Night Time = My Time

by Dan S
(Ireland)

So happy i found such an interesting site on this topic...not really sure if i have DSPS. I find that night time is the best time for me to do anything, i can easily spend the whole night doing assignments or even reading a random book. But the day time i find hard to get through, getting up for college is so hard..i have one alarm to wake me up and another to get me up! Even in college, i seem to find it hard to focus on the class because all my focus goes on not falling asleep...and its not the classes, cos i love them, i just seem to dose off at inappropriate times!

I seem to come alive after midnight, and even if my eyes are a dead weight i cant sleep until 3/4am! I make most of my life decisions, plans for the next day, etc at night when im in bed wide awake. It has gotten to the stage that i have to have the TV or laptop on because lying there wide awake doing nothing was driving me mad!! I love taking walks at obscene times..going for a stroll at 2am is so amazing (as weird as that sounds). Even after a night out, im on a constant high that i want to stay out all night just doing nothing, and i dont drink or anything so cant blame the alcohol for that!

At the weekends i have free reign, i can easily stay up til 5/6 and wake up at midday, refreshed like a normal nights sleep. Though i am usually woken up and have, somehow, slept through the loudest noises that wake everyone. For example, one night i went to sleep at 3 and was woken up by my mother because the next door neighbours chimney was on fire...my room is in the attic i sleep next to the chimney and didnt even hear the firemen literally above my head or hear the noise in the chimney! Would have slept through it, if i wasnt woken.

Staying up this late has become so easy, i didnt even think it could be anything like DSPS.

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Kevin: Hey Dan, it's definitely a delayed sleep phase. But all that means is that the chemicals your body uses to keep you alert are being released at night while the hormones that put you to sleep are being released in the day. So your biological clock is just shifted in a way that makes the night a time to be alert and alive and the day a time to sleep (or in your case, sometimes a time to struggle to stay awake during class and the like).

I hope the site serves as a helpful tool to you. Let me know if you have any questions. Feel free to post them in the comments section using the link below.

Warmly,
Kevin