I think I might have circadian rhythm disorder (delayed sleep phase syndrome) so I got a light box and in about a week was able to shift my natural wake time from noon to about 9am. And so far I'm far less groggy on the days I need to be up before 9am. My biggest fear is that it will stop working and I'll be back to wanting to sleep 4am to noon . . .
Anyone else try light therapy?
No, but I think it's fascinating. You need to practice good sleep hygiene to keep your biological clock intact.
Thanks for the advice. But trust me, I know all about good sleep hygiene, and have spent the past 20 years of my life practicing it. It hasn't done a da*n bit of good, just caused lots of frustration and feelings of failure -- the fact that those techniques never worked is a big reason why I think I have DSPS. I wish more poeple would talk about that instead of pointing the finger, blaming the poor sleeper for not trying hard enough to change. (Not that that's what you were doing.)
I don't know much about your condition.
So glad to hear about your experience with the light box! How long did it take each day & how many days did it take?
I think I have the same sleep problem & maybe others related to meds I need for depression and anxiety that prevent my getting any deep sleep.
I used a light that put out 10,000 lux of full spectrum light, and noticed an effect by the second day. I have not been very consistent as to duration; I always do at least 30 min. but sometimes if I lose track of time it ends up being an hour or more. I had a bad couple days and missed two consecutive nights of sleep last week, but I think it was mostly stress and a bad caffeine binge. Oops . . . But I took a late afternoon nap and was still able to get to sleep by midnight, and so far I seem to be back on track. Normally, I would have reverted back to my 4am to noon schedule, so I think that the fact that that did not happen is some proof that the light is working. I am trying to move my cycle back a little each day, and right now I can wake up and be reasonably coherent by about 8am.
If you have depression, you'll be glad to know that bright light is often used to treat depression, though it is most often used for seasonal affect. The fact that so many people use the lights for SAD helped me to decide that I thought the lights are safe.
The timing is important for light therapy because of something called the Phase Response Curve (the Wikipedia article on PRC is actually pretty good). You will need to determine what time your body temperature is the lowest. If you are an owl (as opposed to a lark) the temperature minimum occurs about 2 hours before your spontaneous wake time (SWT, i.e., when you would wake up when well-rested and sleeping regularly -- if you have DSPS, then your SWT is probably much later than the time that you usually force yourself to wake up for work/school).
If you use the light BEFORE the temperature minumum, it will actually delay your circadian rhythm more so you will sleep later - which is NOT what you want. If you use the light AFTER your temperature minimum, it should advance your circadian rhythm so that you will get tired sooner and spontaneously awaken sooner.
Also note from the Wikipedia PRC article that exposure to dim light can also advance or delay your circadian rhythm, just not as much as bright light, so if you have DSPS, it may be important to avoid light within the two hours before your natural sleepiness time. Some people wear regular sunglasses or special goggles that block out the blue component of light, which is supposedly what triggers the phase shift, but I haven't read as much about that so don't have much to say.
Sorry for such a long post. It's just kind of exciting when anyone responds to the sleep group here because it doesn't seem to happen often!
Take care.
Sorry for the delay. I've been having a lot of problems with pain and meds and sleep and unfortunately had lost track of the post.
Thanks for all the info on the lightbox. I will definitely ask my friend to return my box. How does one go about finding their teperature minimum? Do you just periodiclly take it while awake one night? Or there actual monitors out there to help?
Sleep well.
Hello, again.
I am so sorry to hear you are having other health problems too; I hope things get better for you.
And sorry in advance since this is another really long posting, but hopefully you and others will find the info useful. Here goes.
I know sleep researchers have devices that measure body temp about every 5 minutes, but I suspect that these would be prohibitively expensive for individual use, so have not even bothered to try and find one. For us mere mortals, finding minimum temp is a guessing game to some extent, but not impossible. If you frequently have nights where you don't get to sleep at all (such as if you lay awake a long time and then give up on sleep out of fear that once you do get to sleep, you won't wake up in time for work/school), then it would be the easy to just measure every hour or so on one of those bad nights. But if you understand how body temp. typically works, you can still determine an approximate time of min. temp even without such an extreme measure.
Basically, body temperature should follow a predictable pattern where it is lowest at some point during sleep (at least when your body thinks it is supposed to sleep). With normal sleepers, the minimum is about midway in the sleep episode; with DSPS it tends to be later, like about 2 hours before SWT. After reaching minimum, body temp rises steadily, sort of plateaus during the afternoon/evening, maxing out in the person's subjective late evening before starting to decrease at some point before your personal sleepiness time. You can probably find graphs of this using google or else looking up some of the light therapy research on Psychnet through your local library. Keep in mind that these graphs are not exact references but averages of large numbers of people (who, unlike us, are probably mostly normal). With me, it seems to take several hours after the temperature max before I can fall asleep, even though a lot of the graphs I have seen put the temperature max almost immediately before the sleepiness time. In any case, I think it would be highly unusual if your temperature continued to rise after your personal sleepiness time.
I measured my temp at various times throughout the day, being careful to wait at least 30 minutes after eating, drinking, exercise, or showering, since these would affect body temp. (Rectal temperature readings are more stable so would not require the 30-minute precaution, but the very thought grosses me out so I just do oral readings.) It is important to have the most accurate thermometer you can find; I found a digital that is accurate to 1/10 degree. Analog thermometers are technically more accurate, but they are much harder to read, and you have to be careful not to shake it or that will mess it up.
When I first started, I was really gung ho about measuring every couple hours throughout the day, but the point is to determine the minimum, so you can probably get away with doing it just in the morning and evening. Measuring when you wake up and within an hour or two after can help you determine where you are in the cycle - if your temp is consistently higher in the second reading than when you first get up, you know the nadir is no later than when you got up. If it is consistently lower during the second reading, you're getting up way too early in relation to your circadian rhythm (and if you keep measuring, you will eventually find your nadir). Likewise, if you measure when you first try to go to sleep, and then again after tossing and turning for an hour, and the later reading is higher, not only are you trying to sleep too early in relation to your circadian rhythm, but you will know that your minimum probably can not be any earlier than 6 hours after the second reading. (You know this because, assuming you have DSPS, your nadir is probably about 6 hours after your personal sleep onset time, which has to be at some point after your max temp.) So, even without intentionally staying up or setting alarms solely so you can measure temperature throughout the night, you can measure at targeted times and use those readings to approximate when your nadir occurs. Fortunately, too, though the amount of the phase advance is supposed to be greatest just after the nadir, there is about a four-hour window after the nadir during which bright light will cause a phase advance. So you don’t need to determine the nadir time exactly to benefit from light therapy, just be sure to use the light within that four-hour window.
Another good thing is that if you keep measuring over time, you will probably figure out your natural temperature range, which varies by individual. I think the normal temp. range is between about 98 and 99.5 degrees. Mine is lower because of underactive thyroid, running between about 96.9 and 98.6 degrees (and I have gotten measurements as low as 96.5). But once you know your own personal baseline numbers, it is easier to keep track of where you are in your personal circadian rhythm. For example, if you determine that your temp follows the normal range, and you get up and measure at 98 degrees, you know you are probably right at your nadir, so it is safe to use the light.
A word about how long to use the light. When I started, I would sometimes use the box for more than an hour because I would lose track of time and also because I really wanted it to work. But too much can backfire – I ended up having several consecutive nights of almost no sleep, and despite having no sleep, I was so jittery during the day that I couldn’t concentrate, and may have failed an exam because of it – and not just any exam, a comprehensive final exam worth 100% of my grade in a 4-credit law school class – ouch! The effect made me so airheaded I started to forget to use the light, and so the hyperactivity or whatever did finally wear off, but I also quickly regressed into sleeping later and have not quite gotten back on track yet. Anyway, my point is, do NOT make the same mistake I did! Half an hour of 10,000 lux is supposed to be plenty to produce a phase advance, so don’t overdo it!
Hopefully I did not bore you to death with this gigantic posting. I really would like to hear about your results with the light treatment, and anything else you feel like sharing about other things you decide to try or have tried in the past.
Take care.
Thanks agian for all the information. It's ironic that now that I am besieged by pain and attending to it that I am actually able to fall asleep at night, most of the time. About once every ten days or so, I will have a night that I just can't sleep at all. But other nights I have been falling asleep within 20 minutes of turning of the lights and sleep soundly for 5 or 6 hours. Once I wake up though I can not fall back asleep again. I am not sure if that is when my pain is beginning to come back and if I medicated it, maybe I could fall asleep again. I don't know.
Sleep can be so elusive. Over the years I have tried all the sleep meds and anti-anxiety meds and heard lectures and such on sleep hygirne (my personal favorite & most dreaded topic). Now that I walked away from it all, I am finally sleeping more soundly than ever. A few years ago a sleep study showed that in the course of 2 nights of sleep I never went into slow wave or deep sleep. Lots of the benzo's will do that. Consequently for years I never had a restful healing sleep.
Anyway, I think I will get out the thermometer and get my lightbox back. It's time to get my activities into sync with my natural body rhythms. Excuse me for all the typos; I can't type very well.
Take care.
Most of what I have read and seen on TV ligh therapy has been an expensive hoax used to treat everything from leukemia to sarcoidosis which I have it was on HBO a few years ago and none of the patients did well but for changing your circadium rythms I dont know I worked 15 years night shift in a trauma center adrenaling high and then low I jus learned about a medication for people who have PTSD or trouble sleeping called prazosin may sleep after a month is better but caution sleep apnea patients because it did not cover that sorry if anyone els has tried it good or bad I would like to hear about it
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