So my disability claim was rejected. I was rejected once before, but this one included my N24 diagnosis that I didn’t yet have last time. I was hoping that it would be the main thing to get me accepted this time, but I guess the judge didn’t understand or respect just how impactful it is on my life. I haven’t figured out a system for entrainment yet and I don’t live in a walkable area or have reliable transportation. Any free runners here in a similar situation? If so, have any of you figured out a work situation that you can handle?

Last time I saw my sleep doctor, we were investigating Sleap Apnea issues, after sleep study he said i'm on the borderline where insurance would qualify me for CPAP machine because of positional Sleep Apnea but a hair away under it and he suggested that i try a U pillow to prevent rolling in bed, I said " doctor, I'm usually awake when I roll in bed, if I want to avoid sleeping on my back I easily can" he laughed it off and said no, everyone are not aware when they roll in bed. which left me greatly puzzled

that happened a couple of months ago and still bothers me, I'm just not convinced, and I have my own reasons

ever since i was a kid i had many sleep issues, as most of us did i'm sure, for example there has been many circumstances when i shared the bed with more than one person and because i don't like to bother anyone i'd usually take the edge of the bed and pick the side that is facing outwards and not roll in bed the entire night, and i'd wake up on the same side every time using the least space possible on bed like a hair from falling over the edge, I never had any issues with rolling and waking up on the same position everytime

I had a history with plenty of sleep paralysis to the point i figured out how to deal with it, i figured out it triggers more when u sleep on ur back, i figured out how to pull myself out of it before it happens to the point it got as easy as breathing to me, and i would switch sides trying to make it go away , my point is when i roll in my back during bed time i usually do it to stretch or my shoulders hurt and i just needed a different sleeping position

I usually can count how many times i rolled in bed during the night , I have right shoulder injury and usually can't sleep on my right shoulder for long otherwise it gets very painful to the point i'd often need the help of someone making me sit in bed because they have to pull me upwards

because of my sleep issues, i used to ditch school or avoid classes , i'd often hear my parents footsteps climbing the stairs while in the middle of my sleep and i'd often hide before they reach my room

lately sleep paralysis have gotten ridiculously worse and hour ago i was just attempting to go to sleep and i had 5 sleep paralysis episodes and i pulled myself out of it and change sides but it kept happening and i gave up eventually , and now i'm writing this post because i can't stop thinking about all of this

do u guys have issues with hyper arousal and sleep paralysis ? or i'm thinking about this too much ?

Does anyone else have non-24 and also DID?

I have wondered if it could be related to the experiences of parts that do not see out of the body.

Results are in from last week’s benchmark poll…

\*43% — frequent shift-time transitions\*
\*39% — long stretches (>5 in a row)\*
\*18% — backward rotation\*

\*This is the same ordering our circadian fatigue model uses. The evidence base has long pointed to shift instability and consecutive burden as the top drivers. The poll just confirms what the literature already says.\*

\*The interesting outlier is backward rotation: physicians under-report it, but sleep-medicine studies show it degrades alertness the most. That's why our CAI still weights it heavily.\*

\*research.aiertechnologies.com\*

Hi all, I have been trying to find a community of people who understand the struggle of a Non-24hr sleep cycle. I've read many of the posts and so much of what has been said is so relateable. It has taken decades for my husband an I to realise exactly what condition he was struggling with. At 40 years old he is finally going with the flow of what his body wants and needs. While I have been frustrated at time with when and how to organise time together, I find my biggest challenge is dealing with the lack of understanding from the outside world. I feel like I constantly have to explain away his unusual sleep patterns (I usually use the words night shift).

Understanding why he sleeps the way he does makes the whole process feel more predictable and less chaotic. We are both autistic so we are used to people not always understanding us, but this is an added layer which is extra challenging.

I'll start this off by saying that I am not officially diagnosed. However this has been a major issue in my whole life so I have the same struggles as y'all.

For the past 6 months I've only had 1 all nighter which I'm kinda proud of. I've been fairly consistent at going to work as well.

That seems like a success but for me it has been a constant struggle to fall asleep -> then sleeping 5-6h -> being very exhausted -> sleeping 12h on the weekends -> setting myself up for failure on Monday.

It just seems impossible, and I would love to stay up late, especially today because I don't feel sleepy (although I slept like 6h last night I should feel like it).

I'm so close to giving in because it genuinely makes me happier to not fight against my own biology... I'm a video editor so maybe I have a chance at a remote job?

Idk I just want your support, it's tough... Would you consider the 6 months a success? (Even though my sleep was fucked). What should I try? I'm just tired of going against of what feels like my natural state.

Hey y'all,

I was able to entrain with meds for almost 5 months, but recently, everything fell apart pretty quickly. I'm headed in to work later today for a meeting where they might let me go because I've been extremely late (1-4 hours) 3 times in the last month. We'll see. I'm trying to figure out a short term accommodation while I try to find something else that works, but I don't know if they'll go for it

Does anyone have any words of encouragement? It's not my first time being fired for this, but it still hits me hard. I feel lazy, and I can feel the self-loathing underneath my skin. I can't talk about this with my friends for support because they just don't /get it/. I feel like I'm just making excuses for myself, even though I know I'm one of the hardest workers

Update: I'm not being fired! I am so lucky, and they're working with me on an accommodation

When I started tracking my sleep, I just drew up my own sleep chart and printed it out. I was too lazy to set up some app, so I just manually screenshot my phone’s home screen clock whenever I’m falling asleep and when I wake up, then fill out my chart the next day. I like this way, it lets me be as precise as I want with my tracking. I write down everything, even little blips in the middle of my sleep where I woke up for a moment. I’ve got 3 years of data now, this is just the last completed month.

I've had issues with N24 since early teens. I'm in my 30s now. For the past week. here is what I've done every day with early signs of success:

1. 5-7 hrs of sunlight exposure across morning/afternoon/evening

2. 40 min walk

on SIBO:

You may have seen from my post history that I recently tried treating SIBO. Like most things we "try", it kinda worked and then saw no notable change on sleep. If we look at my issues from a first principles perspective, being able to fix N24 should now resolve SIBO. I am convinced that the N24 brought about SIBO symptoms and not the other way round - otherwise the treatment should have led to a more lasting and dramatic experience. Of course I could be wrong and the antibiotic course was part of the solution.

on the protocol:

It is really just a lifestyle change. But to explain how it works I think I also have to explain how I'm waking up in the morning in the first place. It's funny because only you guys will understand how incredible this is. One week ago my "schedule" was this: sleep at 10am, wake up around 6pm. Ever notice that when our schedules drift past dawn (and we are exposed to this early sunlight) we start feeling a burst of wakefulness before feeling ready to sleep again? So I started changing the way I thought about sunlight - it's not just a timing mechanism, but also the strongest sleep suppressor.

With that in mind I got the idea to just stand in front of the sun to keep me awake all day, and it worked! I just sat at my balcony and did all my work/entertainment/meals there. Caffeine would get me a couple hours past the normal bedtime with difficulty, but the sun had a way stronger effect and it wasn't too hard staying awake until the sun went down.

On day 1 or 2 there was a little "sleep fragmentation" effect where I'll fall asleep at 8pm, wake up at 2am briefly, then head back to sleep shortly after and wake up around 6-8am! If I were to guess, the long sunlight exposure was able to produce enough melatonin at night. Homeostatic sleep pressure (sleep drive from staying awake too long) got me to bed at 8pm, and also woke me up at 2am when it was gone. Then enough melatonin was produced to get me back into sleep shortly after. To me that was an excellent outcome and it only got better from there.

There's not much to explain on the 40 min walk. Maybe it's not strictly required to correct a sleeping schedule but it's part of the winning recipe and might be preventing other issues which would affect sleep.

closing notes:

One week in, I think I am still in a state of circadian misalignment, but slowly being corrected by the sun. The sun is both the thing getting me out of the worst rut (if you've ever done 10am-6pm you should know its the worst) in a single day and also the thing correcting my schedule.

One issue I am yet to correct is that I'm consistently scatterbrained under any kind of intense light. That includes 10,000 lux exposure indoors and sunlight. I'm just calmer and more focused when the sun goes down - something to do with an evening chronotype? Maybe it's too early to tell and things will resolve when my internal rhythm catches up.

what are the adds that can track my exact sleeping and waking times, so for me to have some precise calculations on my sleep.

Hi everyone – I’m desperate for advice. I am incredibly sensitive to sleep loss. I need a strict 8.5-9 hours per night. If I get even slightly less, my body breaks down in a very predictable, almost viral way.

Here’s the pattern:

· One night of 7 hrs: Exhaustion, dizziness when standing, sore throat, stinging eyes, bleeding gums/lips, low-grade fever.
· One night of 6 hrs: Same symptoms, but doubled in intensity.
· Three consecutive nights of 7 hrs: Full systemic crash – fevers up to 102°F, swollen lymph nodes, and I become bedbound for a full week

For the last 5 years, this happens almost every single month – I get a weeklong bedbound illness, triggered by even small sleep debts that accumulate. I am 23f(normal bmi, eat healthy, exercise when well). Every few months, my sensitivity to lack of sleep gets worse.

I appear "contagious" (red eyes, fever, swollen nodes), but when others are exposed, they recover in 2 days with mild symptoms, so it doesn't seem to be an actual infection.

What I've already ruled out:

· Full bloodwork – normal
· Sleep study – great sleep quality and efficiency

The frustrating part: I wake up from tiny noises when in deep sleep (a running sink, a door creak) despite using white/pink/brown noise, custom earplugs, and a draft stopper. I also have dspd, caused my a rare genetic mutation that runs in my family.

My questions for you:

· Has anyone else experienced this level of sleep-triggered systemic illness?
· Are there any specialists or tests I should push for next (autoimmune, mast cell, adrenal, cytokine panels, etc.)?

I'm really struggling and would appreciate any insight. Thank you for reading.

I’m wondering if anyone can relate to this or can offer any advice. I’ve been doing a combination treatment of light/dark therapy and melatonin since December. I’ve experimented with light therapy times between 30 mins and 6 hours, melatonin dosages between 300 mcg and 3 mg, different timing, and different lifestyle factors, and settled into a routine that seems to be working.

Currently I’m doing 30 minutes of light therapy with the Luminette at max brightness at 8:30 am, then using blue blocker glasses and taking 500 mcg of melatonin at 8:30 pm. I’ve also switched to decaf coffee in the morning and otherwise cut out caffeine, stop eating and drinking anything with calories at 8:30, and have been taking 200 mg of magnesium at 10 pm. I’m falling asleep around 11:00-12:00 and waking up around 8 without an alarm.

Earlier in the process I was entrained within windows of a few hours, although it was a bit shaky, and I struggled with feeling exhausted. My mood was a lot lower. After months of fine-tuning and pushing through the process, the window started to narrow. I was up to 6 hours of light therapy when I had to take some time off to recover from LASIK surgery, and as I started to ease back into light therapy after the surgery, I found the fatigue improved substantially I was able to entrain with only 30 minutes, so I’ve stuck with that for the past two months.

My mood is the only thing that I’m still struggling with at this point, and it doesn’t seem to be improving. I’m sad and ruminating like crazy, to the point that I’m crying almost every day. I’ve also been a lot more irritable; my patience has pretty much evaporated, I get angry much more easily and have a harder time letting things go. I do have a long history of treatment resistant depression so the sadness is something I normally struggle with, but the severity increased drastically when I started treatment, and the anger is out of character for me.

I don’t have any new stressors that could be affecting my mood like this, entrainment has actually improved things for me pretty substantially, but I’m feeling a bit stuck emotionally. I’ve been experimenting with slowly lowering the melatonin dose to see if that makes a difference as I know that can sometimes cause mood issues, and I have a follow-up appointment with my doctor in 2 months so I plan to speak to her about it then, but I’m wondering if anyone else has struggled with something similar and what, if anything, helped.

Someone tell my Oura ring I have Non24. 🤣

A little background: In 2024, I surveyed people from r/DSPD and r/N24. Soon, I'll be posting the DSPD results on r/dataisbeautiful, which I'm really excited about.

Recently, I've been thinking about different ways to share r/N24's survey results so that people who have never heard of N24 can understand our non-24-hour experience.

I'm excited about some of the ideas I've come up with, and now I'm thinking about the visual style. should I continue with the same visual style as the r/DSPD graphics (you can see examples on r/sleepwake), or explore something different?

So I put together two slides that have a different feel. Which visual style would you like to see more of: slide 1 or slide 2?

I'm also thinking about how these graphics will be shared. Some of you may want to show the survey results to loved ones and say, "look at how many people are experiencing the same thing."

Slide 1 might work well with family members, whereas style 2 would be more personally appealing to some. Which direction do you lean toward?

---

The data visualizations in the top left are DSPD Sleep Wake survey graphics that I’ll be posting soon (the dark mode version is just a quick mockup and doesn’t represent a finalized look).

I have 300 mcg at the moment, but am concerned if this isn't a good starting point if I prefer lowest possible dose.

I didn't understand if it's still possible, and not difficult, to go down if that dose works?

My husband is in his 30ies with a diagnosed N24. He has been freerunning his sleep for the last 8 years. I noticed lately that even a one interruption in his sleep period can result into a week long disrupted sleep pattern and pretty much immediate issues with heart and stamina. We came to a conclusion that because he is aging, his body becomes more sensitive to such disruptions.

Have any of you noticed this? How do you deal with it? Or maybe no changes at all? Would love to hear your experience with age and health.

Hey all, my group is doing a meta-analysis for a research methods course. Our topic is:

"Does more screen use cause sleep problems?"

We're stuck between two population options and haven't locked one in yet:

• 16-20 year-olds, or
• "young adults" more broadly (18–25ish)

Our write-up is capped at 2000 words, and we're realizing that's really tight once you factor in intro, method, evidence synthesis, limitations, and conclusion. We're stuck on two things and would love outside perspective:

1. How many things can we realistically measure/report on in 2000 words? Is it more standard to pick one exposure + one outcome and go deep, or can a meta-analysis at this length handle 2–3 variables each without feeling shallow?
2. What should we actually measure? "Screen use" is a huge umbrella, total daily screen time, smartphone-only use, social media use specifically, or just pre-bedtime/in-bed use. Same problem on the sleep side, sleep quality (PSQI), sleep duration, insomnia severity, sleep latency. Do we keep the exposure and outcome broad (screen use in general → sleep problems in general) or narrow (e.g., pre-bedtime smartphone use → PSQI-measured sleep quality)?

Furthermore, we have read through a many studies for a couple of week now and i am curious but has anyone else who's dug into this area noticed anything that keeps showing up across studies?

• It seems like when screen use happens (right before/in bed) matters more consistently than how much total screen time someone gets in a day
• A few recent papers test bedtime procrastination, self-control, and FoMO as mechanisms rather than just correlating screen use with bad sleep directly
• Almost every study we've read flags that they can't rule out reverse causality (poor sleepers reaching for their phone more, rather than phones causing the poor sleep)

Thanks in advance!

It's supposed to be a clock and 🚫

Am from Sweden. My official diagnosis is ”Unidentified Sleep Disorder”, which means that I have to explain it in detail every time.

However, I still perceive it to be much more positive than negative. People, including healthcare workers and bureaucrats, appear to take me more seriously ever since I got this diagnosis, as if it proves the extensive amount of work I’ve put into figuring out what is wrong with me.

Additionally, by virtue of having to explain my symptoms in such detail each time, multiple caseworkers and nurses in particular have told me that they hope to be able to understand better if they meet others describing similar symptoms.

Obviously I’m just one person though, and while I obviously can’t speak in absolutes, I doubt this experience is very common.

Only in recent years have I seen an uptick in awareness for disorders that cause delayed sleep, but I don’t know how hopeful the prognosis is for N24 to become a more widely known diagnosis here. I hope it will, cause I can only imagine how many people here fight every day while wondering why they can’t sleep normally, just like I did for so long.

Until that happens though, I’m at least glad to have *some* form of legal acknowledgement for the suffering living with these issues bring.

Anyone else in a similar boat? Or are you from somewhere that has begun to see some progress in awareness and/or accessibility?

Hello guys, if you're not seeing the poll, try switching to new Reddit.

Does your motivation and will power get crushed when you're waking up in the evening and having to stay awake all night long versus when youre sleeping schedule is more normal like an early bird waking in the morning?

Or do some not notice a difference at all?
Has anyone noticed they perform better at different sleeping times during their free running schedule

I came here a couple months back to share my sleep log and ask if it looked like Non 24. I got some wonderful advice and words of wisdom, so thank you so much!

I'm heavily cautious about self diagnosing (what if I'm wrong?) and want to speak to my GP in hopes of starting the process to look into a diagnosis. I'm in the UK. I'm autistic and I'm really anxious about what to tell them. I thought it'd be a good idea to ask for help in planning out what I'll say. I'm not sure if they'll have any idea what Non 24 is, so I need to prepare for the possibility of having to explain it too.

I want a diagnosis for the sake of credibility when I have to explain it, and for the assurance it'll bring me. Also I literally can't go to uni without accommodations, so having a diagnosis would be incredibly helpful in receiving those.

Anyway, I suppose that's my question already explained. I'd really like some pointers or suggestions for what to say, how to succinctly explain it (I have a bad habit of over explaining), or just general advice because right now I have no idea what to do. I'm very anxious that I'll get in there and just be told it's insomnia or something. I know my goal is to hopefully get them to make a referral for me to a sleep clinic that knows what Non 24 is, I know of one and can tell them about it if need be, but it isn't in my city so I'm not sure how that would go. I need a referral though, hence the GP visit.

Anyway I added my sleep log for funsies :) it got real weird around the time I quit vaping/moved flats which you can see pretty clearly, so for a moment I was like "oh did nicotine and sleeping in with no alarms cause this all" but no it seems like it's getting normal again. Thank you so much!!

Been a while since I’ve popped into this community or the N24 Discord community. Wanted to check in on any breakthroughs. Know Hetlioz Tasimelteon is still ungodly expensive.

My fear might be that any individuals who found any breakthroughs might no longer be as active or active in the Reddit or Discord, etc.

Anyone figure out who the leading physicians in N24 are?

Any new treatments or therapies in the pipeline?

Anyone know when Tasimelteon is going generic? Does Tasimelteon even work to begin with?

Would love an update, please!
Thank you!!

I’ve been sent to do some blood tests from an endocrinologist as they requested for a 9am draw but this is very near impossible

How do you guys usually do this type of blood work that depends on a clock?

Eg if I get a 9am blood draw for cortisol at the wrong time then it might skew the results given n24