Hip
Senior Member
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After many years of suffering sleep cycle inversion (where you are wide awake all night, and then end up sleeping most of the day), I finally found a very simple technique to fix my circadian sleep cycle inversion problem.
At night I would always find myself very "wired" and wide awake, and because of this, I would get involved in various activities (such as doing online reading/research, and writing on web forums), rather than naturally gravitating towards bed with a healthy tiredness.
As the weeks progressed, I would invariably find myself going to bed later and later each day, until ultimately I would be hitting the sack after sunrise, at 7, 8 or 9 am or even later. Many ME/CFS patients will be familiar with this pattern.
I felt that the main cause of my sleep cycle inversion seemed to be this abnormal condition of feeling totally "wired" and wide awake late at night, so that going to sleep is not really possible, or very difficult.
Such circadian rhythm abnormalities are common in ME/CFS, and in fact the ME/CFS symptom of "sleeping most of the day and being awake most of the night" is specifically included in the International Consensus Criteria (ICC) definition of ME/CFS.
Anyway, I have managed to completely fix my abnormal, inverted sleep cycle and circadian rhythm, by the method detailed as follows.
The Technique I Used To Fix My Sleep Cycle Inversion:
For a long time now I have always taken 5 mg of sublingual melatonin as I get into bed, otherwise even when I am tired after a whole night of being awake, it would still take me up to 2 hours of lying in bed to actually get to sleep. But if I take sublingual melatonin as I get into bed, I can be asleep within about 20 or 30 minutes.
So then recently I had an idea: what if I take this melatonin not as I get into bed, but while I am still wide awake and at my desk, working on the computer? In order to do this, I set up a simple daily alarm clock reminder on my computer, to alert me to take the melatonin at the appropriate time. I set this alarm clock to throw up a reminder on my computer screen at 1:20 am every day (my poor memory and brain fog are such that I would forget to take the melatonin if I did not have this daily on-screen reminder).
So then each day at 1:20 am, I began taking 5 mg of sublingual melatonin while still wide awake.
What I found was that by around 2:00 am, I actually started to get tired while working at my desk, due to the melatonin kicking in, and would naturally feel that I wanted to go to bed. The melatonin seemed to calm down and "unwire" my brain, so that I then felt like I wanted to go to sleep, rather than continue working. And when I hit my bed at around 2:00 am, I found I would be asleep within 15 minutes, because the melatonin was already circulating through my body at that stage.
I know melatonin does not work for many people, so this technique may only be applicable to those who find melatonin generally beneficial in terms of bringing on sleep. If you find melatonin does help you sleep, you may want to try setting up and alarm clock to remind you to take it while you are still active, "wired" and wide awake. This may help you to resynchronize your sleep-wake cycle back to normal.
If melatonin does not help you sleep, but you regularly use some other medication for insomnia, you might want to set up an alarm clock reminder to take that medication while you are still wide awake.
This simple technique works very well for me, and has been doing so since I started it 4 months ago. In fact, over these last 4 months, I have been able to keep my sleep-wake cycle synchronized to the normal day and night pattern that healthy people enjoy. This has been the only period in many, many years that I have been able to achieve this.
By the way, the "sublingual melatonin" I take is just a standard 5 mg tablet of melatonin which I crush into powder by biting and nibbling the tablet with my front teeth, and then I massage this power into the mucous membranes under my tongue using my forefinger. This works very well, as sublingual melatonin starts acting faster compared to when you swallow the tablet orally. I find 5 mg of melatonin the best dose for me, though some people do better on a lower doses such as 1 mg to 3 mg.
Setting Up A Simple Alarm Clock On Your Computer:
In terms of setting up an alarm clock on your computer, I used the Mac's built-in Calendar app to throw up a reminder on my screen at 1:20 am every day. Alternatively the Mac's Reminders app can also be used.
But if you want to download some really basic and simple alarm clock software to use for this purpose, you can consider this free simple alarm clock for Mac, or this free simple alarm clock for Windows PC.
I also use the free f.lux (available for Mac, iPad, Windows PC) to automatically dim the stimulating blue light on my computer screen an hour or two before my bedtime (although when used just on its own, I found f.lux was not effective).
At night I would always find myself very "wired" and wide awake, and because of this, I would get involved in various activities (such as doing online reading/research, and writing on web forums), rather than naturally gravitating towards bed with a healthy tiredness.
As the weeks progressed, I would invariably find myself going to bed later and later each day, until ultimately I would be hitting the sack after sunrise, at 7, 8 or 9 am or even later. Many ME/CFS patients will be familiar with this pattern.
I felt that the main cause of my sleep cycle inversion seemed to be this abnormal condition of feeling totally "wired" and wide awake late at night, so that going to sleep is not really possible, or very difficult.
Such circadian rhythm abnormalities are common in ME/CFS, and in fact the ME/CFS symptom of "sleeping most of the day and being awake most of the night" is specifically included in the International Consensus Criteria (ICC) definition of ME/CFS.
Anyway, I have managed to completely fix my abnormal, inverted sleep cycle and circadian rhythm, by the method detailed as follows.
The Technique I Used To Fix My Sleep Cycle Inversion:
For a long time now I have always taken 5 mg of sublingual melatonin as I get into bed, otherwise even when I am tired after a whole night of being awake, it would still take me up to 2 hours of lying in bed to actually get to sleep. But if I take sublingual melatonin as I get into bed, I can be asleep within about 20 or 30 minutes.
So then recently I had an idea: what if I take this melatonin not as I get into bed, but while I am still wide awake and at my desk, working on the computer? In order to do this, I set up a simple daily alarm clock reminder on my computer, to alert me to take the melatonin at the appropriate time. I set this alarm clock to throw up a reminder on my computer screen at 1:20 am every day (my poor memory and brain fog are such that I would forget to take the melatonin if I did not have this daily on-screen reminder).
So then each day at 1:20 am, I began taking 5 mg of sublingual melatonin while still wide awake.
What I found was that by around 2:00 am, I actually started to get tired while working at my desk, due to the melatonin kicking in, and would naturally feel that I wanted to go to bed. The melatonin seemed to calm down and "unwire" my brain, so that I then felt like I wanted to go to sleep, rather than continue working. And when I hit my bed at around 2:00 am, I found I would be asleep within 15 minutes, because the melatonin was already circulating through my body at that stage.
I know melatonin does not work for many people, so this technique may only be applicable to those who find melatonin generally beneficial in terms of bringing on sleep. If you find melatonin does help you sleep, you may want to try setting up and alarm clock to remind you to take it while you are still active, "wired" and wide awake. This may help you to resynchronize your sleep-wake cycle back to normal.
If melatonin does not help you sleep, but you regularly use some other medication for insomnia, you might want to set up an alarm clock reminder to take that medication while you are still wide awake.
This simple technique works very well for me, and has been doing so since I started it 4 months ago. In fact, over these last 4 months, I have been able to keep my sleep-wake cycle synchronized to the normal day and night pattern that healthy people enjoy. This has been the only period in many, many years that I have been able to achieve this.
By the way, the "sublingual melatonin" I take is just a standard 5 mg tablet of melatonin which I crush into powder by biting and nibbling the tablet with my front teeth, and then I massage this power into the mucous membranes under my tongue using my forefinger. This works very well, as sublingual melatonin starts acting faster compared to when you swallow the tablet orally. I find 5 mg of melatonin the best dose for me, though some people do better on a lower doses such as 1 mg to 3 mg.
Setting Up A Simple Alarm Clock On Your Computer:
In terms of setting up an alarm clock on your computer, I used the Mac's built-in Calendar app to throw up a reminder on my screen at 1:20 am every day. Alternatively the Mac's Reminders app can also be used.
But if you want to download some really basic and simple alarm clock software to use for this purpose, you can consider this free simple alarm clock for Mac, or this free simple alarm clock for Windows PC.
I also use the free f.lux (available for Mac, iPad, Windows PC) to automatically dim the stimulating blue light on my computer screen an hour or two before my bedtime (although when used just on its own, I found f.lux was not effective).
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