Just as a matter context, Piotr Wozniak is the author of SuperMemo, the first significant spaced repetition software (SRS) application. The SuperMemo2 (usually referred to as SM2), devised by Piotr, is used in most SRS software including Anki (arguably the most popular free software SRS app). My understanding is that Piotr obtained a PhD for his work on these algorithms. SuperMemo was a commercial enterprise, but I seem to remember there was some falling out with the business side of things and Piotr left (though I haven't really followed supermemo for a decade and things may have changed).
Piotr has some interesting ideas. His writings tend to be very much like this article -- bury you in details, some of which you wonder about the relevance. He is a fairly intuitive in his approach and is very much convinced about the conclusions he reaches. He always has a large amount of data to support his conclusions, but a criticism I've had in the past is that the data is not always free of bias.
I only mention this as there was some suggestion that the submission was a disguised ad. Even though I don't agree with everything that Piotr writes, one can't deny that his ideas have helped a lot of people. He has always been very generous with his ideas and his data. His business partner was not quite so generous and I believe this was one of the reasons for the fallout. Whatever you think about the content of this article, my personal feeling is that you can be sure that it was written with the intent of helping people better themselves and no other motives.
The DSPS section is a spot-on characterization of my sleeping patterns:
""
People who suffer from DSPS often resort to their own implausible solutions that include:
-(poorly managed) free running sleep with an inevitable phase delays that ultimately result in sleeping through the day
-skipping a night of sleep at a point when the bedtime reaches an outrageously late hour (i.e. usually after the dawn)
-stabilization of the sleep pattern with medication (incl. melatonin) and artificial zeitgebers such as an alarm clock or a mom who pulls a sleepy student out from his or her bed for school"
Emergency: Melatonin: If your "protected zone" is stretched to the limit. You may consider an occasional pill of melatonin (e.g. 2 hours before your optimum bedtime). Remember that melatonin will affect your creativity and alertness, and should not be used on a regular basis.
""
I read this as I was preparing to sleep at 10 AM by taking a melatonin pill... I'll give his basic algorithm for fixing DSPS a shot over the holidays.
However, I don't think his characterization of melatonin is warranted. I take melatonin around 15 minutes before I sleep, similar to what gwern does in his article (http://www.gwern.net/Melatonin). This article suggests taking it 2 hours beforehand. It's been working fine for me for a year now, but it's interesting to see that in the natural melatonin production graph further down in the article, it peaks several hours before sleep.
I just looked at the DSPS section since that is my problem. The "I have mathematically proven this to work unless it is your fault" thing is really obnoxious. I've even tried his ultimate "farmer's lifestyle" suggestion that worked for about a year and then stopped working. Similarly, I've done things like bike around all day then relax without much light in the evening (all after getting less sleep than usual the previous night) all to spend over three hours in bed before getting to sleep.
For me, transdermal melatonin patches have been the single most helpful thing that actually improves the quality of my sleep, which seems to be my main issue (I cannot get good quality sleep even if free sleeping on the shifting schedule). I've been using them (on and off, since I try to use them only when sleeping at night) for a few months now and they aren't magic but do seem to help significantly. Other forms of melatonin, including extended release, have been able to slightly decrease my sleep onset but at the cost of waking up early (about 4 hours after I go to sleep I wake up and can't sleep again for at least 3 hours) and they do not improve my sleep quality.
Diphenhydramine, even 25 mg or less for weeks at a time, can help me get to sleep but does not improve sleep quality. I don't think it seems to make it worse either. For most people it stops helping with sleep after a couple of days, but for me I can notice the effects for at least a month and sometimes two (and just a couple of days off can make it effective again). I'm not sure how much of this is due to my allergies, which do seem to interact with the circadian rhythm issues.
Transdermal melatonin seems to decrease my sleep time and leaves me feeling more rested. Hopefully this continues and I eventually make up from a really gigantic sleep deficit :/. One point the author covers but could be emphasised more is that the time you wake up (and potentially but not exactly when actually get out of bed; for me it is easy to tell the effective wakeup time: that is when my allergies kick in) controls the time that you are able to get to sleep. This took me many years to really understand. I'm starting to wonder if the fundamental cause of delayed sleep phases might be related to sleep quality (that is, when quality is sufficiently low our bodies tend to sleep a little longer, but the time from waking to being able to fall asleep doesn't change).
I don't drink alcohol, but on the caffine topic I've noticed that for me caffine (well, theobromine at least) seems to accumulate in my body very slowly, but over weeks of daily consumption even in the morning it will start to affect my sleep. I find it easiest to avoid almost completely.
For me, the longest I've been able to stick to a fairly reliable schedule is three or four months at a time and involves spending at least three hours in bed before getting to sleep almost every day (and twelve hours in bed total most days). But it is still quite easy to get off that schedule, only partly due to the difficulty of spending that long in bed every day. On the plus side, I've found that my schedule can actually vary quite a bit day to day while on that general pattern and still be ok, so I don't think it is really a matter of being perfectly strict but of avoiding those situations that cause the most harm (e.g. it seems that staying up a few hours later than usual can be ok once a week or so but more often and it can cause the shifting to start again).
ETA: Learning to better recognize when I've actually woken up has been one of the most helpful things to me and took forever to recognize even with the allergies to help. It is very tempting when I haven't gotten much sleep (and it is 4 in the morning or something) to try to get back to sleep, but once I've passed that point I can almost never get to sleep again until at least 12 hours have passed. However, if I stay in bed the effective wakeup time in terms of getting to sleep in the evening can be pushed back, and even more so if I eventually do fall asleep again.
Another odity that I've noticed is that I get much more restful sleep when sick for some reason. I think it may be due to the rapid sleep stage cycling, since there is some other particularly restful type of sleep that occasionally happens in the morning.
Have you ever tried anything with PhGABA in it? The known good source I have found is Biotest's Z-12. From the experience of others using Melatonin will only last so long before it too stops having a noticeable effect. I used Z-12 for a year and it pretty much resolved my issues and now I can sleep 99 percent of the time just as well as when I used to take it...it must have helped reset some Circadian rhythm of some sort because I don't need it anymore to go to sleep or get a good nights sleep.
Thanks! I haven't but will look into it. The melatonin patch I use actually has GABA and my blood brain barrier may not be in great shape, so it is possible that is more the cause of the restful sleep than the melatonin.
ETA: It looks like PhGABA is also known as Phenibut.
I've had similar problems. I think it's an anxiety thing. Ever tried mindfulness meditation? Basically you just sit for 20 to 40 minutes and focus on your breathing. It's been working well for me. I would also look into Cognitive Behavioral Therapy if I were you.
Anxiety used to be more of an issue for me, but hasn't been most days for years. I have found meditation very helpful in getting to that point. I could still do it more, but in terms of sleep I think it has helped as much as it can.
The frustrating thing is that there are a few things (that I can't intentionally do for any length of time) that seem to immediately cause me to feel much more rested after sleeping (such as being sick; I still feel tired in a way from being sick, but I actually feel rested and overall have much more energy than usual). I've had a shifting sleep schedule for a couple of decades now and my body has responded in different ways along the way.
if you get a chance to go somewhere where there is a variety, you may be pleasantly surprised to learn the variety of smells is valuable information. Some, smell bad to you, others, may smell okay or even fantastic. seriously, compare its smells and flavors to that of coffee.
I see three submissions of this post. This is the only one to get any discussion. All submissions were submitted by different people. All three submitters submit from a range of different sources.
Even this search shows a variety of submitters, with only a couple of substantial discussions.
The submitter had a moderately successful post from this domain a couple days ago and probably thought people might find a follow-up interesting. That's not an ad.
