Still hanging out with my vampire friends... ;)

Happy Saturday gang! Late start for me. Lately, I've barely started my day before the sun goes down! Yikes! It's nothing new - I've had issues with my sleep cycle for quite a few years. After seeing sleep specialists and trying lots of approaches to "correct" it, I've got a pretty good understanding of the nature of the condition. My sleep doc says it's not insomnia, but rather delayed sleep pattern syndrome. She said it is common for people with autoimmune disorders like mine.

I've had mixed success with shifting it more towards daylight hours and from what I've experienced it's pretty simple - when the illness is elevated the sleep-cycle goes topsy-turvy and when I'm feeling better it tends to automatically start shifting more towards a "normal" pattern. Of course, if I was a vampire, my current sleep-cycle would be perfectly normal as it is!

Of course, some people will suggest it's just a matter of behavior or discipline and in a minor sense that's true. I tend to feel my best late at night - and I tend to feel my worst during the day. So late at night when I finally get a breather from the illness, I don't really want to go to sleep! Heck, I want to enjoy feeling better before I shut things down! And it doesn't help to know that the sooner I go to bed, the sooner I get to wake up feeling awful! From what I understand a lot of people with autoimmune disorders also feel their best at night.

But despite all of that, it's important to me to do my best to get back to a normal sleep pattern. So much of what I like to do requires getting up before the crack of noon! My current approach is to continue to address the key contributing factor - the autoimmune disorder - along with my sleep "hygiene" that worked well last year. That basically consists of shutting down the computer, etc. by a given time, taking a few minutes to work through any emotions or thoughts that might be churning inside, avoiding caffeine after a certain time, etc.

Ok, have a good night! I'm going to start making my way towards the gym!