Self-Employment: Disturbance in Sleep & Chronotherapy

Self-employment has many advantages and one of them is the freedom to choose when, and where, you will work. For many self-employed individuals, the complications with regulating a work schedule are quite common and, in fact, it is not uncommon for the sleep schedule to become disrupted. If you, as a self-employed person, have noticed that you are experience a sleep disorder, it is important to consider how and why the sleep complication manifested but also what you can do to remedy and return to a normal sleep cycle.

Sleep cycles, especially among self-employed individuals who are night owls, tend to become much disrupted. If you are self-employed, you have probably experienced the change in which you begin to go to bed later and later at night and, ultimately, this leads to getting up later and later each day. Before long, you will find that your sleep cycle is so disturbed that it is almost as if you are working a night shift and sleeping when most people are awake and doing the most with their day.

If this scenario describes your sleeping pattern, and if you desire to change your sleeping pattern so that is in-sync with the rest of the world, then you will want to consider using chronotherapy as a way to reset your biological clock. While some physicians will recommend doing this type of therapy at home, there may be a need to use a sleep study center but, in doing so, you can expect that your sleep cycle will not be adjusted for a full eight days.

Doing chronotherapy at home is possible but can be challenging unless you have someone who can help you stick to the plan. Essentially, with chronotherapy, you will move your bed time to a time that is later and later each day until, ultimately, you have returned to going to bed at your original time. Typically, doctors will recommend that you make this adjustment by two to three hours each day. So, if you are now going to bed at 3am, you will want to move that time to 5am or 6am the following day.

Over the course of eight to ten days, in theory, you should be able to return to your normal bedtime and then the next big challenge, of waking up at the same time every day will be important. No longer can you sleep in bed for as many hours as you want.

Self-employment has many advantages but one key disadvantage may be the inability to regulate sleep cycles. If you find that your work is becoming affected by your abnormal sleep schedule, consider using chronotherapy, at home or under a doctor's supervision, to restore your sleep and alleviate this common sleep disorder.

Sources: Overcoming Sleep Disorders, by Brenda O'Hanlon, pp. 72-73.