Nocturnal

[MischievousMira]

I'm a 22 year old female CF. I've been nocturnal since I was baby.I've been doing some research, and though the nocturnal thing is normal for CF, There's also a link between intelligence and nocturnalness. And there's a link between intelligence and CF.
Point is i've been monitoring my sleep habits since I turned 13, and got teased about sleeping in class. So i cut all my caffeine, turned off all appliances, practically froze my room, went to bed at eight, and woke up six hours later.
This went on for a year, i'd repeat the test for three weeks, and then if it still didn't work i'd alter one of the componants. Making the room warm, filling up on food before i went to bed, running myself ragged before bedtime, something. Nothing ever worked.
I'm still expierimenting, and what i'm finding is that i cannot alter my sleeping habits. They've gotten worse too! Now i sleep for four hours twice a day as a by-product of trying to be awake during the day. Even if i switch back to nocturnal now, i can only sleep for four hours, but it's not draining or exhausting, i wake refreshed and ready to conquer. when i wake up I have to be up for at least an hour before i can go back to sleep again, and eating helps. But i can go ten hours before i have to sleep again.
If i sleep too long or to often, i ache all over, and i have headaches, i'm cranky. This also happens if i sleep at night. My schedule is something like from 8am-12pm is sleepy time, and then from 5pm-9pm or 7pm-11pm (depending on how long i stay up) is also sleepy time.
When i'm awake during the day I feel like a zombie, like my brain's still hibernating, i don't eat very much, even if my phone reminds me to make food, I end up eating a piece of a bannana, or a spoonful of peanut butter, or at the very most a potato, i just am not hungry. I can't function or focus on anything, i'm more prone to accidents, it just feels like i haven't woken up, even if i get up and excersize right away, or eat.
Anybody else have this problem? Do you manage it? Have you altered your nocturnalness? How?

 

[jbrandyn]

I Have the same problem and I have thought about it alot and the reasons I have come up for it are;
1) that it is easier to breath at night because it is cooler (I noticed that I am also am way more energetic in the winter).
2)stress is a big factor in sleep disorders and chronic illness is a huge contributing factor to stress.
3) magnesium and calcium are both linked to sleep and magnesium is one of the things CFers have a hard time with since it is a salt related mineral.
4) normal sleep patterns often do not emerge until the brain is fully developed which is not until age 25ish.
5) (I noticed you are 22) Our generation is faced with huge changes in social structure from the internet which will undoubtedly have an effect on our sleep patterns because stimulus is now more available 24/7 than it has ever been in the past and we are still working out how to deal with this stimulation that keeps us, especially younger people up at night.
finally there is the fact that some people are night owls therefore some people with CF will be night owls.

This post probably proves that I too am up way to late and have had far too much time to think about my inability to sleep. If only legaljuana was merilized, then sleep would be a brownie away... lol

My advice to help it is to get a day job, when I was working before I couldn't anymore I slept really well.

 

[robert321]

well its nearly 3 in the morning and I'm just now getting ready for bed so I suppose I count as nocturnal. My sleeping habits are all over the place. If I don't set an alarm I'll sleep 10 to 12 hours before getting up. If I let myself I'll stay up later and later every night getting up later and later the next day until I'm going to bed around 6 and getting up in the middle of the afternoon just to do it again tomorrow. I can run about 36 hours straight before I'm really starting to feel tired then take a 2 hour nap and go for another 8 hours or so before finally going to bed.
I can force myself back onto a normal sleeping schedule, and I typically feel better when I sleep for 7 or 8 hours during normal sleeping hours but its hard to keep that schedule especially since my job allows me to work whenever I want as long as it all gets done. For me to force myself back to a normal sleeping schedule I typically will either not go to bed until the next night at a reasonable time or take a benadryl at about 9 so I might be able to sleep by 11 or midnight.
I've also found that if my sleeping habits get very out of whack I'm either having trouble with blood sugars, losing weight, pfts are down, I'm a little aniemic, or a combination of these. When I can get everything nailed down healthwise I sleep much better. After a tuneup (typically sleeping during tuneup turns into a series of naps throughout the day when no one is bothering me, I do stuff at night in the hospital, its the only time I might have more than 2 hours without being bothered) I usually come home and fall into something close to an ideal sleep schedule for a little while and will wake up ready for the day without an alarm after about 7 hours.
I know these aren't the same problems as what you are experiencing, but you are not alone in abnormal sleeping. Something else I do is sleep really hard. If I get woken up briefly during the night I usually don't remember it tomorrow if someone mentions it. I sleep through things that wake most other people up, and I'm certainly no morning person. Once during the night an ambulance was called to a neighbors house and a fire truck always comes with it in my town. The next morning the other neighbors were talking about it waking them up with the sirens and lights but I slept through it, and my bedroom window faces the street.

 

[Havoc]

Yeah I'm a night person, but I've been trying very hard to adapt to normal people's schedule.

 

[reginadpruitt]

Have you ever been evaluated by a psychiatrist for bipolar disorder?

 

[mwinston87]

i go to bed between 1 and 2 am and dont wake up until noon or later. i cant really function (aka tired, grumpy, sluggish, unmotivated) without at least twelve hours of sleep. ive tried to go to bed earlier but have never been able to do it so i just go with what my body is telling me i need

 

[JustDucky]

When I was still working as a nurse, I found that the evening (3-11) was best for me, I am by no means a morning person and once done with my shift, I would stay up until about 3ish and then finally fall asleep, waking up around 10 or so. I have a similar sleeping schedule now, but with more naps laced throughout the day as I tire very easily. I only get about 4hrs of sleep at a time in, it's been a long time since I slept a solid 8 hrs. I have worked the night shift in the past (11p-7a) and it was terrible on my body, so I guess I am not a true nocturnal person, just part of the time lol.

Jenn 40 wCF

 

[Havoc]

<div class="FTQUOTE"><begin quote><i>Originally posted by: <b>reginadpruitt</b></i> Have you ever been evaluated by a psychiatrist for bipolar disorder?</end quote>
Yes, and he said that bipolar is a bit of a fad these days (much like ADHD was a decade ago). Given that there are 4 levels of Bipolar disorder, it's very easy to make symptoms fit, especially as you get down to some of the more vague versions like cyclothymia.
After my evaluation, my sleep doc (who is one of the top sleep specialists in the country) has diagnosed me with primary insomnia/delayed circadian rhythm. I have been using a combination of melatonin, light therapy and benzodiazepine medication for 12 years or so. It helps, but certainly isn't a cure. In a perfect world, I would go to bed at 3 or 4 and sleep until 10 or 11. I was able to do that for years as a paramedic working evening and night shifts. Now that my career is morphing, I have had to adapt to a normal schedule and that has meant more in the way of BZ medication.

 

[Madsmith]

After spending 10 years trying to adjust to a normal schedule, I did some research found out about "delayed sleep onset disorder" or "delayed sleep phase disorder." It's a real thing, and is not so easy to shake. There are all kinds of suggestions about how to help this, and many say something like "go to bed 10 minutes earlier each night." Well, this doesn't help at all. However, you might try chronotherapy, which a more sophisticated way of altering your circadian rhythms. For detailed instructions, see: http://tess45.hubpages.com/hub/Case-Study-Chronotherapy-for-Delayed-Sleep-Phase-Syndrome

Melatonin also works fairly well for me too.

 

[lilmac7]

If I have something to do then yes I can be up at night late but if I get bored like am forced to watch some junk on TV that my GF wants to watch then sorry it's lights out for me and I'll easily be out till late in the morning. Heck even in the day if I'm bored enough I'll be gone, so nocturnal I don't think to but just overall tired from CF and everything else - maybe so. And I'll also make note I sleep like a rock, I have a full time job and usually the weekends or Sunday mean crash as much as possible.

 

[Noobie1]

If you take something to force a sleep cycle / bed time, do you find yourself getting a queezy stomach the next day?