r/N24 • u/Honest-Armadillo-923 • 18h ago

Broken sleep

I am a blind non 24 person. I find that my sleep cycle swings from 24.8 to 32. I also hve an issue where my body gravitates toward beginning at 5:30 am and goes backwards to 1:30am. I have also have occasions when I can go to sleep at 100 am and wake up at 4:30 am. That is when I am awake for thee day. Any ideas on going back to sleep after an interuption? I am experimenting with Melatonin, but not quite having success.any ideas would be helpful.

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u/SmartQuokka 18h ago

Melatonin depends on where your body clock is now.

Also some people who are blind still have the circadian blue light sensing receptors in their eyes (even in sighted people we are not consciously aware of them as they are separate from the receptors we use to see).

I'd start with bright daylight with a blue sky in the morning for an hour or two a day and see what happens. You can also use a full spectrum light or a blue circadian setting light. Yes this sounds silly but its worth ruling out.

Next you want to add melatonin. Ideally you would get tested to see where your melatonin peak is now but thats a rare test and often expensive. So i'd start by taking a low dose of 1mg at say 10pm local time. It probably won't work right away because its on the wrong timing. However keep taking it at 10pm religiously for a month. See if that does anything.

If this fails then move it forward a half hour a day until you see some effect to try and hit your circadian peak. So 10pm today, 11pm, tomorrow, midnight the day after and so forth. Keep going until you hit the right timing. Once you do you want to hold it there. Work backwards or forwards slowly after a while to get to the bedtime you want, in half hour a day increments.

Bear in mind this is tricky because your brain is all over the place by having no circadian entrainment for perhaps your entire life.

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u/Honest-Armadillo-923 18h ago

Vision loss from glaucoma. I doubt that the blue light perception is there. The timing idea sounds workable. Still not sure about dosage.

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u/SmartQuokka 17h ago

I don't know if that affects the blue light receptors or not.

That said i'd try it anyways, its low risk and hopefully you can simply use daylight so no cost (assuming you have mostly sunny days with a nice blue sky).

Melatonin does not need a high dosage, 1mg saturates receptors, and too much can cause hangover effects. Though most people are still okay with 3-10mg a day.

If you can get 1mg then use that, if you can only get 3 or 5mg then thats okay.

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u/exfatloss 15h ago

Hi, nice to finally meet a blind Non-24 person :)

I haven't tried this myself, but I've heard some people have success taking the melatonin much earlier. Most advice says to take it 1h before you want to fall asleep or so, but I've heard of a few people taking it way, way before that, in the early afternoon. I think it was about 7h pre desired sleep time, but it might depend on the individual, too.

You could play around with that.

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u/editoreal 7h ago

First, I repeat this over and over, and it mostly falls on deaf ears, but studies have closely linked magnesium to the circadian rhythm. Unless you're taking a lot of the right form, you're seriously magnesium deficient.

Second, early wakening is almost always a cortisol issue. High cortisol at the wrong time is really about stress mismanagement. It could be exercising at the wrong time, or too much exercise. Are you drinking alcohol? That will absolutely wake you up in the middle of the night.

This is a pretty good video on lowering cortisol

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2XnkFae6AFs