We've looked at sleep diaries of patients with insomnia, and they'll say that they don't sleep for one or two days. And the body actually has a natural function, after about the third day to start catching up and you get a little bit more sleep the third night. And that's usually what I tell my patients.
Shelby HarrisHonestly, what we use a lot is melatonin. So we use lower dosages of melatonin, taking it at different times, depending upon where we are traveling and that can really help adjust the body's rhythm to wherever you are going.
Shelby HarrisIt's uncommon, but there are some people who just have a delayed circadian rhythm and they just - they sleep better during the day then they do at night. So they've - a lot of those people with delayed sleep phase disorder they start to work in bars, they work some of the late night shifts, they sort of adjust to doing it more and more as time goes on.
Shelby HarrisWe haven't really - it's harder for us to set those rhythms. So it's really important to keep a steady bedtime and wake time to really lock in those rhythms.
Shelby HarrisIf there's a lot of fear that's going on, if there's a lot of anxiety, it's manifesting itself in your nocturnal world so that analyzing it can help open up basically thoughts about what you need to do during the day. So a lot of people who subscribe to the psychoanalysis, the Jungian thought will really focus a lot on dreams, the meaning, and how it can be used to help you during the day.
Shelby HarrisWhen you are more awake at nights, they'll toss and turn, they'll think more, they get frustrated. And when that starts to happen, you really don't sleep even more because you're making your body tense and your mind is getting more and more active.
Shelby HarrisWe have other opposite problems with circadian rhythms that can happen when you - a lot of times with older adults. They start to go to bed at 6:00, 7:00 at night and they wake up at 2:00 in the morning. And they're rhythms actually shift earlier, but sometime it can just kind of miss the mark and shift too much earlier and that's when we need to treat it with bright light.
Shelby Harris