[soyadude]

Hi, i'm a 26 year old. It's 4am at the time i'm writing this post. For the second time this week, i've tried sleeping early

Yesterday: slept at 10pm, woke up at close to 4am
Today: slept at 9pm, woke up at close to 3am

When I woke up yesterday, I did not bother to go back to sleep, as I could tell from my history of trying, it would not be successful. As I drove to work at around 9am that day I felt extremely drowsy. I could barely keep my eyes open. The feeling was less pronounced after I reached the office and got out of the car. For the rest of the day, I could not think clearly and my memory was particularly bad. When I got home from work that day, I was extremely sleepy and slept til one hour ago.

I have a usual sleep cycle of 3am til 10am, and this has been the case for the past year and a half. The sleep cycle has varied fairly and I have regularly slept at 4am or 5am to wake up later. I am fortunate to now have a job with more flexible working hours but occasionally I have to go in early for certain meetings which was the case for yesterday. I have a history of shift work and I struggled with the early ones I had to do.

I have been a "night owl" for most of my life and I still recall my high school days and the daily yelling from my dad from having to wake me up at 6am which was difficult for me. I do feel much more alert and creative at night than during the day.

I now live with the knowledge that I simply cannot sleep anytime earlier than 11am or risk waking up in the early hours of the morning. I had gone on to think there is something supernatural that's causing me to suffer this until I decided to look up sleeping disorders.

Do I have DSPS? If so, I will have to try seeking treatment. For now, I have to try going back to sleep.

[RIGGS]

I would say from what you have shared that you do have a Circadian rhythm disorder but not necessarily DSPS you may want to try to reset your circadian clock which usually involves taking a few days or longer off of your job you can find many resources for this. it's a long and involved process but if you stick to it and it works you most likely do not have DSPS as I've yet to hear of anyone that has been diagnosed with DSPS curing it simply by resetting their clock.

[Dione]

That sounds a bit different from what I get, and I'm convinced I have DSPS. What happens with me is that my sleep rhythms are just fine, so long as I sleep from, say, 2-4am, and wake 10-11.30am. If I try sleeping early, I can't, no matter how tired I am (the exception to this is if I've had no sleep at all the previous night, then I can get to sleep earl(ier).... My early is from midnight to 2am.
If I do get to sleep earlier in a case like this, then I get the full eight hours ok. It's the next night that it all starts up again (the 4am thing) It definitely feels like my sleep is ok, but my 'clock' is just twisted round.