So many times I've read about how Non-24 is an extremely rare disorder, especially among sighted people, but I have very strong doubts that this is the case. In our society, almost everyone is essentially forced through their entire lives to adhere to a 24-hour schedule because of school, work, and other societal functions. People commonly and openly suffer from obvious symptoms of sleep deprivation, yet many people don't even know about Non-24 let alone consider it a potential cause. A huge chunk of the population could be Non-24 and only discover it if they were allowed to sleep/wake naturally, but will never be given that opportunity.

I personally suffered from severe sleep deprivation symptoms starting at about age 13, until I finally quit school at 16 because my brain was, to put it mildly, pretty messed up by then, and I couldn't take it any more. Still, I was simply told that I was lazy, stayed up too late, didn't want to get up for school, etc. I never considered the existence of something like Non-24. Sure enough, after I was able to sleep/wake naturally, my sleep-wake cycles were somewhere north of 30 hours. Then the Non-24 seemed obvious, but if I wasn't allowed to or didn't make the choice to quit school, I might have never discovered or researched Non-24.

This is of course just speculation, but as someone who has suffered from Non-24 to the point that it basically destroyed my life, I'd like to see more attention shown to circadian rhythm disorders and progress towards a society that is more forgiving towards those of us who can't conform to a schedule or suffer greatly when we do. With the way things are right now, I really feel like poor sleep health in general is a huge, widespread problem that doesn't get addressed simply because it would mean actually changing our societal norms instead of simply telling people they need to conform and they're lazy if they don't.