Feel normal between 10pm and 2am.

[jimbridger]

Does that make any sense??

 

[TJ_Fitz]

Yes. Your adrenal glands are on their second wind to keep you awake, and therefore suppressing inflammation. The problem is that they are working extra hard when they should be resting. Those are prime hours for restoring your body with sleep. Good sleep hygiene is really important for us! Even if you only feel alive and functional in the middle of the night, there will be hell to pay down the road if you keep going that way. At least, that's been my experience. I guess YMMV but unlikely.

 

[TracyD]

On most days, I feel at my best late at night, too, and I've wondered about the reason, without coming up with anything that fits the whole pattern. (If my adrenal glands are responsible, they're on their 'first wind.)

 

[Shannon]

This has been the case for me for over 2 decades now. I suspect I may have a backwards circadian clock even. I have sleep apnea and severe fibromyalgia, so my sleep issues are many. I rarely reach REM sleep and am often very fatigued even when I have 8+ hours of sleep per day (never consecutive, ever. Never more than 4 hours of consecutive sleep).

I feel my best in the early morning hours more than 10 pm - 2 am. More like 3 am - 10 am and I feel I get the most restful sleep during the day.

Due to the severe fibromyalgia and fatigue, I sleep when my body wants to. Mostly! I often push myself to stay awake longer than my body wants because I feel like I sleep my life away. I often joke that I sleep more than my cat, but it's true. 16+ hours a day is not unusual. Again, never, ever, consecutive hours though.

There is something called sleep debt that we allegedly need to eventually "pay", or so it is said. That is the difference between the sleep you need and the sleep you actually get, which accrues over time. Though I highly doubt there are any studies of that sleep debt being decades long! I doubt I will ever pay off my sleep debt haha!

Anyhow, yes, I think you might find a lot of us find the wee hours more restful for being the most awake. I call that my "focus time". The time where I feel most present and able to focus. I also personally suspect that because this time of the day is less busy and there is less activity going on around me that is distracting, distressful, and causing my body's fight or flight mode to be the most aggravated, I find those hours the most comforting to be awake. I have a multitude of hypersensitivities (sight, sound, smell, touch) which means I am able to function best when there is little to no noise around me. I even wear industrial strength earplugs 24/7 to tone down background noise. Over time, one will discover these little life hacks that help manage symptoms and improve one's quality of life, even if only slightly.

Just my 2 cents worth of thoughts

 

[Wayne]

This used to be the case for me, and I definitely attribute it to having my circadian rhythm off kilter. Once I started supplementing with low-dose hydrocortisone (Cortef), my circadian rhythm mostly returned to normal. I take most of my Cortef in the early morning hours, and a slight amount in the afternoon.

 

[TJ_Fitz]

I just learned about this yesterday:

The Four Chronotypes: Which One Are You?

Read on to learn more about which chronotype you are and how it affects your sleep.

www.psychologytoday.com

I'm most likely a "dolphin". Dolphins and wolves are more likely than lions and bears to feel well and alert at night.

 

[Baz493]

Chronic fatigue can take many forms. When I was being exposed to the chemical, trichloroethylene, it interrupted the normal cellular production of energy however created a niche effect where I always improved when I was exposed to it at work. It turned out that this is a normal effect with the chemical. I only learnt about the effect from reading one of Dr Ronald L Hoffman's books on chronic fatigue. Of course, different exposures to toxic substances or allergens may induce different effects. https://www.ei-resource.org/article...-fatigue-syndrome-and-environmental-toxicity/ I couldn't help but wonder whether you were recovering at night from something which you may be exposed to during the day.

 

[SarahTee]

Me too. A plausible explanation is auto-immune or inflammatory activity. It’s been shown to follow a circadian rhythm in some auto-immune disorders.

Everyone always says it’s cortisol or something adrenal, but I’ve had those both tested in depth and they are normal.

 

[Baz493]

Me too. A plausible explanation is auto-immune or inflammatory activity. It’s been shown to follow a circadian rhythm in some auto-immune disorders.

Everyone always says it’s cortisol or something adrenal, but I’ve had those both tested in depth and they are normal.

How are your lactate/lactate dehydrogenase levels? Production of lactate is a result of glycolysis, energy production without oxygen. My current condition involves high levels of them both as a consequence of respiratory failure. Doctors refusing to listen to me about that failure led to my own auto-immune response.

 

[SarahTee]

@Baz493 I think I just have “ordinary” auto-immune problems. I have two fairly common auto-immune diseases, plus one recently described and probably not all that rare one, am female and approaching 50, so nothing unusual. I suspect my mum had Sjogren’s syndrome, so I won’t be surprised if that shows up in the next decade.

I feel a lot better when I take steroids, even weeks after stopping, but no-one wants to prescibe them to me for longer than a week. (I occasionally get them for hayfever/itching episodes, not my fatigue problems, which is how I found out they fixed my fatigue.) I understand why doctors don’t want me taking them long term, but part of me wonders about being fatigue free for a couple of years and to hell with the consequences!

I’m sorry to hear you are having respiratory problems. That must really affect everyday activities.

 

[Baz493]

My autoimmune is myositis yet my birth families is multiple sclerosis so you may be surprised not to develop the Sjogren's. You have gene's from both your parents and may have very different circumstances and toxic exposures so nothing is ever definite. My everyday activities went overnight from being a worker who did martial arts and weight training to only being able to sit and watch tv all day. It just a big lead up time of toxic exposures and massive work demand which culminated in when I collapsed from heat stroke. I was never right after that.

 

[TJ_Fitz]

@Baz493 I think I just have “ordinary” auto-immune problems. I have two fairly common auto-immune diseases, plus one recently described and probably not all that rare one, am female and approaching 50, so nothing unusual. I suspect my mum had Sjogren’s syndrome, so I won’t be surprised if that shows up in the next decade.

I feel a lot better when I take steroids, even weeks after stopping, but no-one wants to prescibe them to me for longer than a week. (I occasionally get them for hayfever/itching episodes, not my fatigue problems, which is how I found out they fixed my fatigue.) I understand why doctors don’t want me taking them long term, but part of me wonders about being fatigue free for a couple of years and to hell with the consequences!

You might find non-DGL licorice root helpful... not as helpful as steroids, but perhaps helpful still.

 

[SarahTee]

@Baz493 you are right, I may not get Sjogren’s, as my life has been very different to my mum’s. And my dad is pretty healthy. I seem to be creating my own AI collection.

I’m sorry to hear of your situation. Illness can sneak up on us or ambush us any time. Even now when something new comes along I’m unprepared.

 

[SarahTee]

@TJ_Fitz is that the same licorice as people sometimes use for orthostatic intolerance because it gives a similar effect to fludrocortisone? I will have a look for some.

 

[TJ_Fitz]

@TJ_Fitz is that the same licorice as people sometimes use for orthostatic intolerance because it gives a similar effect to fludrocortisone? I will have a look for some.

Yes.

 

[Hotch]

Yes.

Would you mind telling what sort of licorice it is please? I am starting fludrocortisone and midodrine today! I would rather have something natural though. 🙏

 

[Carl#1]

I start feeling more alive around 5-6pm to around 5am. I am frequently dead to the world in the mornings although on a few occasions I am awake. I suspect that it might be when I take some calcium pantothenate at a suitable time which is needed by the adrenal glands that I feel more awake in the mornings. I don't take it at a regular/reliable time which means that on some mornings I have to sleep.