Non-24 Hour Sleep-Wake Syndrome

I made this graph ... this is basically what my sleep cycle does. With the graph I assumed a 25 hour intrinsic period, i'm not sure exactly how long my intrinsic period is though, only that its longer than 24 hours ... it could very well be 26-28 hours ...

The blue function represents a normal 24-hour sleep cycle, and you will notice that that blue function always crosses the x-axis at the same place each day. The red function is someone like me with a period longer than 24 hours, you will notice it always leads the blue function but occasionally catches up and drifts into sync, but also at times is 180 degress out of phase. The area above the x axis represents time awake, and you will notice that the red function is awake slightly longer than the blue function. I used trigonometry to make this graph. I don't know if it's completely correct as I don't understand the syndrome completely, and very few doctors really understand it completely either, but I think it's close enough for government work to represent basically what goes on with my brain's natural circadian rhythm and how it is not in sync with society's 24-hour schedule.


graph at link:
https://www.desmos.com/calculator/wrpqy0964a

 

you drew a sign wave. mine also precesses around the clock. you, me, and cats, are from a different planet with a different length of day.

 

ahh ... found xkcd comic talking about similar thing <3 xkcd

 

Circadian rhythm disturbances/Melatonin regulation abnormalities are often associated with ASD.

 

Also frequently misdiagnosed as childhood ADD/ADHD as well as an array of psychological problems, and often for years as just plain insomnia. But correlation =/= causation and the misdiagnoses are usually the result of a confusion of causality, as sleep disturbances in children can produce behavioral symptoms that may be misdiagnosed as ADHD, etc; and can certainly cause psychological issues. Some of this is in the DSM-V, which I have the full text.

To test this out, try keeping yourself awake for 48-72 hours and see if you can notice any psychological issues, which you almost certainly will due to the effects of sleep deprivation on the mind and will almost certainly find this quite distressing and unpleasnt.

Sleep deprivation itself is detrimental, but people with this disorder also often develop anxiety and/or depression, due to the former combined with the fact that living with this and being required to keep society's 24-hour schedule (which is about the most unnatural thing someone with this order could do to their brain) is incredibly debilitating and very stressful; and can certainly make one feel like crying at times as it is just extremely unpleasant, which one might describe as similar to some type of psychological torture.

Its detrimental effects don't end with just mental or neurological effects: it can also lead to the development of a whole array of physical/physiological problems with the body as being forced to continuously accumulate sleep deprivation is very unhealthy and harmful to the body in too many ways to go into here and I don't understand this syndrome very well and neither do many doctors. I would have to actually write a real research paper to go into these things rather than a forum post.

The DSM-V doesn't really say much about this disorder, due to the nature of what the DSM-V is.

I've read a few scientific papers on it, and non-24-hour-sleep-wake disorder is not the original name of the syndrome, which has a much less user-friendly medical term. It is probably more accurately described as a syndrome, rather than a disorder in itself, as the exact cause of the syndrome is not always the same, and is certainly much different in sighted patients than it is in blind patients; it is also far less well understood (as well as far less common) in sighted patients with N24 than blind patients with N24. It is likely that most sighted N24 patients are never diagnosed with N24, rather misdiagnosed with various other problems as N24 can really only be properly diagnosed by a neurologist that has also specialized their field of study in sleep and sleep-disorders having an extensive understanding; and with specific types of experiments, or tests.

It is also worth noting, that in practice, currently available treatments for non-24 fail in sighted N24 patients that are not blind.

Garbaza C, et al (2016) Non-24-Hour Sleep-Wake Disorder Revisited – A Case Study. Front Neurol. 2016; 7: 17.
doi:10.3389/fneur.2016.00017


Just typing non-24-hour-sleep-wake-disorder into Google is really going to tell you just about as near to nothing about this as makes no odds. To even attempt to understand it, you have to go to the primary sources, scientific papers published in scientific journals; which are not at all easy reading, and certainly not written in anything close to "layman's terms".

A University library would be one place one might these types of papers on things of this nature. Google scholar is also a good resource available to a researcher.