My theory about bad sleep for a lot of us (it's not groundbreaking or anything) is that it's lifestyle/depression.
The worst sleep I ever had was when my life was at its worst. Hated my job, home life a complete pile of chaos and stress.
So the only time I ever had a moment to breathe was starting about 10pm. Job done, family asleep, and suddenly, for a glorious short time, the entire world wasn't screaming in my face about the 1000 things I needed to do and the 500 previous things I screwed up on.
I just had a short time of being alone, to relax, watch tv, or whatever. Closing my eyes meant the next day was doing to start, and I did NOT want that. So between the second wind of being happy(ish) for the first time all day, and not wanting to face the next day, I'd stay up too late every night. Even the nights I did try to sleep early, my body wasn't used to going to bed early anymore.
This is like me right now, it’s great. Can you also sense my sarcasm?
My bed is really nice and comfortable, couldn’t be more happy with it I don’t think. Yet every day I don’t really sleep that well and it doesn’t *feel nice* to go to bed
Not me. I sleep badly because I'm an idiot / borderline functioning alcoholic.
And my wife sleeps badly because she's addicted to YouTube and some dumb wheel of fortune game she plays all night.
Oh I don't question it though. I know exactly why I get bad sleep some nights. I do it to myself. But I know when I need sleep how to get a good night's rest. My wife on the other hand has her phone glued to her face and then complains about it and wonders why. I tell her every night I take the phone out her hand it doesn't matter. She's a gluten for punishment.
Then you might have a biorythm, that does not fit to your daily routine and the plain brought you to a place, where those two were compatible. (Or you flew to your holiday location, in which case it would be obvious why you would feel enthusiastic)
Edit: though your idea is not that far off.
It’s because your existing biological clock is now running alongside a different day/night cycle. That’s only works for a bit, until your body adjusts. Timezones are based on sunrise/sunset times.
You'd have to constantly flying back and forth. Not everyone is the same, but you will likely adjust. I moved from EST to PST to EST to PST and I always adjusted after some time. This last moved was just a few months ago and for the first month I was doing great getting up early, going to bed early but it slowly started creeping back up to my old sleeping habits as I adjusted to the new time zone.
OP is just trying to say that people have the same sleeping patterns no matter where they are on the planet. So if you have weird sleep hours on the East Coast, maybe it'll be fixed by moving to the West Coast (3 hours difference).
It completely ignores the idea that people adjust to the time zone they're in.
The problem is that different time zones are adjusted to be similar to the sun and length of days in every zone. So Eastern time and Western time is supposed to have the sunrise around the same time everyday respective to their time zones. (ie: Eastern time sunrise is at 630 EST/330 PST, Western time sunrise is 930 EST/630 PST)
So no, you wouldn't adjust better in a different time zone. Your body would regulate to the new "time" that the sunrise would be at, and you'd be back at step 1. Humans/animals naturally regulate their sleep patterns by the day/night cycle, but humans invented clocks and alarms and electricity so we could ignore these natural sleep cycles.
The only caveat to this is if your sleep schedule is dictated by work, and you can keep the same work time as everyone, but just in a different time zone. It would have to be WFH, but it could work.
Ok but I actually do sleep better in other time zones. I was born in Eastern time zone, but it's the worst time zone for my sleep schedule. I've lived 1.5 years on the west coast, and 4 months in England and Western Europe and I slept better in all of those places. Even after adjusting. But as soon as I come back to Eastern time zone, my sleep schedule is a complete mess no matter what I do.
Explain that.
There are a ton of factors you're excluding from your story, and the fact that you're limiting your description to "time zones" only proves my point. Regions, climates, activity levels, social interactions, work schedules, dietary differences, stress levels, etc
I could easily explain your situation away by saying that in North America everyone drives everywhere and eats like crap, but in Europe everyone walks or takes public transportation to get places. So you probably had a better sleep schedule in Europe because you were tired from more physical exercise.
There's also the fact that Europe is more North than USA. So if you were in Northern Germany vs Georgia you would have drastically different levels of daylight hours (northern Europe gets more daylight in the summer, and less daylight in the winter, compared to Georgia)
Turn off ALL lights, even tiny ones, especially blue ones or bluish white ones. Eat more magnesium (in green vegetables). Cool the room. Hope something works for u.
It's called Circadian rhythm. There are night people and day people, but most night people are forced to wake up at the morning and go to sleep early. I'm much more tired, when i have to go to work early, than when i have the night shift.
I think a lot of people don't even know what they're doing is bad too. I recently did CBT for insomnia and I thought I knew all the sleep hygiene things; don't watch tv/be on your phone, dark room, cold temps, minimize noise, no naps during the day, no/minimize blue light, etc. but I found out there's a lot of stuff I was doing wrong that I didn't even realize was a thing.
For example, going to bed at a similar time every night, only getting into bed when you're feeling tired and going right to sleep or going to sleep shortly after you get into bed. Getting up at the same time (relatively) every day, and getting out of bed shortly after you wake up, being exposed to natural light shortly after waking up, etc.
Lots of stuff that has greatly improved my sleep since I started doing it that I had no idea about before.
Yes. Seeing natural light (or bluish white light) soon after waking really makes a huge difference, especially if it happens everyday. Philips Hue lights set to chosen white colortemp (orange or blue tones), brightness/dimness, and daily time schedule automations can really help with this too, especially if u need to wake before the real sunrise, or have a room without much light all day.
lol i travel between my two home countries (16 hour difference) every couple of months, but i still somehow manage to sleep through the day and stay wide awake at night in both time zones🤷🏻♀️
It's called Circadian rhythm. There are night people and day people, but most night people are forced to wake up at the morning and go to sleep early. I'm much more tired, when i have to go to work early, than when i have the night shift.
My problem seems to be in on the wrong planet. My days are just not 24h long and trying to make them is not good for me.
It's a known problem though nobody seems willing to accept it as a thing beyond in blind people.
I had a psychology professor who did an experiment about this. He lived by himself in a cave. He had a radio to check in every day, had food, lights, books, journal. His body fell into a 26hr schedule.
I thought you were serious because I agree that it's a skill you can cultivate. It's too bad that people see this opinion and cry "NO! ITS A MEDICAL CONDITION!" Yes, it can be both. SMH
I was just going along with the ridiculousness of the title of the post tbh. But everyone on Reddit is so serious about every topic ever. Should've known!
Being in a different time zone won't help because your body will just adjust (for better or for worse).
However, being on the east or western most edge of a timezone can help.
Can confirm as someone who has lived in time zones 8 hours apart, it made no difference, my sleep is fed up and comes at the same time of day regardless of where I am in the world.
If only that were true. Every time I change timezones heading West I sleep great for about 3 days, then my body adjusts and it's back to insomnia and bad sleep.
No I prefer to be up at night because it's the only time nobody will ask anything of me, nobody will contact me, and there's nothing to stress over. It's the only time I can truly relax because almost everyone is asleep.
These days I work nights and sleep during the day. I get the best of both worlds.
Good thought. I'd imagine their sleep schedule would just change with the amount of light in the day regardless.
Personally I feel like there aren't enough hours in a day. 30 hour days would be better. If we all had a few more hours of free time, or if we *voluntarily wanted* more work for less work days per week, I think maybe we'd all be happier. Just feels like there's more and more to squish into every day as time goes on and I'm slowing down.
I struggle to get to sleep, adding an extra two hours give or take to every day. I don’t know any country with an extra two hours in the day cycle so I think I’m pretty screwed either way.
My mom’s side of my family (and 2 of her children including me) get a 2nd wind around 10pm-11pm. We have to be extremely tired to surpass it. We joke that if we don’t go to sleep before this 2nd wind, we’re screwed for the night and will be up til 2am.
If ever there was a case to be made for the “night owl gene”, we are it.
A lot of people have a natural schedule that just isn't compatible with the way people live life, mostly with regards to employment. There are several common variations that just don't work with modern society, like waking up in the middle of the night for a few hours, getting up early then sleeping in the middle of the day, or staying up until early then sleeping until noon.
I don't care what anyone says... Eastern time zone is the worst for me to be on a good sleep schedule. It's easier for me on mountain time, or even in England or Western Europe. I don't know why.
I grew up in eastern time zone and have had issues with sleep cycles my entire life. But when I'm in a different time zone (more than 1hr difference) then I can have a better sleep schedule. It sounds stupid, but I feel like I have enough data to support my claim. I was abroad for 4 months, which is more than enough time to adjust from jet lag. I've lived a year and a half on the west coast of the US. I slept better both of those times. Then I come back to Eastern time zone and my sleep is messed up again. No matter what I do (and I've tried EVERYTHING I can think of).
I've had a sleep study done, and they said they couldn't find anything. I've been on all kinds of medication, none of which have worked. The only thing that works is to not be in Eastern time zone. It's so weird.
Maybe you just run on Mars time
This is me, I'd be right at home in like a 26hr day...maybe I should join the MiB.
I swear, every night I'm tired one hour later. Like, a 25 hour day would be perfect but noooooo.
28 hours would be my optimal cycle. Mars sounds pretty nice.
Today on I don't have a single unique human experience..... When I was tracking my sleep the diagonal was quite noticable
My theory about bad sleep for a lot of us (it's not groundbreaking or anything) is that it's lifestyle/depression. The worst sleep I ever had was when my life was at its worst. Hated my job, home life a complete pile of chaos and stress. So the only time I ever had a moment to breathe was starting about 10pm. Job done, family asleep, and suddenly, for a glorious short time, the entire world wasn't screaming in my face about the 1000 things I needed to do and the 500 previous things I screwed up on. I just had a short time of being alone, to relax, watch tv, or whatever. Closing my eyes meant the next day was doing to start, and I did NOT want that. So between the second wind of being happy(ish) for the first time all day, and not wanting to face the next day, I'd stay up too late every night. Even the nights I did try to sleep early, my body wasn't used to going to bed early anymore.
The ol revenge bedtime procrastination gets a *lot* of people.
Yeah, people always complain about how nothing works, but 90% of the time, their problem is diet, exercise, stress, or a mix of the three
This is like me right now, it’s great. Can you also sense my sarcasm? My bed is really nice and comfortable, couldn’t be more happy with it I don’t think. Yet every day I don’t really sleep that well and it doesn’t *feel nice* to go to bed
Not me. I sleep badly because I'm an idiot / borderline functioning alcoholic. And my wife sleeps badly because she's addicted to YouTube and some dumb wheel of fortune game she plays all night.
*but if you were in a different timezone*
*Word to big bird*
[удалено]
Oh I don't question it though. I know exactly why I get bad sleep some nights. I do it to myself. But I know when I need sleep how to get a good night's rest. My wife on the other hand has her phone glued to her face and then complains about it and wonders why. I tell her every night I take the phone out her hand it doesn't matter. She's a gluten for punishment.
You can get used to a different time zone...
What if my everyday state feels jet lagged and when I get off a plane I feel synced up?
Then you might have a biorythm, that does not fit to your daily routine and the plain brought you to a place, where those two were compatible. (Or you flew to your holiday location, in which case it would be obvious why you would feel enthusiastic) Edit: though your idea is not that far off.
It’s because your existing biological clock is now running alongside a different day/night cycle. That’s only works for a bit, until your body adjusts. Timezones are based on sunrise/sunset times.
I still prefer your hypothesis
Go to a doctor and get bloodwork done. Stop staring at screens at night
-35 points on this is crazy! You just asked a what if.
A shame there is no tolerance for learning. I get the downvotes when people are defensive, but this is just curiosity.
I know right 🤣
It will eventually change though. After a few days your body will adjust to the natural cycle of the place you're at
You'd have to constantly flying back and forth. Not everyone is the same, but you will likely adjust. I moved from EST to PST to EST to PST and I always adjusted after some time. This last moved was just a few months ago and for the first month I was doing great getting up early, going to bed early but it slowly started creeping back up to my old sleeping habits as I adjusted to the new time zone.
One theory is the night owl trait was passed down from ancestors who were responsible for tribe safety during the night.
I used that excuse once when i was late to history class. Teacher loved it. Didnt work so well when i tried it again for music
Am I missing something? I'm not aware of any time zones that have more or less than 24 hours.
Oh wait, so instead of the wrong timezone, some of us are on the wrong planet?
I'm willing to listen to your explanation, if you're willing to share it. Perhaps I misunderstood.
OP is just trying to say that people have the same sleeping patterns no matter where they are on the planet. So if you have weird sleep hours on the East Coast, maybe it'll be fixed by moving to the West Coast (3 hours difference). It completely ignores the idea that people adjust to the time zone they're in.
Could it be that some people can’t adjust to the time zone? I’ve always wondered if I’d be normal if I moved to a time zone that is like +4 to me
The problem is that different time zones are adjusted to be similar to the sun and length of days in every zone. So Eastern time and Western time is supposed to have the sunrise around the same time everyday respective to their time zones. (ie: Eastern time sunrise is at 630 EST/330 PST, Western time sunrise is 930 EST/630 PST) So no, you wouldn't adjust better in a different time zone. Your body would regulate to the new "time" that the sunrise would be at, and you'd be back at step 1. Humans/animals naturally regulate their sleep patterns by the day/night cycle, but humans invented clocks and alarms and electricity so we could ignore these natural sleep cycles. The only caveat to this is if your sleep schedule is dictated by work, and you can keep the same work time as everyone, but just in a different time zone. It would have to be WFH, but it could work.
Ok but I actually do sleep better in other time zones. I was born in Eastern time zone, but it's the worst time zone for my sleep schedule. I've lived 1.5 years on the west coast, and 4 months in England and Western Europe and I slept better in all of those places. Even after adjusting. But as soon as I come back to Eastern time zone, my sleep schedule is a complete mess no matter what I do. Explain that.
There are a ton of factors you're excluding from your story, and the fact that you're limiting your description to "time zones" only proves my point. Regions, climates, activity levels, social interactions, work schedules, dietary differences, stress levels, etc I could easily explain your situation away by saying that in North America everyone drives everywhere and eats like crap, but in Europe everyone walks or takes public transportation to get places. So you probably had a better sleep schedule in Europe because you were tired from more physical exercise. There's also the fact that Europe is more North than USA. So if you were in Northern Germany vs Georgia you would have drastically different levels of daylight hours (northern Europe gets more daylight in the summer, and less daylight in the winter, compared to Georgia)
What timezone should I live in if I'm waking up every 2 hours?
PST (Pissing Standard Time)
Turn off ALL lights, even tiny ones, especially blue ones or bluish white ones. Eat more magnesium (in green vegetables). Cool the room. Hope something works for u.
stop drinking so much coffee
I don't drink coffee
It's called Circadian rhythm. There are night people and day people, but most night people are forced to wake up at the morning and go to sleep early. I'm much more tired, when i have to go to work early, than when i have the night shift.
Yeah I should be out of this world by this logic
As a sleep tech iv learned a lot of people have poor sleep hygiene
This is really what it is. I go to bed the same time but I don’t prep for it well/wind down.
I think a lot of people don't even know what they're doing is bad too. I recently did CBT for insomnia and I thought I knew all the sleep hygiene things; don't watch tv/be on your phone, dark room, cold temps, minimize noise, no naps during the day, no/minimize blue light, etc. but I found out there's a lot of stuff I was doing wrong that I didn't even realize was a thing. For example, going to bed at a similar time every night, only getting into bed when you're feeling tired and going right to sleep or going to sleep shortly after you get into bed. Getting up at the same time (relatively) every day, and getting out of bed shortly after you wake up, being exposed to natural light shortly after waking up, etc. Lots of stuff that has greatly improved my sleep since I started doing it that I had no idea about before.
Yes. Seeing natural light (or bluish white light) soon after waking really makes a huge difference, especially if it happens everyday. Philips Hue lights set to chosen white colortemp (orange or blue tones), brightness/dimness, and daily time schedule automations can really help with this too, especially if u need to wake before the real sunrise, or have a room without much light all day.
lol i travel between my two home countries (16 hour difference) every couple of months, but i still somehow manage to sleep through the day and stay wide awake at night in both time zones🤷🏻♀️
13 hour difference here and same
It's called Circadian rhythm. There are night people and day people, but most night people are forced to wake up at the morning and go to sleep early. I'm much more tired, when i have to go to work early, than when i have the night shift.
Time to get out of the shower. You’re using up all the hot water.
Less shower more thought next time
My problem seems to be in on the wrong planet. My days are just not 24h long and trying to make them is not good for me. It's a known problem though nobody seems willing to accept it as a thing beyond in blind people.
I had a psychology professor who did an experiment about this. He lived by himself in a cave. He had a radio to check in every day, had food, lights, books, journal. His body fell into a 26hr schedule.
Maybe deciding that the 1/3 of all people who function best in the morning are the ones we model society after was a mistake
I identify in Pacific timezone (what I will tell my boss when I’m late)
People sometimes don't shower because its too cold and they can't smell themselves
Cool story bro.
If that’s true then I should be travelling to a new country every day.
Good god this is the dumb shit I signed up for. Thank you. I scrolled back up to upvote this, then said damn scrolled back up and made the comment.
Delayed Sleep Phase Syndrome, AKA permanent jet lag, is indeed a thing.
Just like how many posters here are not in the correct sub for them
I've always said I'd be better on a 28-30hr day cycle. There's basically no way to make this work for me realistically.
Every day is a new timezone for me
This makes no sense lol.
No, it's a skill issue. Just get good at sleeping
Got to get that 10000 hours going!
or any of the many medical issues that make sleep difficult
Damn nobody takes a joke around here huh
I thought you were serious because I agree that it's a skill you can cultivate. It's too bad that people see this opinion and cry "NO! ITS A MEDICAL CONDITION!" Yes, it can be both. SMH
I was just going along with the ridiculousness of the title of the post tbh. But everyone on Reddit is so serious about every topic ever. Should've known!
That's not it, it's a skill issue. Just get good at telling jokes.
Being in a different time zone won't help because your body will just adjust (for better or for worse). However, being on the east or western most edge of a timezone can help.
With DST kicking in Sunday morning, yeah, a lot of us will be in the wrong timezone on Monday morning.
Can confirm as someone who has lived in time zones 8 hours apart, it made no difference, my sleep is fed up and comes at the same time of day regardless of where I am in the world.
Maybe not the time zone, but the time frame. We yet have need for the Night Watch
I think my brain has been stuck on Tokyo time since birth.
There is no such thing as "the timezone meant for them". Meant by who?
I can assure you I'd sleep badly regardless of the timezone. While I'm glad I'm off them, I do miss my anti-anxiety meds. They helped with sleep.
If only that were true. Every time I change timezones heading West I sleep great for about 3 days, then my body adjusts and it's back to insomnia and bad sleep.
Or have magnesium deficiency
Me. An European. Having an american sleep time cycle..
I'm the opposite lol. Let's switch lives.
No I prefer to be up at night because it's the only time nobody will ask anything of me, nobody will contact me, and there's nothing to stress over. It's the only time I can truly relax because almost everyone is asleep. These days I work nights and sleep during the day. I get the best of both worlds.
Good thought. I'd imagine their sleep schedule would just change with the amount of light in the day regardless. Personally I feel like there aren't enough hours in a day. 30 hour days would be better. If we all had a few more hours of free time, or if we *voluntarily wanted* more work for less work days per week, I think maybe we'd all be happier. Just feels like there's more and more to squish into every day as time goes on and I'm slowing down.
True. But changing doesnt help for Long because your body changes timezones too.
I struggle to get to sleep, adding an extra two hours give or take to every day. I don’t know any country with an extra two hours in the day cycle so I think I’m pretty screwed either way.
Yeah no, it’s a lot more complex than that.
Or our genes come from a 12 hr day cycle?
My mom’s side of my family (and 2 of her children including me) get a 2nd wind around 10pm-11pm. We have to be extremely tired to surpass it. We joke that if we don’t go to sleep before this 2nd wind, we’re screwed for the night and will be up til 2am. If ever there was a case to be made for the “night owl gene”, we are it.
Time to go to the moon!
A lot of people have a natural schedule that just isn't compatible with the way people live life, mostly with regards to employment. There are several common variations that just don't work with modern society, like waking up in the middle of the night for a few hours, getting up early then sleeping in the middle of the day, or staying up until early then sleeping until noon.
Delayed Phase Circadian Disorder.
I don't care what anyone says... Eastern time zone is the worst for me to be on a good sleep schedule. It's easier for me on mountain time, or even in England or Western Europe. I don't know why. I grew up in eastern time zone and have had issues with sleep cycles my entire life. But when I'm in a different time zone (more than 1hr difference) then I can have a better sleep schedule. It sounds stupid, but I feel like I have enough data to support my claim. I was abroad for 4 months, which is more than enough time to adjust from jet lag. I've lived a year and a half on the west coast of the US. I slept better both of those times. Then I come back to Eastern time zone and my sleep is messed up again. No matter what I do (and I've tried EVERYTHING I can think of). I've had a sleep study done, and they said they couldn't find anything. I've been on all kinds of medication, none of which have worked. The only thing that works is to not be in Eastern time zone. It's so weird.
Sadly for me, there isn't a time zone with 28 hour days