I notice when I go to bed between 2-4am, I tend to sleep for around 10 hours. However, when I go to bed early like right now I am being able to fall asleep at 8-9pm, I tend to sleep for only 7 hours.
Does this happen to you as well?
I’m in my 30s. I have been able to wake up early in the morning recently, but the it has to be between 2-4:00 am. I’m the happiest when I am on this schedule because I can enjoy both night and early morning. I sort of hate afternoon.
The problem is I always go back to my usual schedule, falling asleep at 2-3 am and waking up around noon after a few weeks. It is a real struggle to get back to my preferred schedule after that and makes me scared of falling asleep even more. Skipping a night makes me tired but not sleepy.
At this point, I don’t anticipate to not revert back but rather to find a way that helps me return to my new routine easily when I slip back.
Only been 3 days and today I got up at 4:00 am again without an alarm clock (waking up without an alarm is the only way I feel more energetic during the day). Thank you guys for mentioning microdosing melatonin 🙏
This time I also have breakfast as soon as I wake up and shift my dinner time up by 2 hours each day until it goes back to my early schedule. I have noticed meal time has a huge impact on my sleep. I am so happy I don’t have to skip sleep again, but will see if this strategy works when I revert back next time.
All my life I have always woken up at noon if I didn’t have to go to school or work. Brought me a lot of shame around sleeping, especially being called lazy and made fun of by my family. I have managed to get up early multiple times (go to bed at 5-7pm and get up at 2-4am) but always slowly reverted back to the old sleeping schedule after a few weeks. I have no issues sleeping through the night but I can’t fall asleep at the time I want. I can’t get up if I don’t have 7-8 hours of sleep either. It is destroying my life because I need to work and I can’t like this.
Today I realize there are several old coping mechanisms that I can no longer use even if I want to. Like I used to curse myself, daydream in fantasies, mind-read people, play video games all day… to escape reality and feel in control. I can’t do any of that for more than a few minutes now. I get bored and they do nothing to me because I see the mechanism too clearly. It is fun to pretend to be the old me to try to feel how I used to feel and behave compared to the current me.
I think it is a win for me even though I am still grieving and feeling sad about the past most of the time. Life isn’t rosy or anything, but the sufferings are less intense.
I was too scared to ever set boundaries and oftentimes my fawning was even on autopilot. One of the first things I forced myself to do as I was trying to heal was to set boundaries. I am setting boundaries quite easily most of the time now and it really opens my eyes. People show themselves. There is a kind of people who will challenge and retest your limits by engaging in the behavior again shortly afterwards even when they say they get it or apologize.