Chronic sleep deprivation is the larger issue. And how we really don't have treatments on how to fix that, and how ultimately sleep phase issues are a social issues (being forced to follow a fixed modern schedule). Not to mention how closely that's tied to ND people. So a lot of us deal with sleep issues since we were little, but work and school dont give us the flexibility we need. For example, flex hours could be helpful here. I would rather work 10am to 6pm or 11am to 7pm most days. Or 5-6 hours during the day and 2-3 hours late at night.
Sure we do, however, not everyone is willing to hike 20-30 miles a day and sleep in a tent. It's not practical but it is very effective.
People have natural sleep rhythms. Society should conform to that, instead capitalism demands we conform to what it deems profit maximizing.
Sleep deprivation is often caused by alcohol, inconsistent sleep/wake times, high color temperature lighting (>3000K) in the hours before bed, failure to spend time outdoors in natural light in the morning, temperature too warm (68F is ideal), caffeine (or other stimulants) in the afternoon, associating the bedroom with tasks other than sleep and sex, or simply spending too much time in bed.
Following doctor's advice for the last one: Start by going to bed at, say, 1am and waking up at 6am. Follow this without fail for a few weeks. You'll be exhausted but keep at it. Eventually you should find yourself falling asleep quickly. If you wake up exhausted, pull back bedtime by 10 minutes. Do this for a week. Rinse and repeat until you are waking up at 6am refreshed. That is how you determine how many hours your body needs to sleep, and how long you should be in bed. Helped me.
ND people get this pretty badly. 2023 study: The incidence of sleep problems in ASD patients ranges from 32 to 71.5%, especially insomnia, while an estimated 25–50% of people with ADHD
Insomnia is different, but tbf, insomnia for many people can't be treated well or if not at all. CBT is helpful if you look at the studies and ignore the follow up studies showing relapses between 40-70%. We can stuff people with melatonin and hypnotics but after a while that no longer works. So looking at this, it looks like things like drugs and CBT can help 70% of insomnia sufferers but the relapse rate is as high as 70%, so we're looking at people who can actually be cured as low as 15-20% of total insomnia sufferers.
Its not caffeine or screens for us, its just how the machinery of the human body works. This is like telling a depressed person to just 'cheer up.' I'm glad that worked for you, but your story is just an anecdote, and the science for this is still pretty dismal unfortunately.
The science can't work because at this point we're going against our nature. A lot of people cannot subscribe to a modern industrialized sleep schedule because its not natural for us to have extremely strict sleep and wake times.
It usually works for the first few days of doing it but then it's like my body (probably moreso my mind) gets used to it and it doesn't help with sleep anymore.
Arguably it feels even more unhealthy because it's like my body is fully exhausted and tired but my mind won't let me sleep so no restoration can happen.