Resetting the Biological clock for sleep

[GenMarshall]

After pulling all nighters in college to finish papers for classes (some are last minute). Now that I have finished college, I noticed that my sleep cycle is messed up. I am wondering if there are ways to restore my normal post-college sleep cycle?

 

[Japanrocks12]

don't use any kind of sleeping pill stuff. instead, continue with whatever sleep cycle you're used to right now and it should sort itself out in due time

 

[brennan]

Sunlight. Get yourself up and GO OUT during 'normal' hours.

Congrats for finishing btw.

 

[Masquerouge]

Either go the hard way, meaning skip one night of sleep and then hold on until your desired sleep time, or do it gradually by forcing yourself to wake up at the appropriate time.

 

[Cuivienen]

Set an alarm clock to go off around 8 am no matter what time you went to bed beforehand. Get up and stand in the bright sunlight for at least 15 minutes. Bright blue light can replace sunlight if you absolutely can't get outside for some weird reason. That should fix your internal clock.

 

[Grey Fox]

Nah, it's better to stay up till like 8-10 PM the next day, go to bed, sleep till the desired wakeup time, and then go to bed at the desired nighttime you want your cycle at.

If you can't do this in one day, do it by steps of 1-3 hours till you've moved the cycle, probably less straining on your body as well.


My problem is that my awake time isn't 16 hours, and my sleep time isn't 8 hours. More like 20-22 awake and 10-12+ sleep.

 

[Abaddon]

As peopel have said, do an all nighter, you can make it the next day, but will chrash out and have a brilliant night sleep the next day.


Beware staying up longer.. things start to get wierd.. due to a new job and house moving.. i once stayed up from 6am....to 11pm THE NEXT DAY (38hrs?).. being busy all the time.. and things got very.. floaty.

 

[Masquerouge]

Beware staying up longer.. things start to get wierd.. due to a new job and house moving.. i once stayed up from 6am....to 11pm THE NEXT DAY (38hrs?).. being busy all the time.. and things got very.. floaty.

yeah same here, and my wake-up stretch included a flight across the Atlantic

 

[Abaddon]

Well i got up... drove across the city 3 times, went to work -1hr drive(sales, walking, door knocking) 1hr drive back. continued to moved house through the night til about 6am, drove to manchester 3hrs... arrived at gfs.. last thing she wanted was sleep.. death..

 

[The Yankee]

Just do something during the day. Clean, rearrange things you have to do, go out and walk some miles. I've learned that it's a lot easier for me to be up 20 hours if I've spent the day not moving all that much.

 

[Harbringer]

Dont stay up for to long, you start seeing shadows constantly out of the corners of your eyes and you get the chills, it feels kinda like your trippin on acid if you stay up for two or three days in a row.

 

[DNK]

Exercise! I'm too lazy to do it personally, but it helps a lot.

Don't drink caffeine. Terrible habit, and it messes my schedule up to no end. It's different for everyone, but if you're downing coffee/coke every day, you might want to look into it.

The good old , cough cough, there you go always puts me out like a light. Probably don't need sleep problems to get you motivated to do that, though (takes care of the exercise thing, too). As they say, "just do it".

 

[Fifty]

Don't do it with pills! I tried that and ended up taking caffeine to stay awake and sleeping pills to fall asleep for over a month!

 

[ParkCungHee]

After pulling all nighters in college to finish papers for classes (some are last minute). Now that I have finished college, I noticed that my sleep cycle is messed up. I am wondering if there are ways to restore my normal post-college sleep cycle?

As someone who is going through the same thing: No. Never.

 

[woody60707]

I just got done with this very same thing. (I still have 5 redbull cans on my computer desk.)

But my body is used to taking little naps throughout the day and only sleeping like 3 or 4 hrs a night. But I would say do what everyone else says. and just crash the next night.

 

[Kan' Sharuminar]

Start getting up early each day, regardless of how tired you are. I normally go to bed very late, but when I had to get up at 7am each day for my last job, it quickly sorted me out. The first week was nasty, though.

Nowadays I don't have that job, but still go to bed late and wake up early. I usually have a nap in the afternoon to recharge myself

 

[Quintillus]

yeah same here, and my wake-up stretch included a flight across the Atlantic

Hey, I did the same thing! Woke up at 6 AM U.S. Eastern, went to bed after midnight London time two calendar days later (37 hours). The second evening I went to a play on the West End and nearly fell asleep several times.

But the stay-up-all-day idea probably is the best. Even though I only got 6 hours sleep that night in London, I still felt pretty energetic the next day compared to what I had been. Within a day or two you ought to be feeling just fine if you do that.

The 1-3 hours later thing would be less tiresome, but then you'd be going to sleep at 10 AM, then noon, then 2 PM, and it'd be even stranger for a few days.

And exercise is a great help. Sleeping is much easier when your whole body is tired.

My sleep schedule is all messed up, too. I'm going to have to be doing one of these before too long.

 

[Leifmk]

Heh, I messed up my sleep cycle quite a few times in college (most notably during the final thesis-writing and the subsequent month or three of having absolutely nothing useful to do).

I always found it much easier to "push through" by extending my uptime, than to cut it short. It might take a few days but eventually I'd get to where I was becoming tired around "normal" bedtime; at that point it was merely a matter of forcing myself to get up in the morning, and my cycle would be normalized from there.

 

[GoodGame]

I second avoiding the chemical sleeping pills. There is one natural hormone pill (can be bought at a nutrition shop for like $5) that doubles as a good anti-oxidant. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melatonin

I don't think there is a perfect on/off pill, but rather it's better to religiously keep a specific sleep cycle, as changing it frequently is the main problem.
Other problems are not getting enough regular exercise, and taking stimulants late in the day (past 3pm). If you take coffee, caffeine, 'Rock Star' / 'Red Bull' type drinks, ginseng, ephedra, etc... stop by about the half-day point, or even consider not taking them for a few days, if you have a persistent sleeplessness.

If I stay up too late, best to go to bed for awhile, and then force myself up at about the normal wake-up time, take it easy that day, and maybe drink some coffee. Then go to bed early, at least before I start feeling sick. Usually works for me though, it'll take 3 or 4 days more of a normal sleep routine, before I feel totally normal.

After pulling all nighters in college to finish papers for classes (some are last minute). Now that I have finished college, I noticed that my sleep cycle is messed up. I am wondering if there are ways to restore my normal post-college sleep cycle?

 

[JollyRoger]

To restore a normal sleep cycle, you should cut down on whatever you were doing to mess up your sleep cycle when in college. Cut back on all those wine, women, and song (more modernly phrased as sex, drugs, and rock-n-roll) habits that you acquired in college and things should normalize.