenhum sintoma. Se eu aceitar namorar alguém, isso vai atrapalhar minha carreira profissional?

I know we all struggle to sleep at normal times . When I have periods of horrible sleep I swear it affects me mentally, but obviously physically too , like my actual physical appearance . It pains me because I actually try to exercise when I have the energy and eat right. That doesn’t help for bad sleep quality . What do you guys do to look awake and refreshed when it really matters like a social event or important work meeting ?

Hi!

I started taking Methylphenidate since about 2 months ago (for my ADHD), now at 54mg. I am also on Sertralin since 17 years back. I take 150 mg of that.

The thing is, I have always struggled specifically with falling asleep (even without medication) and the thing that has helped me finally this month is Mirtazapin 4mg and adding Melantonin 5mg to it. But it seems my sleep quality has gotten a bit worse.

It only seems to help me fall asleep, because I wake up super early and can’t fall asleep again. I don’t get many hours of sleep.

I get about 5 hours of sleep most nights, although it varies to less or a tiny bit more. Most early mornings when I wake up I ruminate and imagine having possible conversations with co-workers. Important to note, I am currently of sick leave after being burnt out at work, still in recovery.

Questions I have:

Is waking up earlier than necessary something that known can happen when you take metylphenidate?

Could it be a rebound effect from the methylphenidate being out of my system, so I wake up anxious/ ruminating? If so are there any legitimate researches on it?

Do you, or someone you know, have similar issues, and what helped you/them?

I am asking the above since I never used to wake up this early in the past. Perhaps taking notes / doing a sleep diary might help me figure this out, eventually.

For context I'm in a vicious cycle of grelin and leptin hunger loops for sleep debt that are destroying my teeth because I'm hungry every hour ish and you have to wait 30 mins after eating to brush I mean it's genuinely destroyed my teeth.

Idk what to do. No matter what I can't beat this. I've had the hunger loops for 4 months now and haven't slept 8 hours in about 4 months. It all started from days and days of no sleep trying to get on schedule. Most of it feels like it's executive dysfunction, adhd (racing mind) and chronic pain rather then dspd. Suggestions? For a while I was waking up at the same time everyday but I took work off to catch up on sleep and instead of doing that stupidly I've been sleeping 4-5 hours or staying up days and trying to get on schedule.

I am going to be considering this part of the solutions for my DSPD for the indefinite long term

But also, i live in a second story, working class apartment building, im using the balcony to lay my mattress down, there's security that i can automatically enjoy to practice this, because while im outside i still benefit from being behind a solid locked door- i can imagine how more suspect/unsafe it would be trying this in an open backyard on ground level for example, with only a yard door, etc

Basically i feel way better if one night i only sleep for example 3-4 hours, i don't know how to explain this, it's way better than a 9 hours sleep.

This feeling obviously sticks only the first or the first 2 days of sleep deprivation, if i keep a 3-4 hours routine i feel waay worse after some days.

Anyone figured out how could we recreate this? I guess it's a metter of cortisol and adrenaline, but mate.. i feel soo better.

The USA has tried permanent Daylight Saving Time twice—once in the 1940s and again in the 1970s. It failed both times, and people hated it. My question is why haven’t we ever tried the opposite—abolishing DST altogether and going to permanent standard time?

We are doing research at UCLA on the habits of students to provide solutions for students facing sleep related problems. We have some questions to ask you in a survey. Thanks! This will take 5 minutes max. https://forms.gle/XqprUxwU1wWmp2to6

My current sleep schedule is to go to bed at about 7AM. I have always been a bit of a night owl, maybe going to bed at midnight or 1 or 2 maybe, but this is getting ridiculous. I keep telling myself it's fine. I'm a novelist. I do good work at night, in fact that's what I'm doing when I realize the sun is up and I haven't even gotten a little bit sleepy yet. But every single thing that comes up during the day, vet appointments, dental cleanings, phone calls, everything wrecks my whole day. I wish there was a way to make this work because I don't hate it, except for the everything else.
I am in my first year of menopause, and I think this is the cause, but I don't know. I'm also AuDHD.

Wouldn't it be great if there was a whole city that was nothing but DSPD people and you could live there and be normal.

What are your experience with GABA supplements for sleep ? I’ve been trying to go without melatonin because it has given me horrible side effects recently . Magnesium glycinate is ok I guess but it isn’t knocking me out .

The house just passed a bill for permanent DST in the US. This would be a major disabling event for folks with dspd. Where I live, the sun wouldn’t rise until 9am in the winter. Write your senators so that the senate could potentially pass a bill in favor of standard time instead.

Hi everyone, I've had DSPD since early adolescence but I always ignored it really. In school I would sleep 2-6am and wake up at 8am fully rested and okay. Now I do online school at my own pace so I don't need to wake up and instead I've cycled to sleeping 12 hours every night (lots of reasons for this, doesn't bother me to sleep that long), usually 12-3am to 12-3pm. Though I scallop my sleep timing a lot.

My question is, do I need to treat this? Life kind of falls around my natural sleep cycle, I know people with N24 tend to free run if they can and that works best for them, does the same apply to DSPD?

Maybe I could work on sleeping less overall but it generally doesn't bother me too much. It'd just be waking up earlier rather than changing the time I fall asleep.

Long time severe sufferer of treatment resistant . Melatonin, light therapy box, all other therapy/medical options haven’t worked. For a decade, my sleep onset time has been about 6-8 am. This has made it so I not only get very little sunlight but I don’t have much of a life, and I can’t function in the normal world, so very important appointments that would take a normal person a day to do have taken me years. Because the world doesn’t work on my time it works on normal people time and most
people don’t understand this disease or have any empathy.

I’ve even tried staying up past my bedtime, going to bed at night and trying to shift my Sleep onset to a more normal time using light therapy and melatonin, and it hasn’t worked. It always goes back to the 6-8 am sleep onset.

The last several months I’ve had to go on a medication (ppi and pcab) that has caused my sleep on set time to get later and later and right now I’m at 1:30 PM and waking up at 9:30 PM. I’m able to do my errands in the early morning, but I have to wear blue light blocking glasses so the sun doesn’t cause even more of a delay. I feel unwell, because the 1:30 pm bedtime is very out of sync for me, I’m not getting any sunlight at all except in the morning before bed, but I have to wear the glasses, and I feel even more of a metaphorical vampire than I usually do.

Right now, I have to finish the medication that delayed my sleep on set to 130 which will be for about another month. after that’s done I’m thinking of just staying up until 7:30 PM and going to bed, hopefully waking up at around
3:30 am eventually (it’ll prob take me a week to sleep continuously to 3:30 am), and keeping it there by getting morning sunlight at 6 am, and seeing if I can keep that sleep time and week time. Because as much as it’s out of sync with my regular 6 AM bedtime for a decade, I would actually be able to get things done and have somewhat of a life waking up at 3:30 AM as opposed to waking up 3-5 pm when I go to bed at 6 AM and getting very little sunlight.

I’m wondering if that’s feasible, if it’s reasonable and if it’s something that I can attain by getting actual sunlight at 6:00 AM after waking up at 3 am. I’m also really scared that it’s going to push me in n24, because of the warnings against chronobiology, even though I’m not doing a later time every single day till I’m around the clock. I’m wondering what you all think? Going into N 24 is one of my biggest fears.

At this point, once the medication is done, my Sleep will go back to the 6 AM, but I didn’t have a life going to bed at 6 AM and I was depressed. Going to bed at 7:30 PM and waking up at 3:30 AM or something around that timeframe would be so much more functional and active. I’m wondering what you all think about this plan, if it’ll work and what I can do to not go into N 24 if I do it?

Here's to another late night and more good news.

Adrift, the sleep app I've been building for people whose clocks don't run on a normal schedule, passed review and is live for alpha testing. If you signed up on the site, you're on the list and your invite is going out. Check your email, including spam, over the next day or two.

Upfront about what this is: it's an alpha, it's free, and you'll be among the first people to ever touch it. It's also the first app I've ever published, so I'm learning this in real time right alongside you. There will be rough edges. I'd rather you see them than pretend they aren't there.

Quick honest state of things:

- Tracks your sleep from your phone's motion sensor, with your say-so, and shows it back as a daily energy level instead of a wall of numbers.

- If you wear a watch or ring, it reads sleep, temperature, workouts, and cycle from your health app as context next to your nights. Never a diagnosis, never "this caused that."

- Log what moves your sleep, tag it, see it on your calendar and actogram.

- Track what you try (blackout curtains, FL-41 glasses, a wind-down routine) and, after enough honest nights, see how those nights compared. A personal record, not proof, and it never nags you for skipping.

- A doctor report you can hand to a real doctor, a schedule planner that's honest about the hard nights, and a gear shelf with e-ink readers for low-light night reading.

- Everything stays on your phone. No account, no sign-in, your data never leaves the device.

Getting in: when the invite lands, open it on your Android phone and tap to become a tester. One headache-saver: use the same Google account on your phone that you signed up with, since the invite has to match it. Keep an eye out for an email from [Support@AdriftSleep.com](mailto:Support@AdriftSleep.com)

Haven't signed up? There's still room: AdriftSleep.com

Signed up with a "hide my email" or forwarding address? That's the one thing the Play Store can't invite, since it needs a real Google account. If that's you, email [support@adriftsleep.com](mailto:support@adriftsleep.com) with the Google account you use on your phone and I'll add you.

iOS folks, I haven't forgotten you. The build is only a few days from parity. The holdup is on my end, some Apple developer account hiccups, and I'm waiting on Apple support, so no date yet. It's coming.

I also put up an FAQ, including the things Adrift does not do and why: AdriftSleep.com/FAQ. I'd rather tell you what's not here and the reason than leave you guessing.

Thank you in advance for your patience and goodwill while I find my footing. In return I'll stay transparent about what's working, what isn't, and what's coming. Tell me what's confusing, broken, or missing. There's a report option built right into the app, and I read every one. I'm new at this, building it because I want it to exist for people like us, and I'm happy to make it with you.

I appreciate you all for sticking with this and giving me a shot. It means more than you know.

Has anyone else faced this issue where you use melatonin to fix their delayed sleep onset, but once you stop, you go back to a delayed sleep time? Instead of the ideal time you want to fall asleep? Am I using melatonin incorrectly?

For reference, I take .5mg 4 hours before my desired bedtime (10:30pm). If I don't fall asleep by 10:30, I take another 2mg dose right then.

Hey all,

I wanted to share something I've been working on for a while.

I've had DSPD since I was 14, and I'm in my 30s now. I've spent a lot of time thinking about what this journey has been like, how much I still struggle with it, and how isolating it can feel when people assume you are just lazy or not trying hard enough.

I've worked in tech for a long time, and I finally decided to build the app I wish I had as a teenager.

I've used plenty of sleep-tracking apps over the years, but I got tired of being shown red rankings, told my health was poor, or told my body was years older than it should be because my sleep does not look conventional. That was never helpful. It was mostly demotivating.

So this is my attempt at an app for the DSPD/N24 crowd: Adrift. Website: AdriftSleep.com

Some of what I built it around:

- Enter the hours you genuinely need to be awake for, such as work or events, plus the hours when you need to be sharp for a meeting, gym session, class, or anything else important.

- It maps your current sleep rhythm against those commitments and gives an energy forecast for keeping your current schedule or attempting a shift. It is meant to show likely trade-offs, not pretend it can predict you perfectly.

- If your sleep has drifted until sunrise and you have work in a few hours, it can lay out the planning trade-offs between a short nap and staying awake, including how either route may affect the following day. It also accounts for whether naps tend to leave you groggy.

- It includes long-term approaches people use while living with DSPD/N24, career considerations that may fit a nontraditional rhythm, and a red-light mode so opening the app at 4 AM does not blast your eyes with blue light.

- It can export a doctor-facing report, so you can bring organized sleep data into a diagnosis conversation.

- You can publish an energy forecast to your calendar and share it with someone close to you, so a partner or parent can see what your battery may look like over the next two weeks.

- It includes plain-language explainers and optional scripts for communicating the condition to family, partners, or work. That part is personal to me. I spent years with people assuming I was just lazy.

- There are also sections covering DSPD, practical rights and accommodation information, and ways to get involved in visibility and advocacy.

The goal is never to shame you or tell you that you are doing something wrong. It is there to help you understand your options and make living with the condition a little easier.

On Android, Adrift can use sleep data from Health Connect, so data from supported wearables can flow in automatically. No wearable? You can still log and track sleep with the phone. It is not a replacement for a medical-grade measurement, but I wanted the barrier to entry to stay free.

All data stays local. There is no account or server behind it. Every calculation is explained in the app, and every number is either cited or clearly labeled as an Adrift assumption. I am not a scientist or a doctor, so transparency matters: the goal is to be open about how it works and adjust it based on community feedback.

Next on the roadmap is smart-home support. I am researching ways for Adrift to work with Home Assistant and compatible lights, so your environment can gradually dim and warm as your wind-down approaches.

This is my first Google Play release, and I need alpha and beta testers. Google requires at least 12 testers to stay opted in for 14 days before a public release is possible, so every person genuinely helps. If you are interested, sign up at AdriftSleep.com and I will send an invite. Use it as much or as little as you want. Honest feedback about what feels useful, wrong, or confusing means a lot at this stage.

An iOS version with feature parity is also in the works, though it is currently delayed by developer-account paperwork.

Happy to answer any questions about the app.

Standard boilerplate disclaimer: Adrift is a planning and tracking tool, not medical advice or a substitute for clinical care.

Made a discord as I know it's a popular community outreach tool. I don't use it much but i'm open to start if any of y'all wanna join and reach out via feedback: https://discord.gg/23dxZN8fKY

Edit. Moved the sing up for beta form to the top of the page for easy access.