managing n24

if you have N24 and want to skip ahead to the part where i talk about how to manage it , go here !

my experience with n24

i have a rare neurological condition called ( sighted ) N24 , or N24SWD , which is short for Non-24 Hour Sleep Wake Disorder . put simply , my brain thinks the day is 27 hours long , which would be cute if it didn't cause so many problems !

the first problem is that my body naturally wants to go to sleep 3 hours later than it did the day before , every day . that means i don't have a consistent bedtime , because it's always rotating around the clock . some days i'm an early bird , awake in the day , and other days i'm fully nocturnal .

to make matters worse , nearly everybody else operates on 24 hour time . if i ever need to interact with the outside world during business hours , which is minimally necessary for doctor appointments and other chores , there's a 50/50 chance i'll be asleep during that time . but i can't miss half of my appointments , so waking up in the middle of my night becomes a routine necessity .

visualize the chaos

you may understandably be wondering , what does that even look like ? thankfully , i've prepared an actogram of my sleep data ( sleep-data.csv ) from October 2023 to November 2024 :

what you're seeing is a painfully chaotic mixture of my vain attempts at entrainment before i properly educated myself on chronobiology , and interruptions like the aforementioned doctor appointments violently destabilizing my rhythm . not a pretty picture !

isolation and despair

not being able to consistently predict when you'll be awake is terrible for having a social life . or any kind of life , really .

it also doesn't help when your condition is so unusual that most people don't understand what you're talking about when you try to explain why one does not simply plan a hang out with autumn more than , like , three days in advance .

frustration grew into dangerous levels of despair after getting the impression that N24 was potentially untreatable , which THANKFULLY turned out to be wrong in my case .

doctors and medications

i've never had a doctor take my N24 seriously . i'm typically just assigned a diagnosis of insomnia and prescribed medication that makes my sleep even worse , because it's not insomnia .

another interesting consequence of their lack of consideration is that they technically don't prescribe enough of any medication for me , because they don't take into account how long my days actually are .

lack of representation

i've never met anyone in real life who has N24 .

there's hardly any representation for it in media . i've never seen it in movies , or discussed casually on anyone's blog . i did see a very good video essay about it once , but can't find it again .

silver linings

there aren't many positive aspects of this condition aside from a deep appreciation for the privilege of chronotypicals and an unusually rich knowledge of zeitgebers , but i do agree with this person when they say :

In all that time I've come to love the variety and richness of experiencing different parts of the day at peak consciousness and strength

it's also amusing to perpetually cycle through different levels of assigned social status surrounding wake up time . when i wake up at 4am , people will gasp "you must be so productive and disciplined , amazing !!!" . then the very next week , i wake up at 10pm and people are horrified . "WTF , did i just hear u say 10 ... PM ???"

management using vlidacmel

if N24 was a bug in computer software , it'd be a simple fix . just change one float value to 24 ! sadly it's on wetware , so until the day we gain root access over our own brains , the next best thing is a mildly cumbersome , albeit effective therapy called VLiDACMel , which is short for Very long Light therapy , Dark therapy , and Avoid Carbs and Melatonin mixup .

positive effects

i started the therapy on August 21st of 2025 , and my sleep has been entrained ever since ! that's over 3 months so far , and i've seen other people online who've had similar success for even longer durations . it has improved my quality of life to an extreme degree :

• scheduling has become a non-issue
• traditional employment is actually a possibility
• getting sunlight every day has been amazing for my mood and taking more walks outside
• i'm better rested , because i'm not interrupted in the middle of rest periods anymore
• i can eat on a consistent schedule now
• i feel validated that i actually have N24 , and it wasn't just a "lack of discipline" or sleep hygiene

i can't thank Stephen Karl Larroque aka lrq3000—the designer of VLiDACMel—enough . while the therapy isn't perfect , i'm beyond relieved that it works .

diagnosis

i self diagnosed N24 after capturing sleep data for around a year and seeing the signature "upward staircase" pattern . the best app i've found for tracking your sleep in this way ( without purchasing a wearable like Fitbit ) is Plees Tracker , which is open source . it also exports to CSV , so you can easily do what you want with the data . here's the code for the visualizer i modified for the Plees Tracker format , in case you want to try it out yourself !

the most commonly recommended app for this purpose is Sleepmeter , but i would advise against it after a bad experience using the free version .

seeing a specialist for professional diagnosis was unreasonably prohibitive for me , given my distance to the nearest one and constraints on transportation and cost . if you're able to , though , it's probably a good idea . they may also be able to help oversee VLiDACMel or something similar . two related resources :

• info on diagnosis in the VLiDACMel document
• a nonprofit called the Circadian Sleep Disorders Network maintains a list of doctors that have been suggested by patients

disclaimers

disclaimers from the VLiDACMel document :

DISCLAIMER: this protocol is not scientifically peer-reviewed and not clinically validated. It was tested on a sample size of only 2 individuals with non24 since birth and under a controlled home environment. Hence this protocol cannot be formally recommended, it should still be considered experimental and maybe risky. If you do try, it would be at your own risk (please at least ask a physician to accompany you!).

IMPORTANT HEALTH NOTE: this therapy cannot be used by individuals with epilepsy or macular degeneration or other retinal diseases or malformations (eg, aphakic people born without crystalline lens and pseudophakic who received intraocular lens implants), as these populations are at risk when using light therapy. It is also risky for people with motor disorders such as restless legs syndrome or periodic limb movement disorder as both bright light therapy and melatonin can independently increase melatonin levels which can trigger motor symptoms, however these symptoms should disappear following discontinuation of the therapy.

protocol overview

the protocol itself isn't as intimidating as it looks . i'm going to talk through what it looks like for me on a daily basis , although note it may be slightly different for everyone .

• every morning , i wake up naturally without an alarm . occasionally i will use an alarm if absolutely necessary , but they are generally incompatible with the therapy . if the therapy is working as intended , you should be able to wake up naturally within a window of a few hours
• immediately after waking , i put on a light therapy visor called the Luminette . i have a refurbished pink Luminette 3 , which was 160 USD . it fits over my glasses comfortably , and i wear it anywhere from 3 to 6 hours , depending on how much ambient light there is that day . for this therapy you can use the lowest brightness setting , which i've been able to get used to , even with light sensitivity . regular light therapy lamps can work too , but the visor format was non-negotiable given how long i'm wearing it every day
• at 1pm , i have an alarm on my phone that tells me to eat lunch . i'm bad at remembering to eat otherwise , and it's important to keep a consistent eating schedule for this therapy
• at 6pm , another alarm reminds me to eat dinner
• at 9pm , an alarm reminds me take 1mg of melatonin , avoid carbs , and begin dark therapy for the rest of the day . for dark therapy , i turn off overhead lights in every room and rely on dim lamps . my phone is set to automatically enable a blue light filter at 9pm . finally , i put on a blue light blocking visor that fits over my glasses , which was 20 USD
• once i naturally begin to feel very sleepy , i'll go to bed ! this usually happens within 3 hours of starting dark therapy , which puts bedtime around 11pm to midnight . these times can be gradually adjusted if necessary

if you have N24 and would like to try the protocol yourself , or are simply interested in the subject , i highly recommend reading the full VLiDACMel document . it's very long , but it has full descriptions of the protocol in various levels of detail , and is filled to the brim with interesting and useful information about N24 , DSPD , and circadian rhythms .

how it works : zeitgebers

zeitgebers are the external cues that affect your circadian rhythm : light , food , exercise , and so on . light-related zeitgebers are among the most powerful , which is why light and dark therapy plays such a large role in VLiDACMel . as i understand it , Stephen Larroque performed experiments to find the most effective cocktail of easily modulated zeitgebers for offsetting N24 , which is how VLiDACMel was conceived .

for further reading , here's an accessible primer on the most influential zeitgebers , along with the most extensive list of zeitgebers i've found ( low confidence on the accuracy of this resource ) , which may be useful to know if you need a very high degree of phase advancement .

if you're undergoing VLiDACMel yourself , it also helps to learn about the dual oscillator model , since zeitgebers affect the two oscillators differently .

light sensitivity

i've always been sensitive to bright light , which has never been a positive thing , and possibly a contributor to developing N24 in the first place . however , there's some good news if you can relate . apparently it makes VLiDACMel more effective at advancing the circadian rhythm , which is great if you have a large offset like i do !

things to avoid

i've had three things interfere with the therapy and temporarily destabilize my rhythm so far :

• caffeine : this was expected , but i wanted to see what would happen . i couldn't sleep until 7am that night , and it took three days to bounce back . this one has a straightforward solution ... don't drink caffeine again !
• alcohol : same story as caffeine
• getting sick : this one can't be avoided entirely . the time i got "sick" was actually just a strong immune response to the COVID-19 vaccine , which i'm not planning on forgoing anytime soon . i'll just have to accept that illness of any kind might ruin my sleep for a span
• ... yet unseen eldritch horrors : i'm sure i'll discover plenty of other interferences , given that i may need to do this therapy for the rest of my life

dspd

i have a few friends with DSPD , short for Delayed Sleep Phase Disorder , so i've been learning about how it relates to N24 .

beware chronotherapy

if you have DSPD , please consider avoiding sleep phase chronotherapy if possible . chronotherapy is the act of repeatedly delaying your sleep until you arrive at the wake up time you want . it's sometimes recommended for people with DSPD , and you may have even discovered it on your own .

the problem is that repeated usage of chronotherapy may cause DSPD to develop into N24 , since DSPD is sort of like a "mild" version of N24 . my sleep used to resemble DSPD , until i frequently did chronotherapy . it slowly morphed into N24 after that . 10/10 would not recommend !

vlidacmel for dspd

around half of people diagnosed with DSPD may have a behavioral rather than a circadian misalignment . if it's behavioral , then sleep hygiene may be sufficient . signs it's behavioral :

• shorter sleep duration when you go to bed late
• lower energy levels during late hours
• better sleep quality on days you go to bed earlier
• no accumulated sleep debt when you're able to consistently sleep earlier

if it's circadian , then VLiDACMel may be able to help . the way VLiDACMel works is different for DSPD than for N24 , but the therapy itself remains relatively unchanged .

most people with DSPD will actually need more phase advancement than people with N24 . that's because with N24 , you don't have an intrinsic sleep schedule that your body prefers , so you only need to freeze it in place by advancing the amount of your daily phase delay .

for DSPD , you do have an intrinsic sleep schedule your body prefers , which may be quite far from what you'd prefer it to be . that difference could be a lot , like 5 hours or more , in which case you'd need to apply the therapy even harder , and possibly introduce additional zeitgeber modulations to get the desired result .

references for this section :

• the "Adaptations for DSPD" section of the VLiDACMel document
• the Circadian Sleep Disorders Network's page about similar treatment options for DSPD
• someone on Reddit who used VLiDACMel for DSPD and described their experiences ( in a comment titled "Submission statement" )

a warning about sleepmeter

i gave the free version of Sleepmeter a try this year for tracking my sleep . at one point i switched my phone's operating system to GrapheneOS , which made the app think i was using an ad blocker for some reason . i started to see creepy red banner messages across the bottom of the app that would change periodically . here were the most egregious banners :

• "Ad block me? I'm watching you very closely..."
• "I see you blocking my ads. You should be wondering what i'm doing to retaliate..."
• "Ad block me? Fine, perhaps I should scramble up your sleep history!"
• "Ad block me? Perhaps I should e-mail all the dirty pictures on this device to all your contacts!"
• "Ad block me? Perhaps I should call your boss and dock your salary too."
• "This can all be avoided by getting the paid version. It's only a few pennies."

it seems that the developer , Squall Line Software , is willing to blackmail their users into purchasing the paid version . unless they were joking , in which case that's a horrible thing to joke about , especially to people who may rely on the app for their health . i deleted the app , because it felt a little too likely that the developer was serious for me to keep potential malware on my device . i'm all too familiar with people masquerading genuine hate behind "humor" to feel remotely comfortable with this .