delayed sleep phase syndrome

What is Delayed Sleep Phase Syndrome (DSPS)?

It is a disorder in which the major sleep episode is delayed by 2 or more hours of the desired bedtime. This causes difficulty awakening at the desired time.

What are the symptoms?

• Complaint of insomnia or excessive sleepiness
• inability to fall asleep at the desired time
• inability to wake up at the desired time
• Depression may be present
• This sleep pattern has been present for 3 months

Associated features:

The DSPS patients are usuall perplexed that they cannot find a way to fall asleep more quickly. Their efforts to advance the timing of sleep onset such as going to bed early, having a friend or family member get them us in the morning, trying relaxation techniques or using sleeping pills is not permanently successful.

They often describe sleeping pills in normal doses as having little or no effect in helping them fall asleep. Sometimes the pills only aggravate the daytime symptoms of difficulty awakening and sleepiness.

DSPS patients typically are "owls" or "night people" and say they feel and function best and are more alert during the late evening and night hours.

If a sleep-wake log is kept, it usually shows a pattern of bedtime later than 2 a.m., few or no awakenings once they fall asleep, shorter sleep periods during the work/school week and lengthy (9-12 hour) sleeps with late morning to mid-afternoon wake up times on the weekend.

Depression or other psychiatric problems are present in about half of the adult DSPS patients, which is about the same for people that suffer from other forms of insomnia.

By the time DSPS sufferers receive an accurate diagnosis, they often have been misdiagnosed or labelled as lazy and incompetent workers or students for years.

Attempting to force oneself onto daytime society's schedule with DSPS has been compared to constantly living with 6 hours of jet lag; the disorder has, in fact, been referred to as "social jet lag".

after setting 10 separate alarms to wake me up before noon and failing to do so until 4pm...yeah.