Strange Sleep Schedules and Sleep Interruptions

I keep very odd hours. While my schedule is fairly consistent, the hours are still odd. I usually pass out between 3 and 4 in the morning and sleep off and on until 11 or 12.

As hard as I have tried to change this schedule, I seem to be stuck. The problem is, there seem to be a lot of interruptions during this time period.

Business hours are not my hours

Businesses that keep business hours often call early in the morning. That also seems to be when spam calls start. Sometimes I will receive 4 to 6 calls between the hours of 9 and 11 in the morning. The phone calls always wake me up because I have to check and make sure it is not an important call.

Early morning also tends to be the time doctors like to call their patients. I cannot ignore those calls. However, it does wake me up and I end up barely awake and hoping I remember what is said. That causes anxiety, and it often makes it where I cannot go back to sleep for a while.

Keeping out light and noise

I did manage to eliminate issues caused by the rising sun. I have fully covered the windows in my bedroom to block out all the sunlight. The door is kept closed to keep light from seeping in from other rooms. The amount of light in my room only changes when the door is opened or the light is turned on, and this solved what was once a big problem.

Keeping the door shut also cuts down on noise. Occasionally my chihuahua mix decides to go on a tangent because a leaf blew across a lawn 3 states away, but I cannot hear him barking when the door is closed. Removing issues with light and noise helped a great deal, but there are still interruptions that I simply cannot get rid of.

A ringing phone keeps me awake

I have done all I can to limit the number of calls I receive. Less than 2 dozen people total, including my family, have my phone number. All of my family and close friends know about my strange sleeping hours. The odds are pretty good that a call during the times when they know I am sleeping is an important call.

I use social media to converse with clients and business contacts. Many of them do not know that I keep such odd hours, and I would never dare to tell them not to contact me before noon. If I am expecting something important or waiting for confirmation on a project, I tend to jump when I hear the familiar chime. It will always wake me if I am waiting for something important.

This means that every single social media notification will wake me, and many of these messages are not important. Friends and family know it is okay to leave me messages to read when I wake up, and I can sleep through them if I am not expecting an important message. This is only a problem on those days.

Trying to manage sleep interruptions

I know I could silence the phone or simply turn it off and end these interruptions. Unfortunately, the anxiety caused by doing that would just keep me awake. It would not help. What if there was an emergency? What if something awful happened and my children or husband needed to contact me? What if a client needs something right away? The fear would not allow me to get any rest.

As I am chained to this odd schedule, I try to find ways to get as much uninterrupted sleep as possible. Unfortunately, the rest of the world is on a very different schedule. Many feel like 10 AM is late morning and think surely everyone is awake by the time. Of course, I am not. It is frustrating, but I know my schedule is the one that is different. I cannot expect the entire world to change to suit my schedule, and I cannot change my schedule to something more normal.

Do you have an odd schedule and deal with sleep interruptions? How do you handle these interruptions?