Hi there,
I've always been a night owl but since I got worse with CFS my circadian rythm is shifting a lot (feeling awful during the day and better at night). I am currently going to bed between 4 and 6 am, then sleep for 3 hours, lying awake another 2-3 hours before getting tired again and then sleep in til 2 or 3 pm.
I know its not healthy but every time I tried to shift my rythm (melatonine, light therapy sleep compression) I collapsed badly and needed weeks/months to recover. I never fully recovered from my last try under the supervision of an experienced (but stupid) sleep therapist.
I pressured myself a lot bc the sleep therapist told me I was damaging my internal clock to the point there's no way back so I have to force myself out of bed at a normal time. So thats still in my mind and I feel very uncormortable with my sleep rythm.
On the other hand I am so sleep deprived and loss of sleep is my main cfs crash trigger so I dont feel I am in the position to work on a more healthy sleep cycle right now.
Sounds familiar?How do you handle it? Just sleep when you can sleep, taking of the pressure? I just read in the canadian consense document that a shiften sleep wake cycle seems to be typical for CFS?
I am a bit worried that I wont catch any daylight when it comes to wintertime.....
Thanks for reading!
I've always been a night owl but since I got worse with CFS my circadian rythm is shifting a lot (feeling awful during the day and better at night). I am currently going to bed between 4 and 6 am, then sleep for 3 hours, lying awake another 2-3 hours before getting tired again and then sleep in til 2 or 3 pm.
I know its not healthy but every time I tried to shift my rythm (melatonine, light therapy sleep compression) I collapsed badly and needed weeks/months to recover. I never fully recovered from my last try under the supervision of an experienced (but stupid) sleep therapist.
I pressured myself a lot bc the sleep therapist told me I was damaging my internal clock to the point there's no way back so I have to force myself out of bed at a normal time. So thats still in my mind and I feel very uncormortable with my sleep rythm.
On the other hand I am so sleep deprived and loss of sleep is my main cfs crash trigger so I dont feel I am in the position to work on a more healthy sleep cycle right now.
Sounds familiar?How do you handle it? Just sleep when you can sleep, taking of the pressure? I just read in the canadian consense document that a shiften sleep wake cycle seems to be typical for CFS?
I am a bit worried that I wont catch any daylight when it comes to wintertime.....
Thanks for reading!