there’s a sleep “disorder” that is literally just “your circadian rhythm is inconvenient for school/work” and people with it have to take meds to make themselves sleepy earlier/later
otherwise there’s absolutely nothing wrong with their quality/amount of sleep they just don’t have a schedule that works for society
shout out to second shifters – i traded prime time for good sleep
It’s even got disorder in the name: delayed sleep phase disorder. And yes, if you have to have a “normal” schedule, it makes your life hell.
Oh, and it can run in families. Thanks Dad. 🙄
So many disabilities are disabling not because they’re inherently impairing, but because society just doesn’t make room for us
ADHD throws your circadian rhythm off, too. Most people with ADHD have a natural circadian rhythm that makes us tired from, generally, about 4am to noon – myself included. When I’m left to my own devices, those are basically the exact times I will naturally fall asleep and wake up.
“Why do kids with ADHD have so much trouble in school? Why do adults with ADHD have so much trouble keeping decent 9-5 jobs?” Well, gee, maybe because it’s hard to get any work done when our bodies are literally programmed to be asleep. How well would you perform if you had to wake up at the equivalent of 2am to go to school or work? Not well? Then imagine how it feels for us, every single day of our lives.
There’s a lot about ADHD which I hate and wish would go away, but this part? See above. Our circadian rhythm is only disabling to us because society refuses to make room for us.
Tag: Circadian Rhythm
its really weird to see all these articles about how people who have ADHD have sleeping problems but the issue I have is that if you look at it as a matter of your circadian rythym being out of sync? of COURSE you’re not going to be able to sleep. we don’t say people who can’t fall asleep at 4 pm and sleep 8 hours have insomnia, because that’s not a normally agreed upon time to sleep and its not your bodies time to sleep. if you tell someone to go to bed at 10 and they can’t sleep till 3 am sometimes in just not insomnia. people with ADHD are often wired to sleep from 4 am to 12 pm ish because of the delayed onset of melatonin but if you let us go to bed at the time we need? most of us actually sleep pretty well and consistently.
wAIT THIS IS AN ACTUAL THING THAT EXISTS
“For most adults the onset of melatonin is around 9.30 pm; in ADHD children compared to controls this occurs at least 45 minutes later, and in adults with ADHD even 90 minutes (van der Heijden ea, 2005; van Veen ea 2010). After melatonin onset, it normally takes 2 hours to fall asleep, but in adults with ADHD it takes at least 3 hours (Bijlenga et al, 2013).”
Look at me awake at 1:47 am and reblogging this post.
So I’m actually trained in therapy for addressing insomnia and one of the things we learned is that a good chunk of sleep problems are societal disorders – as in they WOULDN’T EXIST as problems if society didn’t assume everyone was on the same circadian rhythm and that being up and working 9-5 was mandatory/normal. Blew my mind and made so much sense. You are not the problem, society is literally the problem.
Sometimes self care is making a batch of turkey burgers at 9pm cause you might have been trapped in an ADHD executive dysfunction cycle all day, but time is an arbitrary concept and you deserve nourishment regardless of what the stupid clock says.
Bonus scenario: you can now have turkey burgers for breakfast.
Also as an aside, in the Regency era the concept of supper was formalized into a late evening meal and was held usually at the end of a grand social event, so therefore could take place anywhere after 8pm to midnight depending on the event. It was considered super fashionable and elite.
So if it helps to think of it this way, romance yourself like the Jane Austen heroine you are, and eat leftovers out of the fridge at 3am like the high spirited and unconventional person you are. You’ve got this.
In the event you don’t want to be a Regency Heroine, you can also Be:
- A Hobbit, who has a meal for roughly every 2 hours of the day and they never said WHEN second breakfast was. or maybe it’s First Breakfast, just really, really early.
- A Nocturnal Cryptid coming out of hiding at odd hours to avoid the paparazzi
- You’re preparing to battle jetlag on an interstellar trip where you’ll be on a 30-hour schedule becuase it’s a good compromise with the alien’s 36-hour schedule.