Not until just before dawn do people sleep best; not until people get old do they become wise.

I am trying a new sleep regiment.  I have been plagued with irregular sleep patterns pretty much forever.  I've always been a bit of a night owl.  I have tried many things to try and normalize my sleep patterns.  I've tried sleep therapy, over the counter drugs meant as sleep aids, over the counter drugs that have drowsiness as a side effect (those tend to work best so far),  a variety of prescription sleep aids, prescription antidepressant/sleep aids, benzos (these work, but they're only meant for short term use, as they have too large of a risk for dependance on the drugs, so they're pretty much useless if I can't take them long term), changing sleep habits, avoiding rooms meant only for sleep, changing eating habits before bed.  Seriously, you name it, I've tried it.

Lately, I've been trying various combinations of things.  So far, the combination of sleepy time tea with a valerian root supplement in it and benadryl have been working pretty well.  Today, I am starting a new regiment which includes the valerian root tea and melatonin, which I have just taken.  I'm a little nervous about the melatonin because I'm taking 3mg which, from what I read is somewhat high.  Doses that high can cause irritiability, headache, and nausea.  The other two I can handle, but being nauseated pretty much debilitates me because I am emetophobic (I'm a vomit phobe), so I'm crossing my fingers I don't have that side effect.

My old tried and trusted remedy is Nyquil.  It doesn't always work, but it has the greatest success rate for me.  The only problem is it's pretty unsafe for your liver.  My doctor was appalled when I told her I was taking it every day.  So, I've been open to trying new things that I hear about.

I'm pretty sure that I have Delayed sleep phase syndrome.  Which you can read about here.  I once had a doctor try to prescribe me a "full spectrum lamp" as a part of light therapy, which is one way of managing delayed sleep phase syndrome.  I didn't get it because it cost quite a bit of money and I was a teenager who didn't want to spend over $400 on a glorified lamp.   After researching it quite a bit, it sounds pretty likely this is my issue, as the description of the disorder fits my issues almost exactly.  I have just never done a sleep study or monitoring beyond a clinical interview to be properly diagnosed.  I have no issues sleeping, I just have issues sleeping when I'm supposed to.

That was pretty uninteresting, I'm sure, but maybe someone else reading this has similar sleep issues and can be helped?  Oh, and I became a card carrying member of the National Geographic society today.  Well, it doesn't go into effect until April 1st, but I got the certificate today.  Which, I believe, allows me to talk about things that no one cares about from time to time.  Actually, all it really entitles me to is a subscription to National Geographic magazine.  Oh well.

I was trying to find an image to use for this post by googling the term "sleep", and this came up:


I don't know what the hell that is.  It's a little more "National Geographic" than "sleep", but maybe that thing is yawning.