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Getting Up 10 Minutes Earlier Each Day...An Experiment

by Sylvie
(UK)

I definitely am always struggling with DSPS. It started when I was in my early teens, for no apparent reason--and then seemed to go away for years and years, but came back during the menopause, and I still have it now.

I try sleep deprivation sometimes for a whole night and a day. It works a treat--but usually only for a day or so, then I slip back to default again.

Because of my life demands I can't do that thing where you wake up 3 hours LATER each day till you work round the clock and start to fall asleep at a decent time. It's impossible.

I am wondering though about an experiment where you set the alarm in the morning just 10 minutes earlier than your normal waking time (so say if you wake normally at 11am, set the alarm on Monday morning for 10.50, and on Tuesday for 10.40, and Wednesday for 10.30 etc. And try to sleep that same 10 minutes earlier at night. So if you usually go to sleep at 3am, try to get in bed by 2.45, then the next night, by 2.35, and so on. I started trying that and it was working really well. I thought "hey if this carries on so smoothly I'll get this licked" (because 10 minutes each day wasn't enough to make the body clock start rebelling!)

However it suddenly stopped working for me because something happened where I couldn't sleep till late one night and the whole thing all defaulted again.

But I will give it another shot soon I think.

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