Skip to main content

Working on my sleep problems

I stay up very late and sleep very late every day, and I get thrown off course by this. The scientific term for this is Delayed Sleep Phase Syndrome. It's caused by the Pineal gland and the circadian rhythm being out of sync with the sun. This happens to me especially in the summer, and so I want to work on this a little before school starts, so I'm already on a good schedule.

One suggestion that I've heard before is to get light first thing in the day. I have gotten away from that, but I have a special blue light I can use for that, and I've started to use it again when I first wake. It helps me wake up, as does looking at the computer screen. Getting out and into the sun is great of course, but especially in the fall and winter if you wake up early and go outside there's no sun to greet you, so the light comes in handy. So light helps cause wakefulness, especially blue, white and green light. The navy has found that very dim green lights in submarines increase wakefulness among submariners. After I read this I realized I have a glowing green alarm clock and wondered if this had any effect.

The sun, TV, Computer screen are all blue light and trigger wakefulness, so I may make it worse by surfing the net all night. It seems as if light at night, especially blue, white or green light make it harder for the body to produce melatonin, which causes sleepiness. Artificial light is unnatural and may disrupt sleep patterns in susceptible people.

One of the suggestions I read was to make your bedroom as dark as possible when you sleep. So I got curtains for my bedroom door and window, and put the AC in my bedroom instead so it would be cooler in the bedroom at night, and also since I'm blocking my bedroom off from the dining room at night with the curtain.

I also read a blog entry by a lady who had an interesting idea. She decided to use only candlelight for a few hours before bed. This is because red light may cause sleepiness. Red light apparently has the opposite effect of blue/green/white light. I know that red light doesn't affect night vision, so I wonder if it actually makes you sleepy or just doesn't have the bad effects that blue/green/white light does. I'm going to try this, and sit in my bedroom with candlelight an hour before I go to bed.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Insulin Resistance- cause of ADD, diabetes, narcolepsy, etc etc

Insulin Resistance Insulin Resistance Have you been diagnosed with clinical depression? Heart disease? Type II, or adult, diabetes? Narcolepsy? Are you, or do you think you might be, an alcoholic? Do you gain weight around your middle in spite of faithfully dieting? Are you unable to lose weight? Does your child have ADHD? If you have any one of these symptoms, I wrote this article for you. Believe it or not, the same thing can cause all of the above symptoms. I am not a medical professional. I am not a nutritionist. The conclusions I have drawn from my own experience and observations are not rocket science. A diagnosis of clinical depression is as ordinary as the common cold today. Prescriptions for Prozac, Zoloft, Wellbutrin, etc., are written every day. Genuine clinical depression is a very serious condition caused by serotonin levels in the brain. I am not certain, however, that every diagnosis of depression is the real thing. My guess is that about 10 percent of the people taking ...

Could Narcolepsy be caused by gluten? :: Kitchen Table Hypothesis

Kitchen Table Hypothesis from www.zombieinstitute.net - Heidi's new site It's commonly known that a severe allergy to peanuts can cause death within minutes. What if there were an allergy that were delayed for hours and caused people to fall asleep instead? That is what I believe is happening in people with Narcolepsy. Celiac disease is an allergy to gliadin, a specific gluten protein found in grains such as wheat, barley and rye. In celiac disease the IgA antigliadin antibody is produced after ingestion of gluten. It attacks the gluten, but also mistakenly binds to and creates an immune reaction in the cells of the small intestine causing severe damage. There is another form of gluten intolerance, Dermatitis Herpetiformis, in which the IgA antigliadin bind to proteins in the skin, causing blisters, itching and pain. This can occur without any signs of intestinal damage. Non-celiac gluten sensitivity is a similar autoimmune reaction to gliadin, however it usually involves the...

Blue-blocking Glasses To Improve Sleep And ADHD Symptoms Developed

Blue-blocking Glasses To Improve Sleep And ADHD Symptoms Developed Scientists at John Carroll University, working in its Lighting Innovations Institute, have developed an affordable accessory that appears to reduce the symptoms of ADHD. Their discovery also has also been shown to improve sleep patterns among people who have difficulty falling asleep. The John Carroll researchers have created glasses designed to block blue light, therefore altering a person's circadian rhythm, which leads to improvement in ADHD symptoms and sleep disorders. […] How the Glasses Work The individual puts on the glasses a couple of hours ahead of bedtime, advancing the circadian rhythm. The special glasses block the blue rays that cause a delay in the start of the flow of melatonin, the sleep hormone. Normally, melatonin flow doesn't begin until after the individual goes into darkness. Studies indicate that promoting the earlier release of melatonin results in a marked decline of ADHD symptoms. Bett...