Most patients attempt to sleep and arise at conventional social times. This produces progressively less sleep, with secondary daytime sleepiness interfering with functioning at work or at school. In addition, sleep may be skipped for 24 to 40 hours, followed by sleeping for 14 to 24 hours without awakening. Since body temperature is regulated by body clocks that respond to the day, night cycle, there is a connection between temperature and sleep patterns. If people fall asleep when their body temperature is falling, they will have long bouts of sleep, but if they go to sleep when their body temperature is rising, their sleep will be short.
Treatment follows two strategies.
The easiest and most promising method used to set the master clock is the use of melatonin at bedtime. Although melatonin's efficacy and safety when used for sleep disorder treatment with blind individuals is unproved, there is anecdotal evidence that it is safe and effective. The suprachiasmatic nuclei are connected to and stimulate the pineal gland which secretes the hormone melatonin at night. This feedback loop is the reason that melatonin is used to reset the master clock after jet lag, and it has important implications for treating disorders experienced by blind individuals. This therapy apparently was effective in setting the body's clocks.