Delayed Sleep Phase Syndrome: How to Re-set Your Circadian Clock

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Typically, associated with college students, though it may develop in adolescence, or even in early childhood, and for some continues through adulthood, delayed sleep phase syndrome is like jet lag, but without the jet. What do I mean by this? When you travel rapidly through time zones, from west to east, such as occurs when you fly say from New York to London, your body is in the habit of falling asleep and waking in the time zone that you left. If you fall asleep every night at midnight and wake up every day at 8 am in New York, then hop on a plane for London which is five hours ahead of New York, your body is not ready to sleep until 5 am London time, and wake up until 1 PM London time. The sleep-wake cycle is the obvious manifestation of what in biology are known as circadian rhythms, physiological changes that progress according to the 24-hour day-night cycle. Inside your brain is a gland known as the pineal gland, which secretes a hormone called melatonin. The cells of the pineal gland that secrete melatonin are stimulated when it is dark, and inhibited when it is light. This helps you to fall asleep when it gets dark, and wake up when the Sun lights up the skies.

In this age of technology, however, the advent of electric lighting has messed with our circadian rhythms. Young adults in college are affected most often, since they are prone to stay up late, studying with the lights on and staring into a bright computer monitor. If you do this until, say 1 am, then attempt to do to sleep, you will find that it is difficult, and may not fall asleep until 2, or perhaps 3 am, but if you then sleep soundly for several hours and do this consistently every night, this is not insomnia. It is delayed sleep phase syndrome. If you live in New York and you cannot fall asleep until 3am, then have trouble waking before 11am, essentially, you are on Pacific time. Go to California and you’ll be on a more typical schedule. Or you may find that you slip back into a more delayed sleep phase, falling asleep at 3am Pacific time! The reason for this is that for most people it’s fairly easy to adjust the sleep-wake cycle backward (meaning moving from eastern to more western time zones), but extremely difficult to adjust forward (moving from western to more eastern time zones).


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But here are some techniques to help you to readjust:

  1. Avoid light for an hour or two before the time you want to go to bed: This sounds unrealistic when you first hear it, but let me explain. Studies have revealed that for most people it takes about 1-2 hours of darkness to get the pineal gland to secrete enough melatonin to put them asleep at night, but darkness does not mean an absence of all light. Visible light is a spectrum of wavelengths of electromagnetic radiation which we see as different colors, the longer wavelengths appearing red, the shorter wavelengths appearing blue, and it is known that only the blue and part of the green area of the spectrum inhibits the pineal gland from secreting melatonin, as shown in this chart. This means that to get your melatonin turned on you don’t need to avoid all light. Instead you can read and study, even look at a computer screen or television screen - provided that the shorter wavelengths of light are filtered out by way of special light bulbs, glasses, or computer monitor filters.

  2. Sleep in complete darkness. If there is any light coming into your room, through windows from lights outside, wear a sleeping mask. This will keep your pineal gland secreting melatonin throughout the night. Also, by getting more melatonin from your pineal gland throughout the night, your risk of developing cancer is reduced.

  3. Do not turn on the bathroom light. If you get up in the middle of the night, use only light that is free of the short wavelengths as during the hour or two when preparing to go to bed. Even a little bit of white light (which includes the blue and green) even for a few minutes, may turn off your melatonin for an hour or so. That’s why often it is difficult to fall back asleep if you get up to use the bathroom; it’s not going to the bathroom that does that, it’s the light.

  4. Get plenty of sunlight in the morning. As investigators look more deeply into the issue of circadian rhythms and melatonin, it’s becoming more clear that the exposure to light in the morning may be just as important as the exposure to darkness at night. Most of what we know about how the different colors of light affect the pineal gland is the result of studies conducted initially to elucidate the mechanism underlying seasonal affective disorder - depression and mood swings occuring during winter in high latitude cities where winter light is very sparse. Apparently, sunlight in the morning -which includes those blue and green wavelengths at high intensity- plays a major role in re-setting your circadian clock. This, in turn, helps to keep the pineal gland from getting confused between whether it’s daytime or night time. Essentially, what you want to do is to present the pineal gland with a clear contrast - a lot of light in the morning and very dim light at night, and with no short wavelengths to boot.

  5. Exercise: Not only should you get plenty of exercise, but studies suggests that it may be helpful to perform your exercise at about the same time slot each day, if that is possible. The basic idea is that your body likes circadian rhythms. Exercise regularly, keep your light dark cycle and your blue-green light cycle consistent and it’s easier to maintain a favorable sleep-wake cycle. While this can help you to free you from delayed sleep phase syndrome, the same tactics can can help you to adjust to a more eastern time zone when you travel, and thus avoid jet lag.

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