[pcthrowaway]

You're making some assumptions here that I don't think hold.

OP is likely able to do this because they have a longer circadian cycle (though I think it's still less than 28 hours)

A person who might naturally have a 24.4 hour cycle without external stimuli (which is the average sleep researchers found) will likely have problems trying to adjust to a 26 hour cycle or longer, because even if they push themselves to stay up beyond the beginning of the sleep phase of their cycle on a regular basis, there is a good chance they'll wake up closer to the end of their sleep phase, and therefore might not get enough sleep.

It's better to follow a sleep cycle tailored to your own circadian rhythm, which for most people conveniently aligns pretty well with the natural day.

I say this as someone with non-24 who often does free-running sleep (where I've found my own cycle to be a little over 26 hours in winters, and closer to 24 hours in the summer)

[euroderf]

Data point: I found mine to be between 25 and 26 hours.

Probably a contributing factor to difficulty in getting to sleep "at a good hour".

OTOH mild sleep deprivation has been shown to counter depression, so there's that.

[zemvpferreira]

Likewise but I've found small melatonin doses (plus reducing caffeine to once per day) to really help me conform to a 24 hour day. Worth trying if you haven't.

[euroderf]

I tried melatonin. It gave me nightmares. Weird, but it was repeatable. So, my 0,02€.

[bemmu]

This happens if I take too much melatonin. The dosage in US-sold melatonin is unnecessarily high. Finnish tablets are typically 1.9mg, while US ones can have 10mg in just one.

[opan]

Luckily some people warned about this a lot online (not to take too much, most pills are too much) and I was able to find 1mg tablets on Amazon when I wanted some.

[mafuy]

1mg or less seems to work best. Source: https://slatestarcodex.com/2018/07/10/melatonin-much-more-th...

I take melatonin (0.2mg via a spray). It is very effective. Nightmares are a recurring problem for me and other users I know, but can be solved with low doses and a lot of discipline.

[hunter-gatherer]

There's this stuff at GNC called "Tri-Sleep". Imagine meletonin tablet effects x5. I don't get nightmares, but my dreams definitely get incredibly weird and more lucid. To be honest though, I definitely think I sleep deeper and longer when I take it amd feel more recovered. Again, anecedotal.

[sensanaty]

Anecdotally, me too. If not nightmares, very bizzare dreams that leave me feeling a bit weird for the day and I don't really feel nearly as rested as regular sleep, even if I sleep for longer.

[zemvpferreira]

I get those on valerian root myself.

[pskfyi]

Do you have any recommended books or links on this topic?

[photonthug]

I’d never suggest that people shouldn’t read books or consult experts but.. sleep is probably like diets in that you can read whatever advice you’re looking to find somewhere.

Even after we accept that a dichotomy like typical vs atypical (or night owl vs morning lark; omnivore vs vegetarian) is way too simple.. the more we look the more we keep finding new “types” (like all the flavors of non-24; vegans, paleo, etc). So even reading stuff that’s trying to be rigorous may ultimately just tell you about fads and fashions that might be working for others. Natural variation in people seems to outpace or defy our ability to categorize stuff. To me this hints that there’s really no substitute for experimenting and listening to your body.

The hard part is just that this does require some time and space in your life to accomplish, because if you’re going back to basics about stuff like food or sleep then inevitably it’s going to be disruptive until you figure out what works best.

[pcthrowaway]

I haven't read any books on the topic and don't recall any specific articles though I'm sure I've read many.

There are some good references in the wikipedia page (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-24-hour_sleep%E2%80%93wake...), and I've been following https://reddit.com/r/N24 for a while also.

[bix6]

How do you figure out your cycle time?

[pcthrowaway]

If you are able to make relatively few commitments for a month, go to sleep when you feel tired. Sleep as much as feels good. Track it in a spreadsheet.

Some people with non-24 have very regular sleep/wake cycles. I'm not as fortunate, but in the winter will tend towards 24-29 hour days, with an average just over 27 (perhaps this winter has even been a little under 27 as I've been more physically active)

In the summer it's close enough to 24 hours that I can stick to a 24-hour schedule most of the time.

[bix6]

Interesting I’ll have to track it a bit. I’ve always adjusted a bit in winter but never thought to measure / optimize it.

[iambateman]

This isnt scientific but I’ve found that I “feel like” going to bed about 24.5 hours after I went to bed the day before.

Without external stimuli, it’s very hard to avoid drifting into staying up very late at night for me.

[binary132]

This sounds suspiciously like “I tend to stay up later and later every night unless I force myself to go to bed on time” — which I suspect is pretty common, it certainly is for me. I’ll start staying up till 3, 4, 5, or later if I’m not on a schedule. Having kids helps.

[s1artibartfast]

It is suspiciously similar because they are the same exact thing. The whole premise is how many hours is a comfortable wake-sleep cycle.

[pcthrowaway]

I don't think so actually. If you can "make yourself" go to bed at a "normal time" then you don't have non-24.

People with non-24 usually have a longer than 24-hour cycle and can't "make themselves" go to sleep consistently at the same time (people with 24.5 or 25-hour days probably have some success with this though because if they stay up a bit later one day and still wake up at the same time, then by the time a proper bedtime rolls around they'll be close enough to their the sleep phase of their cycle, and tired enough to fall asleep at that time)

[s1artibartfast]

I'm skeptical. Chronic sleep deprivation does a pretty good job of helping people go to sleep at the same time each day.

Either way, it seems like a arbitrary distinction to make. If Bob is happier and more productive on a 26 hour schedule, but can unhappily live on a 24 hour schedule, why doest that count?

It seems the relevant Factor is what their natural schedule actually is, given the circumstances etc

[euroderf]

Yup, a kid is a driver for regularity in sleep cycles.

[Freak_NL]

This makes me wonder about the point he briefly touches at, but otherwise leaves out: his partner. Are there no children planned at all? Have they already raised kids and are done with this? Is he planning to break up with her?

You can't do this and raise a child¹ without being, well, an asshole. He would force the mother to do all the fixed daily things, and the child to navigate your availability using your private clock.

1: After they've settled into a stable daily sleeping rhythm of course. For a baby this system might even be useful some nights (but not others).

[binary132]

perhaps Junior will follow in Father’s footsteps. :)

[lloeki]

> How

You need a significant period of time without any time-bound obligation (or even any obligation at all). Any need for an alarm or anything that you'd possibly materialise in a calendar needs to be removed.

You need a room which is pitch black at night (e.g blocks street lights, no leds), yet still allows a tiny bit of sunlight (rationale: without cues the circadian cycle extends up to 48h, there was an experiment about that)

Then, once you have that, start freewheeling, just when you feel tired go rest and when you wake up get up. It'll be a mess at first, for two reasons.

First you may be unable to properly recognise the "I need to take some rest" signal: we're trained by life to largely ignore it.

Second, you need to pay off any debt, sleep, physical, mind, that would play a role in altering your base cycle. Have fun, work out, meditate, go see a therapist even. In a nutshell, find your balance.

Once you have recovered from everything, once all biasing sources have been removed, then sleep will converge to some rhythm, which carries some error margin, so you can only observe it statistically over time. There's your baseline.

It could take months, which more often than not isn't practical to have, so from the above ideal scenario one could devise a protocol that would try to stick as close as possible to it.

Source: first principles+anecdata, sample size of 1, double-non-blind protocol; a.k.a myself digging out of a hole.

Protocol: 3 week sick leave for burnout x anxiety depression, coincidental breakup (so no SO), went from office to remote working, workout plan, 6 month therapy, statistically reliable sleep/health/performance tracking via watch allowing for outlier identification/retrospective deviation root cause analysis.

Result: 0130-0930~30min sleep, 7h45min~5min sleep duration made of two ~4h-ish blocks, 25h~30min cycle. When bound to 24h rhythm, occasional sleepless night leading to 48h day and three aforementioned blocks of sleep (~11h-ish total).

From the data it became painfully obvious that I experience delayed sleep phase disorder, took me 6 months to figure the baseline out, and 6 more to confirm, which is quite hard when you don't even know that it is a thing.

[pcthrowaway]

> rationale: without cues the circadian cycle extends up to 48h, there was an experiment about that

Do you have a link to this experiment? I haven't seen this mentioned anywhere. Studies referenced in the non-24 wikipedia page suggest natural circadian rhythms typically range from 24-25.5 hours for people not getting external cues.

[lloeki]

I had to do a quick search again, this is the guy:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michel_Siffre

Here's an interview on the subject, which includes the initial experiment (which had him having a slightly over 24h rhythm) and subsequent ones (where the 48h rhythm showed up)

https://www.cabinetmagazine.org/issues/30/foer_siffre.php

The interesting thing about going down a cave is that it removes a ton of other possible cues like temperature variation (or side effects of trying to mechanically account for that)

My pet theory about human beings generally having slightly longer than 24 hour circadian rhythm is that it gives margin: with a 24 sun cycle and a 24.5 rhythm you naturally get a self-correcting consistent positive benefit; otherwise you'd always be right on the edge and unable to recover when things go sideways.