/diy/ - Do It Yourself

Okay, I dunno if this is truly appropriate for /diy/, but you guys have shown me nothing but impressive quality for the my first four hours lurking around on the board, and I figure I get down to the nitty gritty.

I can't sleep when I want to sleep. My body has been more or less hardwired for 4-7AM bedtimes, which has been a general fuckery for me. I suffer from a painful combination of stimuli:

1. I like late nights.
2. I like early mornings.
3. There are things I need to do during the 9 to 5 that I can't necessarily do late at night.
4. I can't go 24 hours or more without sleep, it's quite impossible no matter what I do.
5. On top of this, I cannot get less than 6 hours, I will fall asleep instantly upon waking up with less than 6.
6. I am notoriously heavy sleeper (fire alarms are nothing to my slumber).

I'm currently a college student on summer break waiting for next semester to start in June. For that I will be taking classes from 7:55AM to about noon, and I need to drive from 7AM to get there with traffic. That means 6AM wakeup, and I can barely feel ready for bed normally by 4AM. This past week I have attempted to readjust my sleep cycle very cold turkey, trying my damndest to stay up for 24 hours straight and then some, collapse of exhaustion at 10PM, and try to get up the next morning at 6AM. Nothing in this plan worked spectacularly well because of my love of the night butting in and keeping me awake even in full exhaustion mode (it doesn't help that I could not stop myself from falling asleep in bursts).

The point is I have no idea how to properly fix my sleep schedule or even live with it to get through school. I have considered full nocturnal mode, but I doubt my folks would allow that. I just need some way to actually get up and be alert and awake at early hours of day.

So I ask you /diy/, what are the best ways to control your rest, to rest well, and minimize required rest while maximizing benefits?

come on, someone has to know somthing or have an idea or even tips/tricks here