Wanted: people with a functioning body clock

[baratron]

Okay, I have a question. How do you know it's time to get up?

Don't say "because my alarm goes off". Let's assume it isn't a work day, and you can get up at whatever time you like. How do you know when that is?

Also, if you have morning meds to take before food, how do you make sure they get taken at the same time each day?

I actually have no idea. Between the chronic fatigue and the delayed sleep phase syndrome, I usually get up either because I have to be somewhere, or because I'm hungry.

I could have got up today at 11, but I was still tired. I fell back to sleep and slept until 2, and was still tired then, but thought it might be because of low blood sugar. So I ate half a protein bar, and then thought "shit, I should have taken my thyroxine first". Now I'm sitting around exhausted and brain-dead, waiting until it's been long enough after eating that I can take the thyroxine, and then until it's long enough after taking the thyroxine that I can have my hot chocolate and vitamin pills and something decidedly more meal-like than the protein bar.

I have an alarm that goes off at 4pm for one med, but lately that hasn't been much use as it's a "take with food" med and I haven't been awake.

Apparently, based on brain biopsies, people with "severe depression" are not synchronised to the usual solar day in terms of gene activity. NEWSFLASH! I wonder if there are any studies that I can enrol in before I'm dead?

Comments

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

There comes a point where I feel guilty about being in bed. Even though I don't want to get up.

That point varies. And I may go back to sleep afterward.

I'm SUPPOSED to get up at 6:30 or 7 even if I don't have to, because my shrink says I should. However, on my own, I'd get out of bed when 1. my bladder said so, 2. my hunger said so (but that doesn't happen, because I don't feel hungry, even though I eat a lot), 3. I am so uncomfortable from not showering that I have to shower, 4. the cats insist on it, 5. I'm so bored with sleeping that I feel like I have to check email or some such.

[baratron.livejournal.com]

Your shrink terrifies me. I can understand the idea of being in a regular routine, and I can even understand the idea that if you can stick to hours that are normal for people at work, it will be easier when you're well enough to get a job again. But 6.30 am?! There are only about 3 months of the year when it's light then!

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

Boston is quite a bit farther south than London. Although our climate is somewhat similar to yours, with perhaps a few more temperature extremes around the edges, we're just a little further south than Lyon, France, just a little further north than Rome. The absolute latest the sun rises is about 7:20 at the end of October, at which point Daylight Saving Time ends, so it then rises at 6:20, and goes later until the Solstice, when it rises at around 7:15. So, at the end of October, the sun SHOULD be rising at 6:20 or so, but DST pushes it later. In reality, sunrise should be before seven AM, except for a couple weeks around the Solstice.

And it actually gets light a little before that, though.

So that's not as terrifying a time for a Bostonian as for a Londoner.