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... my sleep has been messed up for decades. It's complicated by the fact that I'm a night person, as well.
I've found, over the years, that I seem to have a 27-hour day when I can't maintain my natural schedule, and that makes maintaining schedule adjustments difficult.
What I generally try to do is use the weekend to move the daily clock forward (I find that fighting to move the clock backwards by denying myself sleep doesn't work well at all). On a Friday, I'll try to stay up until Saturday afternoon, hit the rack and wake up very early Sunday morning, maybe one or two a.m., then stay awake until maybe nine p.m. Sunday. That get's me eight hours' worth of sleep by 5 a.m. Monday morning. From that point on, it's a matter of not getting overly wired, or stuck in front of the computer to absurd hours of the night. Some exercise also helps--a two-mile walk two or three hours before a desired bedtime works wonders.
One can't discount one's natural schedule, either. I define a "natural schedule" as one that one can regularly maintain without an alarm clock and feel good. I had one summer between semesters teaching full-time that I couldn't find a summer job, and I quickly fell into schedule which was comfortable to me--fell asleep at 4 a.m., woke at noon. Same amount of sleep as most people, but shifted by a few hours. Felt fine, never needed an alarm clock.
If you feel better in the morning, then you're probably a bit stressed and not getting to sleep early enough in the evening. I'd suggest a schedule adjustment as above, but pounding feet of the pavement for a couple of miles in the evening to get rid of the cumulative stress that's keeping you up past your normal and desired bedtime.
Cheers.
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