DSPS & Caffeine
Question:
Can taking caffeine in the morning and mid-day help with delayed sleep phase syndrome? Clearly, any caffeine late in the day is a bad idea. But, it seems to me that early and mid-day caffeine might help in two ways: 1. In the morning it gets your brain awake faster so your awake-time starts sooner, so that your sleep-time can come sooner (in the same way early-day exercise can help). If you get up at 9am and mope around half-asleep until noon, your body may not fully count that time as awake-time, and so your body may not think the day has started until late-morning, and thus, your sleep-time won’t come until later than desired. 2. It helps prevent napping. Naps during the day will further delay sleep-time. Caffeine can help prevent that and keep you on schedule. I have not seen any studies advocating caffeine as therapy for DSPS. Is there a reason for that? Is my logic faulty? Caffeine seems to have been demonized, or maybe it’s just too common and not exciting or exotic. Sure, doctors may advocate melatonin or B12, but why not caffeine? People commonly self-medicate themselves with coffee. A zillion people get up in the morning, drink coffee, and have a mid-day coffee break. Are they all making a mistake? Or, have they all figured out a workable therapy for, what is in reality, a sleep disorder?
Response:
Can only give you what is happening with me, but I know I react very strange, read opposite, to certain things, so take it however you want. Your reasoning re walking around half asleep does make sense to me, and even after sleeping 10 hours I do the same. However, caffeine ( cola in my case) does not seem to have any influence on me, not waking up, nor having trouble falling asleep later on. If anything, if I am not sleepy around 2-3 a.m. and then have a cola, guaranteed I am sleepy within 30 min. of drinking the can of coke. Never fails. I have also noticed that when sleepy at around 6 p.m. it doesn’t seem to matter if I then take a 2 hour nap, or keep myself awake ( hoping to fall asleep earlier in the night) with if any difference at all, then taking that nap might make me fall asleep somewhat earlier! in the night ( not over tired??). Very contrary to popular belief. The real advantage there of course is that I would have a more productive evening after the nap. My advise would be to experiment for yourself. Having some caffeine is really not going to kill you and might actually help. I understand you might be trying to live as healthy as possible, but having lousy sleep is not healthy either. Having said that, I do think for those with DSPS it is rather unhealthy to try to keep "normal" hours as I think it is abnormal for our bodies. I think the school of thought that those with DSPS where in the caveman days the ones who protected everyone at night so everyone could sleep worry free, might well have some merit. If you have to work "normal’ hours though it is a real killer, especially the older you get. And people do not understand that you just cannot go earlier to sleep, regardless how tired you are. I have come to realize that tired and sleepy are two very different things. BTW, have you tried light therapy? According to the medical world it is light which will tell the body it is daytime and so they came up with light therapy. Didn’t work for me but does work for others. If you get a lamp be careful if you have blue eyes, red hair etc. You can get burned. Basically anyone sensitive to the sun will have to start real slow with the light. Take care, Paula – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text -Kev wrote: > 1. In the morning it gets your brain awake faster so your awake-time starts > sooner, so that your sleep-time can come sooner (in the same way early-day
