Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with circadianrhythms

HALP I DOES NOT SPARKLE

sister nunchaku of love and mercy — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 14:56:29 -0800

My sleep schedule's gotten majorly out of whack. I want to be awake when the rest of the world is. Help me reset my body clock? I quit my awful job in January, and for a while my sleep schedule was fairly normal, but it's gradually shifted. I could deal with staying up till 2 a.m. and getting up at 10 (I need 8 hours of sleep), but lately it's more like falling asleep at 4 a.m. (or later) and waking at noon (or later).

I also don't always stay asleep. If I get up before I sleep the requisite 8 hours, I usually wind up napping in the afternoon or early evening. I can wind up sleeping 9 or 10 hours a day like this.

This morning I woke at 8 a.m. after falling asleep at 4 a.m. After an hour or so I went back to sleep, and then woke at 3:15 p.m. Phone had been on silent; there were numerous texts and messages from my boyfriend and other friends, wondering what was up with me.

The best schedule for me would be to sleep by 1 and wake up by 9. Yeah, that sounds nice . . . any ideas how to achieve that? I'm not going to be employed soon, so I have time to make it happen in a non-rude way.

Footnote: I'm going the the doctor tomorrow and get my thyroid checked, just to rule that out as a cause of sleep issues.

Thanks, everybody.

Insomnia

Hands of Manos — Mon, 03 Jan 2005 05:37:39 -0800

My sleep schedule is off. Last night will make about a week's worth of me laying awake in bed for hours and hours. I don't consume a lot of caffine, I hate going to doctors, I'm not fond of taking "sleep medicine" and I don't want to get addicted to slurping down a nightcap before bed. Is there any natural remedies to cure this (herbs, foods, music, etc?)

Should I turn off the light in my aquarium overnight?

crawl — Tue, 27 Jan 2004 08:19:40 -0800

Should I turn off the light in my aquarium overnight so my fish can "sleep"? Or is that just stupid? My theory here is that in the ocean, the sun goes down at night so it should be natural for fish to be in the dark a certain amount of time each day. I tried to search on Google, but couldn't find the right combination of search terms.