every since I hit puberty my natural sleep cycle (as in when my body feels tired and when i wake up) has been bed at 4am wake up about noon. i dont even have to look at a clock, and sure enough about 3:45 i start thinking i should wrap up whatever i'm doing, and by 4 i'm in bed. i always wake up (unless my sleep was interrupted by the daywalker i share a room with) between 11:30a and 12:30p. of course i go to bed earlier and get up earlier if i HAVE to, i.e. for school or work, but when i dont have a compelling reason i always fall into the same rhythm. the thing is i NEVER get used to a different cycle. I missed two days of school last semester, but every other day during the week i had class at 9:30am. i did not get used to this schedule at all, and the last morning was a miserable as the first, and every one in-between. my dad is the opposite way, he is whats called a morning person. his rhythm is early to bed early to rise. he says he likes having a couple hours with everyone else asleep, but when i do the exact same thing (just a few hours later) it's somehow weird and unacceptable. they can accept that some people like to get up early, and some people are in-between, but somehow its completely impossible that other people might like to stay up late. i know there's a lot of studies about fluorescent lighting and computer monitors altering peoples sleep cycles, but are there any studies about what people are naturally inclined to do? I know i'm not forcing myself to stay up or forcing myself to sleep in; and i know i'm not doing it for the joy of being hassled by my parents every day. is there any scientific backing for my natural sleep habits?
I think its just habit if you started sleeping at 11pm at night and waking up 8am your body eventually adjusts i usually go around 1am latest and wakeup anywhere between 8-10 depending on what i need to do College i usually go 11pm and wake 7am the first week back to college i hate!! i can't function when i wake up Generally i feel better if i wake up earlier and let myself come around i.e wake 7am to be up by 8am just stay in bed watching tv i can't just jump up unless im late (i've woken up 10 minutes after my shift started) then i can be dressed and out the door running within 5 minutes of actually waking up. I always feel terrible if i sleep in or over what i usually do, like i went to bed 2am and somehow woke up 1pm the next day and felt awful the whole day i felt exhausted even though i slept straight away same if i wake up and try go back to sleep
Due to work etc. I can goto bed around 2am and wake at between 7 and 10 am whatever is needed. However without work etc. my "natural" cycle is usually bed between 3 and 5am and getting up at 11am.
I don't have a set sleep cycle. Perhaps I did once, but no longer. Years and years of ****ed up sleeping patterns destroyed that. I am, at the moment, sleeping normal hours (midnight to 8am). But give it a week or 2 and I will be going to sleep at 5am and getting up at 8am and surviving on caffeine. If I didn't work it would be worse. Like waking up at 9pm, and then going to sleep at about 1 or 2 pm the following day. It is an endless cycle going from normal hours to the ridicules, and back again.
Mine used to be the 4am to 12pm thing. I work nights now (only been doing so for the past month, so i've had to shift that forward a few hours - wasn't easy sadly) I now do 7am - 2am sleepy! Isn't easy in this light though!
Yet you posted this at 23.11? I usually get to bed anytime between 10pm and 3am and up at 7.30am to get the kids up for school. edited Phycho, sorry.
i cant offer any scientific explanation, but rest assured you are not alone. in high school, on more than one occasion i ended up at the doctors office to correct my (what we thought at the time) insomnia. even on school nights i had a hard time falling asleep before 1 or 2 AM, leaving me very groggy and useless the next morning. this continues today (im 25 now) despite having school and work 5 days a week since i was 16 years old. at about 22 years old, i had a 3-month spot of unemployment during which i discovered that, if left unmolested, i fall into a 6AM to 2PM cycle and when i wake, i feel energetic and well rested. but when im forced to wake up at 6 or 7AM i almost cant function for at least an hour and im left feeling sleepy the whole day.
When I've nothing to do also my sleeping pattern is 6-2... weird! Maybe we're from a nocturnal clan of humans?
Week days its from 11/12 to 6am. Weekends its whenever I do go lie down - then add 6/7 hours to that.
Weekdays 11 - 6.30, weekends 1/2 til whenever I wake up, but at the moment with relationship problems I'm not sleeping
I did exactly the same thing when I hit puberty and have never changed back. I'm currently doing a summer internship where I have to leave the house at 8am each day but I still cannot sleep before 2-3am regardless of how tired I am throughout the day on 4-5 hours of sleep. As soon as the clock gets to around 11pm I am usually my brightest and most awake. At university I sleep whenever I'm tired and don't attend lectures (the lecture notes are online and as I'm dyslexic I can't keep up in the lectures anyway so that provides a lovely excuse). I actually find I end up sleeping later and later until my sleeping cycle has come all the way back around to 'normal' times again - I've essentially missed a night sleep though I don't feel like I have. Everyone is different, but as you say, it is seen as 'lazy' or wrong to have a late sleeping cycle. Quite annoying!
I used to do that. 14-16 I was going to sleep at seven am, and getting up at half eight for school. 17-19 I was going to sleep at two or three in the morning, getting up at six, to get a bus to college at half seven. 19-present I go to sleep before midnight and get up at seven am, week day, weekend, when on holiday, and so on. I love being up in the morning, and sleeping in just makes me feel like I've wasted a day - A precious day I'm not at work.
Week days I try and get to bed before 3am past couple of nights I've been struggling with After Effects and getting a video sorted for work so I'm running on bugger all sleep at the moment. Weekends usually in bed as the sun comes up and sleep till 2 maybe 3 in the aft. I prefer the evenings as it's quiet and I feel I can get more done. I do occasionally cease to be nocturnal and sleep at reasonable times but this very rarely lasts.
I watched a program on BBC a few years ago about sleeping and the patterns, and it is quite clear there is certainly something known as a night person and a day person, and there is some sort of genetic difference between the two. The former having a much more active brain function towards the end of the day and the latter the other way round. Not everyone can be pigeonholed though.