[DerKommissar]

I was a night owl when I was younger. Went to bed around 2am and felt like a sack of potatoes for a couple hours in the morning. I have no idea what time I would naturally wake up because I always had to get up earlier than that. I remember sleeping until the afternoon on weekends when I was a teenager. I slept through my fair share of alarms, didn't remember hitting the snooze button, etc.

Sometime in my late 20s after learning enough about health in general I realized that sleep was much more important than most believed and I decided my routine was unhealthy. I dealt with it with similar methods mentioned on other comments. No caffeine in the afternoon, blackout curtains, red lights, limit light when it's dark out, not eating late.

That was about seven years ago, I'm now 35 and I'm not a night owl anymore. Part of it is probably getting older, I've heard that this frequently happens to people as they age. But I noticed the changes within a few months of taking sleep hygiene seriously. A few years ago I threw out my alarm clock because I hadn't set it in a few years (I'm lucky that I really only have to be at work by 10am for a standup so it wouldn't matter if I overslept). I can't remember the last time I woke up later than 7:30am, that's late for me now. Usually it's around 6:30am. I am wide awake when I open my eyes. My main sleep problem now is waking up too early and not being able to fall back asleep. I'll then get tired and go to bed early, and wake up even earlier the next day.

I feel better than I have at any point in my life previously. It's certainly possible that many people here with sleep problems have naturally different rhythms. It's also possible that certain obese people are naturally obese and no amount of diet or exercise changes will fix it. I have personally come to the belief that having a sleep cycle which is not mostly aligned with the natural patterns is unhealthy, regardless of whether it's "natural" or not.

If anyone is interested in specific techniques I have all sorts of little hacks, although I don't have to use many of them anymore.

[Eridrus]

I had a similar experience a few years ago when I was ~23. If I got in to work at even 10am, I'd still be a total wreck and mornings were hell.

After my boss gave me a bit of a talking to and futzing around with sleep tracking apps and alarms that woke me up at the appropriate point in my sleep cycle for a while I realised that if I just didn't stay up so late I'd feel better.

It was a bit of an adjustment at first and I think f.lux and exercise helped to modify my sleep habits, but I've been feeling tired enough to just want to go to bed at 11pm and haven't used an alarm in years either.

Obviously I'm older than I was when I was a night owl, but given I was able to make the change in a few months, at the prompting from a former boss, I'm less convinced that it's unchangeable.

[DerKommissar]

Reminded me of a great sleep app I used to use. It's called Gentle Alarm and it really is a great hack. I don't know if the authors of the software came up with this idea but it works great.

Here's how it works. If you are woken up when you are deep REM sleep you will feel tired. If you wake up when you are in very light sleep you will not. This is what happens when you wake up naturally. The sleep cycle generally repeats itself every 90 minutes or so but everyone is different. The point is there are times you can wake up when you will feel refreshed, and times when you will feel tired.

Gentle Alarm configures two alarms. It plays a very soft alarm half an hour before your real alarm (all the times and volumes are configurable). If you are in deep sleep at that time you will not wake up to this alarm but if you are in light sleep you will. If you are in deep sleep then in half an hour (or whatever period) you will almost certainly not be in deep sleep. You will then wake up to your normal alarm. The system ensures that you are awake by your alarm time.

It worked amazingly well for me when I needed it.

[pc2g4d]

I've become convinced that many "night owls" are actually people whose bodies are confused by the intense illumination made possible by electric lighting and electronics, street noise, separation from the sun's set and rise, and other facets of modern life.

The problem isn't the person but the environment.

[IsaacL]

What are the top points to keep in mind regarding sleep hygiene? (Or what's a link to the best resource you've found?). Thanks.

[DerKommissar]

I'm not sure I remember any good books. There's quite a bit of info on the web though. Besides bloggers who exclusively focus on sleep, the only communities that take it seriously are athletics and paleo. And there's a lot of other bullshit that comes along with either of those.

Here are some things that have helped me.

It's not just the amount of light around you that matters, the amount of light entering your eye is much more important. Staring at a computer monitor might as well be staring at the sun as far as your brain is concerned. Get off the computer at least two hours before you want to go to bed. You like coding late at night? Sorry, you will have crappy sleep. The same is not necessarily true for watching tv. It is farther away from you and not nearly as much light enters your eye. It still has the same effect, just less.

Get rid of all light in your bedroom. Blackout curtains. A single led light on a piece of electronics will now keep me up at night. Get an alarm clock that lets you turn off the display.

Never do anything in bed except sleep or have sex. Reading in bed for a little while before you go to sleep is fine, reading for hours is not. Do it somewhere else, you are not tired yet. If you have a tv in your bedroom get rid of it (this is very important).

Use f.lux. If you like to read in bed buy a red spectrum book light and read with the lights off. I use a tablet and some app that lets you turn the brightness down very low, low enough that I can't see it with the lights on.

Try supplementing magnesium (I use Natural Calm). I am also convinced that diet plays a big part in all this, but I don't have much more to say than eating healthy will make it (and almost everything else related to health) easier.

To start off, stay up late and force yourself to get up early so that you'll get tired early the next night. Keep forcing yourself to get up early. If you get 4 hours of sleep for a few nights, wake up early and then can't fall asleep at a reasonable time go see a doctor, there may be something wrong with you.

If the reason you're not falling asleep is because you're coding or playing video games or something else that keeps you stimulated, you have to stop that at night. There's just no way around it. You have to start winding your brain down a few hours before you are going to go to bed. Read, watch relaxing tv, talk with your partner or friends.

There's probably a lot more, this is all off the top of my head.