Rescheduling sleep cycle?

Question

My fiancee has been having trouble sleeping lately, and it has caused his sleep schedule to be totally out of whack. He doesn't come to bed until almost 4 in the morning and can't get out of bed until after noon at least. Does anyone have any ideas of how he can get back on a more normal schedule?

Answer 1

Two suggestions:

1) when I'm temporarily out of whack with my sleep cycle, Ambien really, really helps. It just knocks you out for 8 hours, and you feel fine when you wake up. A couple nights of that (I don't take it very often, or all the time), and I'm "reset".

2) I've read that to adjust fundamental sleep cycles, like from "night person" to "morning person", it is best to change bedtime and wake-up time by about 15 minutes every few days, moving in the direction you want to go - earlier or later. Eventually, you will gradually build new habits at the new times.

Answer 2

First I'd recommend him getting a job. After that, there's two ways to shift his pattern, the easy way would be to stay up later and later until he's going to bed at a normal time. The quick way would be for him to force himself to get up at 7am after 3 hours of sleep, do a full day's activity and go to bed at 10 or 11pm

Answer 3

He has to want to change it. It will be easier if he starts getting up earlier first, because then he will get tired earlier. Start withh an hour change at a time, once he gets used to the one hour change he can change it by another hour.