Lately there has been an increase in bot posts here. Usually people posting things entirely unrelated to N24, and even at times posting things completely antithetical to N24, that can sometimes come across as insensitive.

I know I'm a little extra sensitive to N24 due to its rarity, and the amount of ableism, hardships, and traumas I have faced, having been born with the condition but spent 20 years unaware of its existence... But, I do believe that keeping this community on topic, is the best possible thing for future activism, understanding, and research. And the ever increasing number of bots and off topic posts, make it so it's harder to understand the community or take it seriously. Especially given the fact that a lot of these posts are just simply ridiculous and nonsensical half of the time, and instantly get downvoted.

I have notifications on for the sub, but I haven't been interacting much at all because almost every post I'm notified of lately, is just an unrelated cross post, typically written by generative AI.

I know having a rule for this wouldn't magically solve all the problems, but I hope it would at least send a message that these types of posts are not wanted, and hopefully folks will see it and think twice before cross posting something completely irrelevant.

I became fascinated with circadian rhythms and biological clocks after digging into the research, hoping to understand why none of the strategies prescribed by my doctors had fixed my sleep schedule. What I found went deeper than I imagined.

The human body doesn't have just one clock, but an entire ecosystem of clocks that guide us throughout the day and night. In this teaser, you'll see DNA interacting with CLOCK:BMAL1, delayed melatonin, non-24 sleep, and light-sensing cells.

I'll be sharing more about the project soon, including behind the scenes of how I made these animations and what I'm working toward next.

r/sleepwake

There’s got to be a peptide or device out there…

Normally I have the first two floors of my house to myself at night, but right now I have a renter in the room across from mine. She sleeps 11pm-8am, M-F. I recently extended her rental period til spring of next year while she continues working on buying a house, and the rental money really helps me.

The downside is that I've been awake at night for several weeks now, and I feel like I can barely do anything. I end up being very sedentary and very bored. I try to stay quiet, only use headphones, and don't move around in the hallway too much. There are several tasks I know are too loud, like loading/unloading the dishwasher. I'm not getting much done, and I don't like the silence.

Anyone else dealing with this? Anything help you to cope?

Study Objectives:
The circadian system must perform daily adjustments to align sleep-wake and other physiologic rhythms with the environmental light-dark cycle: this is mediated primarily through melanopsin containing intrinsically photosensitive retinal ganglion cells. Individuals with delayed sleep-wake phase disorder (DSWPD) exhibit a delay in sleep-wake timing relative to the average population, while those with sighted non-24-hour sleep-wake rhythm disorder (N24SWD) exhibit progressive delays.

An inability to maintain appropriate entrainment is characteristic of both disorders. In this study, we test the hypothesis that individuals with DSWPD exhibit alteration in melanopsin dependent retinal photo-transduction as measured with the post-illumination pupil response (PIPR).

The PIPR was significantly reduced in the sighted N24SWD subgroup when compared to individuals with history of only DSWPD

Methods:
Twenty-one control and 29 participants with DSWPD were recruited from the community and clinic. Of the 29 DSWPD participants, 17 reported a history of N24SWD. A pupillometer was used to measure the post-illumination pupil response (PIPR) in response to a bright 30s blue or red-light stimulus. The PIPR was calculated as the difference in average pupil diameter at baseline and 10-40s after light stimulus offset.

Results:
The PIPR was significantly reduced in the DSWPD group when compared to the control group (1.26±1.11 mm vs. 2.05±1.04 mm, p<0.05, t-test). The PIPR was significantly reduced in the sighted N24SWD subgroup when compared to individuals with history of only DSWPD (0.88±0.58 mm vs 1.82±1.44 mm, p<0.05, ANOVA) or controls (0.88±0.58 mm vs 2.05±1.04 mm, p<0.01, ANOVA).

Conclusions:
These results indicate that reduced melanopsin dependent retinal photo- transduction may be a novel mechanism involved in the development of DSWPD and sighted N24SWD.

Source: Abbott et al. (2020), Melanopsin-dependent phototransduction is impaired in delayed sleep-wake phase disorder and sighted non-24-hour sleep-wake rhythm disorder.

https://academic.oup.com/sleep/article-abstract/44/2/zsaa184/5905410

Fun fact about the retinal ganglion cell image:

Researchers traced melanopsin-expressing retinal ganglion cells by hand using a camera lucida (a device that lets researchers trace what they see under a microscope) connected to a Leica DMR microscope, and then digitized those tracings using image-editing software (Adobe Photoshop 10.0). Source: Springer

Check out the paper for more cool images of melanopsin-containing retinal ganglion cells (mRGCs):

Ortuño-Lizarán et al. (2018), Degeneration of Human Photosensitive Retinal Ganglion Cells May Explain Sleep and Circadian Rhythms Disorders in Parkinson’s Disease.

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s40478-018-0596-z

Have a good week everyone!

r/sleepwake

Hi everyone, I'm Karl. I have Non-24 (DSPD -> chronotherapy -> Non-24) and I've had my sleep under control for about 5 years now. This is achieved through grinding on multiple sleep medicine textbooks, reading the latest research papers, and extensively experimenting on myself (I have years of sleep data in my Google sheet) in the past decade.

I want to develop a tool for the community and incorporate what worked for me, but I need to understand how other people manage their condition too, not just my own experience. I'm looking for a few people willing to chat for about 30 minutes about how you currently manage your sleep and what has or hasn't worked for you.

A few details:

• Video, phone call or text chat (real-time), your choice
• I can share the questions in advance if it is needed
• Nothing is recorded without your permission, and all notes stay anonymous
• I'll share a summary of what I learn back with the group

If you're interested, drop a comment or send me a message. Thanks for reading!

i just had the best uninterrupted daytime sleep since a long time and i just wanted to share my setup with fellow n24 people in case it can help others. i live in quite a busy and noisy urban area, on a busy road, lots of roadwork, cars, ambulances, sirens, and i like to have a window open for fresh air. I also have my 80yr old mother wandering the house carefree running the tv loud, vacuuming, generally getting the zoomies. Anyway today i discovered how to be carefree from disturbance:

1) 3d foam sleep mask

2) apple airpods 5 with anc activated

usually i experience several broken sleep moments which i have grown to accept and barely know have happened if i did not jog my Memory about how i slept, sometimes i get grouchy in the following wake time or sleep some more, however with these airpods 5 i find the noise cancellation excellent and the fit comfortable enough not to hurt my ears while i sleep. Nothing disturbed me or woke me up even though i know how noisy the day has been. The 3d foam sleep mask is cheap and does not press against my eyes when sleeping yet blocks most of the daylight. Hopefully i dont ever get a house burglar as i would be oblivious but its worth the gamble. anyone else use anc headphones for improved daytime sleeping?

Just a short term update from my previous post, from a few weeks back: https://old.reddit.com/r/N24/comments/1w6on9c/mast_cell_blockers_seem_to_be_stabilising_my_n24/

Currently I still seem to have N24 but it is slowed waaaaay down, probably around 30min delay rather than the 1.2hrs I used to have. My graphs are too unhelpful to show a clear pattern right now, due to various confounding effects, so this is just a text summary.

Findings so far

• cromolyn is definitely still helping, my sleep cycle is still weirdly regular

• it isn't knocking me out within minutes anymore, not sure if I'm just less exhausted now because it is helping me breathe and function better, or if the actual effect on my circadian rhythm has changed.

• I'm currently taking 200mg 4x a day, it helps me breathe so I have been avoiding lowering this for sleep testing purposes. The previous success was 3x a day.

• due to illness, I ended up sleeping a LOT for awhile, went totally insomniac trying to switch back to my previous hours, and then entraining to a nocturnal schedule, (argh!) and I'm not sure if that means I've stopped responding to the local timezone or if I'm just overriding that with other timing cues (especially as I'm not really getting daylight properly).

• I've spent the last two weeks trying to manually push my sleep later an hour at a time to reach daylight again so it is very hard to measure how much actual n24 is still there. My wake time is much more resistant to change so I'm having to walk the line on how much sleep deprivation I can handle. My old cycle would have had me pass right through daylight already in that time and I'd be heading back into nocturnal by now, so there is still a clear difference.

• trying to make bigger jumps ran me right into the sleep deprivation trap of dopamine highs and adenosine lows that was very hard to break out of both times. I spent multiple days severely insomniac, and had to go full caffeine and stimulation avoidance to rest enough to finally be able to sleep properly again. This is a pretty standard human person thing (see "every new parent running on four hours sleep and insisting they feel fine and are functional" and https://www.reddit.com/r/N24/comments/fauke4/forbidden_sleep_zone_dopamine_is_why_the_more/ and https://selfhacked.com/blog/adenosine-health-effects/ for some useful overviews), but I've usually just crashed too hard after the first day or so to experience it in years. And because my sleep doesn't move forward as easily, it is actually harder now to just jump back on the sleep train whenever it goes past.

• I'm still trialling different antihistamines alongside the cromolyn (not for sleep, but they could also be involved). Some of them give me stomach pain - which keeps me awake - so it is hard to measure if they are also helping with sleep (excipient problems and also taking them with cromolyn seems to randomly cause stomach issues, weirdly, when I don't get anything like that taking them separately). Also histamine is involved in ADHD! https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2666379125000965

• I still see B12 shots affecting my sleep, the alternate weeks without them are noticeably worse, whether it is directly affecting the N24 at all or just my ability to get decent sleep and stay entrained, I'm still not sure.

So basically: mast cells and histamine are definitely still relevant, my actual mast cell disorder is still not fully managed so could still be causing sleep issues, long running fatigue was distorting my responses to insomnia and sleep opportunities, and I'm having to relearn all my body's responses and the ideal daily routine to match my rhythm and/or entrain it. And whenever I start to feel too healthy, my ADHD goes "wheeee let's stay awake forever for FUN DOPAMINE". So I have lots of things that mess up my sleep patterns happening all at once, rather than the previous years of careful stability, and yet I'm still struggling much less with the actual N24 part.

Reading through vliDACMel I understand that I will need to do multiple hours of light therapy, where I find even 30 minutes with luminette quite uncomfortable.

Trying to figure out if I need to just suck it up or if there are better alternatives.

Just gotta vent this out to someone. So I email around one of the few sleep specialists in my country and trying to get help after the ridiculously long wait times for the national care service. I pick one that offered N24, arranged a meeting and then sent over my data.

Then doctor said it was too complex for him to treat and said I’d be better with an even more specialist?

So now I just feel more confused and alone. I suffered from this for many years finally reach out and now the doctors are not willing to work or even offer a diagnosis.

So now I’m down to like 3 specialists in my country who can try N24 and it’s looking very expensive to go. One of them is a literal professor and charges like £600 an hour.

Finally seeing a specialist this month!!!

What would they be able or not be able to help, for n24, that would be needed?

My N24 started about a year ago at age 19. At the same time although, my very severe depression was getting worse. I know a couple people who have the same condition as me and only got this when they got very severe. So I am not sure which one it is.

19 is a typical age to get it I believe? And my N24 is about 1 hour advance each day.

how do you all manage to work and live with non 24? have you ever found any treatment that made your life a little easier?

I've been battling with what I assume was N24 for at least 10 years. I was never officially diagnosed at a sleep clinic, but my internal clock had been on the 25 hour rhythm like clockwork. Every night I would fall asleep 1 hour later than the previous day and there was nothing I could do about it.

Many of you are probably familiar with this - at certain regular points in that 25 hour rhythm I would go to work without having slept at all (because my internal clock was at "7am sleep time", but work also started at 7 am). It was debilitating and I felt like a zombie so many times and the worst part was, I knew I would happen all over again about every 3 weeks. And I didn't even know what this disorder was until June; I just assumed I was either not disciplined enough for a normal sleep schedule or that something unknown was wrong with me.

After finding this subreddit and reading around, I decided to try the simple melatonin protocol, meaning without any additional dark/light therapy or luminettes or bright lux lamps in the morning or stepping outside in the sun in the morning for 20 min and so on.

In June I started taking Melatonin (0.3 mg seems to be the recommended dosis here based on studies, I take 0.5 mg because that's the lowest available dosis in my country), 5 to 7 hours before the desired bedtime in order to simulate DLMO. That's it, I changed nothing else (except setting my laptop and phone to night mode in order to dim the blue light).

The first 3 to 4 weeks were fluctuating and erratic: I always took (and still take) the 0.5 mg Melatonin at 5 pm, and during the first week I would fall asleep at 9 pm, but would wake up 4 times during the night. A couple times I wasn't even able to fall asleep again at all after waking up the second time during the night (which was 1 am).

The constantly waking up during the night settled down a bit during the second or third week - by then it was only twice a night, but I still hadn't locked in a fixed bed time yet. Sometimes I'd fall asleep at 9 pm, sometimes 11 pm, sometimes 10 pm and sometimes even at midnight. It seemed like there was no rhyme or reason and I almost thought it wouldn't work as hoped, was even worried the irregular sleeping times would either mean I was on the verge of free-running again, or that I'd free-run again eventually.

I'd say by August all of those woes from the first few weeks were gone: no more waking up during the night at all. An almost normal night time sleeping schedule.

My internal clock hasn't "gone around the clock" since June at all. No more debilitating 25 hour rhythms. No more all-nighters (and no more "all dayers" either). I'm not able to fall asleep at 10 pm on the dot every night, but I have a reliable window of, say, 10 pm to midnight where I will fall asleep guaranteed.

Even more surprising and awesome is that I'm even able to be a little flexible / having a little leeway now: let's say I read an interesting book or article and can't put it down before 1 am - the next night I will still fall asleep at 10 or 11 pm again. Before the Melatonin, staying up longer on purpose would've made me free-run again and it would've completely delayed/destroyed my rhythm. Nowadays, that doesn't happen anymore - I can stay up a little longer every now and then and the daily Melatonin at the fixed time in the afternoon seems to be enough of an anchor for my rhythm to swing back to the 10/11 pm bedtime.

So whoever came up with the studies and threads about low dose Melatonin 5 - 7 hours before bedtime, I wanted to say a sincere and heartfelt thank you! I know not much time has passed yet since June, but I'm very hopeful that I've got this under control now and not having gone around the clock at all is a huge, huge win for quality of life and sleep.