Hypersomnia. Too much sleep?

[Looneybomber]

Listening to the radio today, they talked about some lady who sleeps around 18hrs a day!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/2 ... 98647.html

"Sumner slept up to 18 hours a day before taking a leave of absence from her job as a lawyer. Emory researchers found that she, along with 31 other patients, seem to produce a substance in the body that acts similarly to anesthesia, according to research recently published in Science Translational Medicine. To counter-act the disorder, Sumner has been taking a pill form of a drug typically used to help surgery patients wake up."

That said, I woke up today just a little before 3am, getting 6hrs of sleep...Made myself an omlet, watched Walking dead, and left for work. I couldn't imagine sleeping that much, thinking of all the time wasted doing nothing. To be more productive, I'd switch over to a biphastic sleep schedule and drop to 4-5hrs of sleep a day, but working 12hr shifts means napping at work and they may not be too happy if I brought a pillow and blanket in everyday.

[MinisterofDOOM]

I broke my circadian rhythm pretty badly when I was working the graveyard shift. After 8+ years of that, I moved to a normal 8-5 job. But with less than a year under my belt on 8-5, I'm still getting my body reprogrammed to sleep for normal amounts of time and wake up naturally. Because of the fact that you can only get so much done at 3am, I often had to live on a daywalker schedule on weekends. So I'd set my alarms (plural) and wake up when needed. I never had a chance to establish a regular sleep schedule, since even during the workweek I would sleep earlier or later as needed to get stuff done during the day.
These days, I can easily accidentally sleep for 12 hours before naturally waking. I use redundant alarm clocks even on the weekend to avoid wasting time oversleeping.

[Dattebayo]

I'm in the middle of a shift from night shift to mid shift, and it's been hell on my body. Right now I'm sleeping in two shifts for some reason, but I found a way to get things back to normal according to an article I read... (sorry, I don't remember the url)

The article said that to shift to a schedule, you must fast from the proper midday (this depends on what your "midday" is) until the time you need to sleep and then eat immediately after you wake up three days in a row. This does not include moderate amounts of coffee or water (but no soda or alcohol allowed). It worked the last time, but this time I'm finding it difficult not to eat at night. It doesn't help that it's the holiday time of year, I think. Too many delicious things going on everywhere...

[MinisterofDOOM]

Well that sucks. It's hard for me to go more than 2 hours without eating SOMETHING. My metabolism combined with a tendency toward hypoglycemia makes it pretty difficulty to go from midday to sleeping without eating. It's hard to sleep when you're painfully hungry.

[Dattebayo]

Yeah, I don't get it. Sometimes I'll eat a ham sandwich and it will stick to me all day, and others it will just run right through me and I must eat again.

[Looneybomber]

Switching shifts is rough. When I went from getting off work at 2am to starting work at 5:30am, it took a while before I could fall asleep soon enough to get more than 4hrs a night. Picked up a coffee habit too.

[MinisterofDOOM]

It's a good thing I can't stand coffee. Of course I just drink Rockstar or Coke instead, so...

[Dattebayo]

I got in last night at 1AM from work, and I'm up again. I will probably sleep again at 11 if I'm not careful...

Coke doesn't work long enough, but at least it doesn't have the habit of hitting you with a second wave like coffee does. I just wish it lasted longer than a few hours. I'm in serious need!

[breadbox]

I can easily sleep for 12+hours, I am really good at telling my self to sleep and have been since I could walk and put myself to bed.

Also I react well to the light, so in a room with no curtains or artificial light, I wake up with the sun.

But sleeping 18/24 a day is crazy.