How can I get my sleep back in sync?

Try treating your "screwey" sleep schedule like Jet-lag.

I'm constantly facing jet-lag in my day to day life. Don't mistake this, I'm not some jet-setting playboy, but losing three hours here and two hours there (sometimes twelve if the boss really "likes" me) really takes its toll on sleeping schedule. The only way I've been able to combat this is through a forced schedule.

Now, in the case of a plane ride you have to take into consideration if you're gaining time or losing time. This dictates whether to sleep during the trip or to stay awake. Considering you don't need to hop on a plane, I'll spare you that detail.

Once on the ground, I take account of the time. If it's 8am and I just ate dinner on the plane. The best solution here: force a breakfast. NOthing hearty, but a muffin or a piece of fruit. This puts me on track for the rest of the day. Likewise, if lunch was at twelve o'clock when I left, but it's now approaching ten o'clock when I land, I'm going to have to skip a meal, and lay down in bed to get ready to force a schedule.

You may be saying: "I don't care about food, I want to fix my sleeping habits." I'm getting to that." Your body works on an internal clock, it understands when you need to be active and when to go into it's more natural state of sleep. forcing your schedule will reset this clock, it'll feel awful for the first day or two, but it will reset quickly and you'll feel no side effects.

Here's an example. I once made a flight into Liverpool from Toronto. as many of you know, england is about five hours ahead. Now, when I left it was about 6 in the evening on a Tuesday. by the time I arrived it was 7 in the morning the next day. I stayed awake the entire flight doing work (I had no choice). When I arrived, I just wanted to collapse, so I did. The next three days were hell.

The next year, I had the same flight, again same scenario and time (roughly). Now even though I was dead tired, I forced myself to stay awake and take in a few sights. I didn't get to bed until about 9:30 in the evening. I know, not incredibly late, but even though the first day was hell, I felt better the rest of the trip.

I have kept to this regiment ever since with similar schedules and with fantastic results.

So, force your schedule. When it's 4:00 in the afternoon, instead going to sleep cause you're tired go out and do some shopping. If it's 8:00 am, and you still feel tired start setting multiple alarms or put your clock across the room so you're forced to get up to turn off the alarm and wake yourself up (I use hotel alarm clocks, set my phone on alarm and have the front desk give me a wake up call).

You may feel like crap for a day or two, but your clock will reset.

Two things about sleep I have discovered for myself, mainly as a result of being in the Navy and going to sea on a submarine. On a sub, the "day" is 18 hours long, with watch times being 6 hours, the maximum allowed by the rules. Since you are essentially in a can with no way to see when the day starts or ends, the day is simply defined by the time on the clock, with white lights on in the engineering spaces 24 hours a day. It is NEVER nighttime in an engineroom. Most surface ships use a 4 hour watch time since they DO have a daily reference of light and dark. Being "on watch" means running the ship, or in the case of a sub, the "boat". All subs are traditionally referred to as boats, not ships, even though they fit the definition of what a ship is. Anyway, it takes about a week to get into sync with the 18 hour day, and upon return to port, another week to get back into the regular 24 hour cycle of most people. You can adjust your sleep to whatever you want. All it takes is setting the clock and waking when you want and then when it comes time to sleep, concentrating on going to sleep. You really CAN "will" yourself to sleep if you concentrate on doing so. The thing is, you are fighting your "biological" clock which has an inherited knowledge of about how long the day is, clost to 24 hours. Sleep studies have concluded most people have a free running biological clock that in the absence of things like seeing sunrise or sunset, floats at about 24 hours. Some people, like me for example, have a longer natural clock. For me, I tend to about a 36 hour day (2 of the 18 hour days while at sea). I stayed awake for 1 watch, 12 hours off watch, another 6 hours on watch, and then slept for 10-12 hours and I was perfectly comfortable doing this 36 hour cycle. Others had a problem adjusting to the shorter day at sea.

I always get this problem, but that's because I allow it to happen.

Two tricks!:

1) Go to sleep one hour earlier each night, force yourself to. Sometimes this doesn't work because you won't fall asleep. I suggest going with #2.

2) Pick a day during which you won't have any big obligations (going to work, driving around, etc.) and just make yourself stay up the entire day. It won't be comfortable, but it really works. Then go to sleep at a normal time after that night of missing sleep, and you should be fine. It always works for me.

Try taking Melatonin supplements around the time you'd like to go to bed. They help stimulate the production of melatonin in your brain, which helps you sleep. I take those and they help me go to bed at a decent time instead of stayin up til 4am every morning.

You can get them for a decent price at Wal-Mart.

try caffeine in the morning and some at lunch if you need...dont have any after 3 or 4

tell ur doctor. he can prescribe something. they also have over-the-counter stuff at ur local drugstore (i sound like an add). my friend had this problem, and so she tried some medicine and over time, she has gotten better. she is still working on it so it might take a while.

i heard light exposure is good for getting your sleep patterns back to normal, so get outside!