[HN Gopher] Early riser or night owl? New study may help to expl...
___________________________________________________________________
Early riser or night owl? New study may help to explain the
difference
Author : KanilStang
Score : 307 points
Date : 2020-02-25 14:59 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (directorsblog.nih.gov)
(TXT) w3m dump (directorsblog.nih.gov)
| jb775 wrote:
| I've been a night owl my entire life, have been unsuccessfully
| trying (or kind of trying) for years to shift my schedule to wake
| up earlier. Whenever I tell myself to go to bed early, I feel
| like I'm wasting an evening that I will not get back...I know it
| isn't really logical, but it's strong enough to derail the
| progress I make.
|
| One approach that I've found successful (in bursts) is if I focus
| on getting to sleep at a reasonable time on Sunday night. This
| seems to naturally put me in a good groove for the rest of the
| week.
| kbutler wrote:
| Like others, I was a night owl since my teenage years. I was also
| pretty sure my circadian rhythm was about a 28-hour cycle, so I'd
| go "out-of-phase" staying up later every day and sometimes skip
| or drastically shorten a night's sleep to get back in phase.
|
| However, it's now an effort to stay up past 10-10:30, and I wake
| up consistently around 6am.
|
| What changed?
|
| - 6 days/week with 6am meetings (remote work and timezones) -
| bright light (light box, much brighter than room lighting) and
| exercise early so I could function in those meetings -
| prioritized consistently going to bed and sleep early (often
| harder for me than getting up early) - and time passed
|
| post hoc, ergo propter hoc, but consistency with those habits
| made it easier to function in those mornings, and it got easier
| as time passed.
| brendanfalk wrote:
| I studied this at school. On average, men have circadian rhythms
| longer than women. And all circadian rhythms are longer when
| you're an adolescent.
|
| That's why there is the classic stereotype of male teens waking
| up so late.
|
| The only way to reset your circadian rhythm is sunlight as soon
| as you wake up in the morning! And melatonin at night
| Raphmedia wrote:
| If you were able to "no longer be a night owl" after changing
| diet, through exercise or by other changes in your behavior, you
| were in fact never an actual night owl but simply someone with
| bad sleeping habits.
|
| You read the same thing whenever there's a discussion on clinical
| depression. People push their anecdotes about mindset changes but
| fail to acknowledge they were never clinically depressed in the
| first place.
| boomlinde wrote:
| _> If you were able to "no longer be a night owl" after
| changing diet, through exercise or by other changes in your
| behavior, you were in fact never an actual night owl but simply
| someone with bad sleeping habits._
|
| Is there an established strict definition of "night owl" that
| supports this conclusion? I always thought a night owl meant
| anyone who for whatever reason prefers to stay up late and
| sleep in, which doesn't really presuppose a genetic cause.
| Raphmedia wrote:
| This is part of the issue and one of the causes of the
| stigma. People who have biological and/or genetic
| particularities and are unable to follow regular sleep cycles
| should not be put in the same category as people who have
| regular circadian rhythm. This article is about biological
| factors so its safe to assume we are discussing about people
| with actual circadian disorders and not people who have bad
| habits.
|
| "Circadian rhythm sleep disorders are characterized by a
| persistent or recurrent pattern of sleep disturbance
| (difficulty falling asleep or staying asleep and excessive
| sleepiness) due to alterations of the circadian timekeeping
| system and/or misalignment of the endogenous circadian rhythm
| and the external environment."
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3523094/
|
| Key part of this being "persistent or recurrent". In other
| words, people who have been struggling with this for a long
| time and have it reoccur after trying out different
| strategies.
|
| Adding a distinction could help. Perhaps "voluntary night
| owl" vs "involuntary night owl".
| boomlinde wrote:
| _> Key part of this being "persistent or recurrent"._
|
| The key part is that it's related to the circadian rhythm
| and time keeping. That it's persistent and recurrent
| doesn't in itself distinguish it from other sleep disorders
| that may cause delayed sleep schedule, such as sleep-onset
| insomnia, or "bad habits" as you call it.
|
| _> Adding a distinction could help. Perhaps "voluntary
| night owl" vs "involuntary night owl"._
|
| If you want to address people affected by e.g. DSPD, and
| not "night owls" in general, it is perhaps just better to
| simply address them as such.
| fernandotakai wrote:
| i was a night owl almost 90% of my life. then i started working
| out, eating a bit better... and now i wake up at 6:30~7am every
| day.
|
| guess what? drinking 6 cans of redbull per day fucks up your
| sleeping schedule.
| archarios wrote:
| I have a very hard time believing that this stuff has to do
| with anything other than having the discipline to have a proper
| sleep schedule. It's possible to adjust your sleep schedule.
| People do it all the time when they change timezones. I didn't
| read the article, I'll go read it and update if I change my
| mind..
| pclstyle wrote:
| Seems like an unpopular opinion, but this is my experience as
| well. Went from sleeping from 4-10AM to 11PM-5AM over the
| course of 3 years, without changing time zones. I swore I was
| a night-owl my whole life, but I definitely fall into the
| category of early-risers now. Overall happy with the switch;
| I love having those quiet morning hours to prepare for the
| rest of my day.
|
| For me, it was about establishing new habits, setting up an
| environment conducive to sleeping by midnight, and having
| some external pressures like a work schedule, etc. I've heard
| this validated by external testimony as well.
|
| Can't say there are no biological factors at play that impact
| individual inclinations, but it's a bit hard to believe that
| we're hard-wired for one over the other.
| GuB-42 wrote:
| Sure, you can change timezone, but you usually feel like shit
| in the process. The idea seem to be that it takes about a day
| per hour to adjust.
|
| Now the idea (somewhat supported by the article) is that
| night owls have a natural cycle longer than 24h. It means
| they are in a constant state of jet lag. The (unrealistic)
| solution to get in sync with the rest of the population would
| be to always go west.
|
| Early birds are in the opposite situation. They have a
| natural cycle shorter than 24h. It is just that for some
| reason, waking up and going to bed early is not seen as a
| problem in our society, while the other way is.
| Raphmedia wrote:
| Yes, people can adapt to different timezone. However what's
| interesting is that night owls will adapt based on their own
| circadian rhythm. If you are someone with delayed circadian
| rhythm, you would end up synchronizing to the local timezone
| but still fall asleep after midnight.
| Izkata wrote:
| So the solution is to own 24 homes and move one timezone
| over each month?
| Raphmedia wrote:
| An easier solution would be to colonize different planets
| and send the folks with non-24-hour sleep-wake disorder
| to planets with orbits that corresponds with their
| circadian cycle.
| jodrellblank wrote:
| "You could have a proper sleep schedule if you could hold
| yourself to a proper sleep schedule" doesn't seem to usefully
| explain or add anything. Surely the people with poor
| discipline lack exactly that which they need to build
| discipline?
| zarmin wrote:
| Just to present another perspective:
| https://abc3340.com/news/local/adhd-and-your-circadian-
| rhyth...
| dijit wrote:
| It really doesn't take long to adapt, but that first week is
| glorious, awake and energised!
| jodrellblank wrote:
| "Anyone who is cured, was never really ill" seems a position
| full of problems; is that really what you're saying?
| Raphmedia wrote:
| My position is this: if you have a headache, do a Google
| search for a few minutes, "diagnose" yourself with brain
| cancer and then you lose the headache after drinking water,
| you haven't cured the cancer but you've simply fixed your
| dehydration.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| Less charitably, it sounds like gatekeeping.
| codr7 wrote:
| I've been up writing code at night since I got my first computer
| at 8, I'm 42 now, don't remember much about my schedule before
| then.
|
| Never could concentrate much during daytime, once my surroundings
| wake up my productivity goes down the drain.
|
| One thing that works pretty well for me when I'm allowed to set
| my own schedule is taking a 2-3h snooze in the afternoon/early
| evening. Then I can go on and work until 3-4am and still get up
| early without feeling like a zombie.
| archsurface wrote:
| I like to leave things at a milestone before going to sleep. I
| can't leave things in the middle of nowhere. I'm always late to
| bed, always late to wake, always late for work.
| BuildTheRobots wrote:
| I like the fact they present it as an either/or choice.
|
| My natural sleep cycle seems to default to a 28 hour day (eg I go
| to bed slightly later every evening then morning) which makes
| interfacing with reality pretty difficult. This seems to be
| something shared with a number of geeks I know.
| adjkant wrote:
| 27 hours checking in here. Melatonin can help but generally I
| tend to go in stages of not getting enough sleep, some forms of
| biphasic/polyphasic sleeping, and basically going to bed early
| when not getting enough sleep to buy me a few normal days.
| follower wrote:
| If you're not already aware of it you may wish to read about
| "Non-24-hour sleep-wake disorder":
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-24-hour_sleep%E2%80%93wake...
| mosdave wrote:
| Yeah, I think I would do really well with a 36 hour day.
| BuildTheRobots wrote:
| I dream of a 36 hour day - enough time to actually get some
| work done and then a proper 12 hour sleep :)
| ekimekim wrote:
| I've been on a 28-hour cycle for the last 7 or so years. Since
| it lines up into a 6-day week I can still be awake for more-or-
| less business hours on weekdays (sleep at 4pm mondays, wake at
| noon fridays).
|
| I'm pretty sure 28 hours isn't quite what my body naturally
| wants, but it's a lot closer than 24. After a week trying to
| stick to a 24h cycle I'm basically a walking zombie.
|
| They tried to put me on melatonin when I was a kid. First dose
| sent me to hospital with an allergic reaction. After that we
| were pretty hesitant to try other remedies. My life was
| miserable until I went onto the 28h cycle and I realised it was
| possible to NOT be tired all the time.
|
| Don't listen to all the "oh, you just aren't doing X right"
| people. Find a solution that works for your body and your life.
| balfirevic wrote:
| I'm like that too. Melatonin helps me fall into 24-hour rhythm.
|
| I take 1 mg in slow-release form, 2-3 hours before desired bed
| time. My bed time is still pretty variable, shifting 2-3 hours
| back and forth but at least it's not hopelessly drifting
| forward every day.
|
| I do sleep a lot, 9-10 hours (no alarm clock), which could be
| because of melatonin (1 mg is a rather large dose). See here
| for a lot of details about melatonin dosage and timing:
| https://slatestarcodex.com/2018/07/10/melatonin-much-more-th...
|
| Relevant quote for non-24-hour sleep-wake disorder:
|
| _And what about non-24-hour sleep disorders? I think the goal
| in treatment here is to advance your phase each day by taking
| melatonin at the same time, so that your sleep schedule is more
| dependent on your own supplemental melatonin than your (screwed
| up) natural melatonin. I see conflicting advice about how to do
| this, with some people saying to use melatonin as a hypnotic
| (ie just before you go to bed) and others saying to use it on a
| typical phase advance schedule (ie nine hours after waking and
| seven before sleeping, plausibly about 5 PM)_
| miiiiiike wrote:
| I haven't run into many people with non-24! If you have non-24
| could you answer a few questions here:
| https://forms.gle/fdQWLAa6kb283SHJA
|
| I'll share the anonymized results in a week or so. My
| motivation is more social than scientific.
| BuildTheRobots wrote:
| I'm probably not the best person to ask - I've been medicated
| for 7 years and have kept the current job for medication -2
| months. More than happy to talk about it off list - {HN-
| username}@gmail.com :)
|
| I will inform the couple of awful sleepers I know at my
| hackspace so they can respond too.
| skizm wrote:
| I'm an early riser except on days I have work...
| raxxorrax wrote:
| i woke up this morning with the sundown shining in...
| thrower123 wrote:
| I'm a night owl, primarily because it's the easiest way to steal
| a couple extra hours to do things I actually enjoy out of the
| four-hour-life slog.
|
| Trying to take those hours from the morning doesn't really work,
| because there is the hard-stop deadline of having to get ready to
| go to work, and the chances of somebody else interrupting me and
| fucking up what I'm trying to do is almost certain, whereas once
| the world is asleep, I'm relatively free.
| iamkroot wrote:
| See, that's exactly how I feel about being up in the early
| morning! The rest of the world is still asleep and I get it all
| to myself.
| SketchySeaBeast wrote:
| Me too. I'd much rather get to work early and steal an extra
| hour or two of very high quality work than try to do that
| extra effort after a day of distractions and people.
| pengaru wrote:
| For some reason I don't get creative and productive until the
| hours I _should_ be sleeping.
|
| Throughout my teens and twenties (I'm in my 40s now) I indulged
| this tendency and it served me well, often staying up for
| multiple days without realizing it and the productivity was
| incredible.
|
| Since then I've become more interested in preserving/improving my
| health and how such behaviors may be harming it, so I try to keep
| a regular sleep schedule and it does seem to be better for my
| general well-being.
|
| The down side is, I am _never_ anywhere near as productive as I
| 've been in the "sleep is for the dead" mode of operating.
| Occasionally I'll revisit that mode to get something that's been
| dragging on finished, and it's _always_ incredibly effective.
|
| I wish I understood why long waking hours seem to stimulate my
| mind and coerce myself into the deep flow state.
|
| Colleagues have recommended I try Adderall in the past to enter
| that mode at-will with a pill, but I've always been averse to
| becoming dependent on a pharmaceutical to do something I can
| already do naturally.
|
| I wonder what's more harmful to self: regular sleep deprivation
| or consumption of amphetamines in the daytime?
| roosterdawn wrote:
| YMMV with amphetamines -- they seem very specific-body-
| metabolism specific, but you'll always be fighting your body's
| attempt to move to homeostasis which means it will be very
| probable that you'll run into tolerance, diminishing returns,
| side effects, and so on.
|
| As far as sleep deprivation goes: it's fascinating what happens
| to our brains at night. Studies show that REM sleep prunes and
| maintains new synapses associated with development and
| learning[0], but other studies show that this effect might be
| amplified with sleep deprivation[1]. If intermittent fasting
| can cause one's body to behave differently in a fasted state,
| perhaps intermittent sleep deprivation could cause effects that
| in moderation are not wholly negative? I really don't know, but
| anecdotally, I've noticed myself able to sometimes get some
| huge breakthroughs in the late night hours. This has been
| happening less frequently as I age and become more proficient
| at a lot of things I do, though.
| pengaru wrote:
| > I've noticed myself able to sometimes get some huge
| breakthroughs in the late night hours.
|
| My personal theory on this is that something dream-associated
| is still switching on from a purely hours-awake scheduled
| mechanism.
|
| Dreams are inherently creative and cerebral, and it feels
| like I'm just tapping into some of that by staying up late
| and working while my brain is wearing pajamas.
|
| I don't know if you've ever dabbled with more extreme forms
| of sleep deprivation, but at a certain point, in my
| experience, a full-on wakeful dreaming state is entered where
| fully featured dreams are playing in the visual field while
| the eyes are still open. The brain definitely has the ability
| to essentially dream while awake. Experiencing those things
| made me start suspecting sleep deprivation was a way to tap
| into the dream world for productivity/creativity/focus
| advantages.
| whiddershins wrote:
| This isn't always true, but in general, you can tell by how you
| feel whether something is very likely affecting your long term
| health.
|
| If you truly feel fantastic staying up for days on end, and
| then sleeping extra for a while ... I know at least one hyper
| successful person who uses to be the same way.
|
| She eventually outgrew it, and stopped.
|
| I am skeptical this harmed her long term.
|
| Now, lots of behavior makes you feel great and is in fact
| terrible for you ... but even obvious ones like drugs tend to
| be felt in subsequent days, same with that awesome tasting
| cheeseburger, etc.
|
| So I think it's worth it to at least entertain the notion it
| isn't as harmful to pull all nighters _for you_ as is commonly
| said.
| Nav_Panel wrote:
| Were you averaging around 7.5 hours of sleep a night, even with
| your long vigils? If so, I doubt it's a harmful pattern. Based
| on some studies I've seen recently, oversleeping is a larger
| health risk for many than undersleeping.
| pengaru wrote:
| No, I would stay up for 2-3 days straight and it'd end with
| just a longish ~12 hour sleep, often leaving me with a sleep
| cycle randomly out of phase with the rest of the world to
| boot.
|
| The stuff I've read about sleep being when your brain bathes
| itself in spinal fluid convinced me this was probably not a
| good long-term strategy for preserving cognitive health.
| nefitty wrote:
| I'm stuck in a loop like this right now. I've been getting
| an average of less than 3 hours of sleep per night on
| weekdays for a few months now. On the weekends, when I
| don't have strict external obligations, I sleep 8-10 hrs.
|
| I'm really scared that I'm going to cause myself to develop
| early onset Alzheimer's or something. Even then, that fear
| looms nowhere as large as the anxiety of going to bed
| before 1am.
|
| Maybe it's an existential thing. When the world's light
| goes out I start thinking about death, and then the idea of
| sleep being the "little death" overwhelms me. Next thing I
| know I'm passing out just as my wife is getting up for
| work, but I feel so much safer laying down to sleep when I
| hear the world stirring and birds chirping. It's almost
| like my body stays awake to make sure everyone else is safe
| while they sleep...
| pengaru wrote:
| If it's an existential thing, and, judging from your
| description, perhaps a hint of paranoia, then I'd be a
| bit optimistic about overcoming it with either some
| regular meditation/mindful introspection or maybe
| therapy.
|
| It'd be nice if we understood the actual causes of things
| like dementia and alzheimers so we could make better
| informed decisions regarding behaviors like sleep
| deprivation. Even if we couldn't cure those conditions,
| just understanding something like "it's 50% more likely
| you'll lose your mind if you don't sleep 8 hours most
| nights" would be super useful.
| techopoly wrote:
| I can relate to this, and I wonder if it has to do with the
| unscheduled nature of staying awake through sleep hours. Our
| adult lives become so regulated and scheduled, which is
| arguably a good thing for health, relationships, and business.
| But, for me, during the recent times when I could not sleep at
| night, or had an unexpected pocket of time with no obligation
| -- I was unbelievably motivated, creative, and productive.
| Happy, even.
|
| Something about the nature of constantly being "on", whether
| that means online, or simply fulfilling some sort of obligation
| to others or even yourself, seems to sap away at what really
| makes us human. Of course, if you take away those obligations,
| you're left with nothing. So I imagine there is a balance to be
| found. And our society is very bad at finding it.
| snazz wrote:
| I can relate to this as an early riser too! Getting up at
| three in the morning, not being able to fall back to sleep,
| and then just deciding to start my day then is weirdly
| productive and fulfilling, probably because I'm not expected
| to be doing something productive at that hour.
| wmurmann wrote:
| Open your blinds before you go to sleep. See how much longer you
| can stay a night owl.
| nkrisc wrote:
| I've found throughout my life my sleep cycle almost always
| follows the sun. I sleep in longer in the winter and wake up
| early in the summer. If I wake up with the sun I almost always
| feel refreshed and ready to go. I'm usually falling asleep by
| about 10PM (22:00) though, whatever I'm doing. After that point,
| laying down anywhere usually puts me immediately to sleep.
| el_cujo wrote:
| I've always been skeptical of the early-riser v night-owl
| dichotomy. When I was younger and in highschool, I had to be to
| school early every day, so I was on the early-riser schedule of
| sleep at ~10 PM wake at ~6 AM. When I later went to college, I
| adjusted to a sleep at ~2 AM wake at ~10 AM schedule. Anyone who
| is on one of these schedules is going to naturally have
| difficulty if one random day of the week they need to, say, be at
| work extra early or be out extra late, that's usually where this
| kind of thing comes up. I feel like this has much more to do with
| whatever routine you're currently in than it does with any
| instinctive preference.
| StrangeDoctor wrote:
| Your ability to shift between 10pm and 2am is someone else's
| 1am to 5am or 6pm to 10pm. Just because you personally had ease
| falling asleep at these times has no relationship to when other
| people find it easy to fall asleep. It's not a binary state
| night owl or morning bird.
| zozbot234 wrote:
| I think _most_ cases are going to be like that, but people with
| "advanced" or "delayed" sleep phases are not in the same boat -
| they will have trouble adapting to _any_ fixed schedule, and no
| matter what they choose they will feel "jet-lagged" after a
| while as their "natural" sleep phase goes out of sync with it.
| el_cujo wrote:
| Yeah I definitely think there are probably some people like
| this with messed up cycles that they can't do anything about
| it. But in general, it does kind of annoy me when people who
| are late to stuff in the morning blame it on being a nite
| owl, kind of disposing of any responsibility as if they have
| a real medical disorder or something when I think for most
| people it has more to do with enjoying doing stuff late at
| night or just getting in a habit of staying up late from
| trying to stretch the day before having to go to work.
| geddy wrote:
| I'm a night owl who's started waking up earlier. I guess that
| makes me an early owl? Or a night riser, which makes me sound
| like a zombie.
|
| I started waking up earlier because I realized I had a much
| better work day if I did something I enjoyed before working. I
| start work at 10am, but I wake up around 7:30, walk the dog for
| ~2 miles, then relax and play a game, lift, do some blogging,
| read Hackernews etc. It's made my work day far more productive, I
| will say that. I also have a little one on the way so starting to
| acclimate my body to waking up earlier is better done sooner
| rather than later.
|
| I recall reading a while back an article that stated people had
| more productive and overall positive work days if they did
| something enjoyable before starting work. I work from home most
| of the time and so it became more important than ever for me to
| actually _use_ the time I wouldn't be spending commuting. I
| definitely recommend it to everyone, particularly those who don't
| have a commute to "wind up" and decompress from their work day!
| [deleted]
| softwaredoug wrote:
| I made a lot of changes to my habits to recreate some of the
| aspects of a "boot camp". It's helped my sleep a lot, and I end
| up just waking up at 7 every morning.
|
| Basically the idea is you always wake up at a consistent time and
| do exercise immediately. Preferably outside in the sunlight. I'll
| run a few miles or on rainy days use the exercise bike. By 11
| that night I'm wiped out and sleep like a baby. Even if I have
| one rough night of sleep for whatever reason, I still try to wake
| at 7 and do this routine. Over the long haul it's dramatically
| improved my sleep.
|
| Highly recommended if you have sleep issues
| b0n40 wrote:
| hello, i am in the same boat for the last 7 days. ive been a
| Night Owl, for the last 10 years. now for the last 7 days... i
| moved to live outside the city, but i didnt expect that i have to
| wake up with the village at 4-5-6am it is killing me. no sleep
| for the last 7 days. and even i try to push myself to go to bed
| 20pm or max 21pm i just cant sleep well. i used to work 6-12h a
| day. now i barely do 3-4h per day. i never thought about early
| riser or night owl...
| bArray wrote:
| Huh, I always woundered why I live a 28-30 hour day. My sleep
| schedule continuously drifts as a result - luckily I live a
| lifestyle where it's possible to get away with this.
|
| I did used to do a 9-to-5, but what ended up happening was that I
| slept less and struggled to keep in control over the weekends.
| Luckily the people I live with would wake me up (just by carrying
| out their own routines).
|
| These days I typically sleep ~4 hours a night to keep some osrt
| of schedule. As others have mentioned, diet, exercise, etc, etc,
| no change seems to break this habit. To the surprise of many, I
| am also able to remain productive for all but a few of the last
| hours - some days I have commit streaks spanning something like
| 18 hours.
| follower wrote:
| > I always wondered why I live a 28-30 hour day.
|
| You may wish to look into "Non-24-hour sleep-wake disorder".
| bArray wrote:
| Woah, thanks for the heads up, I had no idea. I'm relatively
| lucky (at least so far) not to suffer effects of sleep
| deprivation.
|
| (I was looking here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-24-hou
| r_sleep%E2%80%93wake... )
| zarmin wrote:
| Out of curiosity, do you have ADHD?
| save_ferris wrote:
| I've struggled the exact same as the poster above, and I've
| been reading up on ADHD. It seems to fit so many issues I
| have, but I really don't want to take stimulants, which seem
| to be the drug of choice for ADHD
| follower wrote:
| > [...] I've been reading up on ADHD. It seems to fit so
| many issues I have [...]
|
| If you're feeling like that I _strongly_ recommend that you
| consider consulting a competent medical professional with
| experience diagnosing ADHD /ADD and undergo an evaluation.
|
| While your concerns around pharmaceutical-based approaches
| to assisting people to live with the affects of executive
| function related disorders (such as ADHD/ADD) are
| understandable, such decisions are a step beyond where you
| currently are.
|
| ADHD/ADD is known as a disorder where (unlike most) _simply
| having a diagnosis_ can have a significant positive impact
| on a person 's ability to deal with it. This is in part
| because a diagnosis provides a new lens/perspective through
| which to view one's life _and_ because the negative
| secondary effects (e.g. shame, guilt, depression,
| interpersonal & employment difficulties) of living with
| un-diagnosed ADHD/ADD have so much impact.
|
| My understanding is that a combination of medication &
| therapy has been shown to be the most effective tool in
| helping most people live with the effects of ADHD/ADD but
| medication is by no means the only option--and there are
| some non-stimulant options also.
|
| But with regard to "stimulants", the word itself & people's
| understanding of how they work leads to a lot of
| moralizing, misinformation & misunderstanding. To some
| degree the effect of a "stimulant medication" is similar to
| that of water to a house plant: if the plant has
| insufficient moisture in the surrounding soil then
| "stimulating" it with additional water from a watering can
| brings it up to a level of moisture required for a
| fulfilling life--but if the plant already has sufficient
| moisture then adding additional water may cause negative
| effects. But being "underwatered" is not a positive state
| of affairs.
|
| If you would like to read further about ADHD/ADD
| (particularly the under-diagnosed "Primary Inattentive"
| subtype) I recommend considering "Driven to Distraction
| (Revised/Second Edition): Recognizing and Coping with
| Attention Deficit Disorder" by Edward Hallowell and John
| Ratey. One of the aspects I particularly appreciate is how
| much emphasis they put on the importance of a precise &
| accurate diagnosis as a starting point--e.g. they spend a
| chapter each on "things that are misdiagnosed as ADHD/ADD
| but are actually something else" & "things that are
| misdiagnosed as _not_ ADHD /ADD but are in fact ADHD/ADD".
|
| Good luck!
|
| Edit: Oh, yeah, two other things:
|
| * "Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria" is a common but less
| discussed aspect of ADHD/ADD.
|
| * If comics are more your style, you might find a read of
| ADHD Alien enlightening: http://adhd-alien.com/
| save_ferris wrote:
| Thank you so much for this, I really appreciate it.
| zarmin wrote:
| Yeah, I think there's a large subset of people with ADHD
| who have some kind of alternate circadian rhythm. Mine
| seems to be 36 hours; for almost 35 years my peak working
| hours have been 4pm to 5am, with the ability to hyperfocus
| until I collapsed if I'm really into what I'm doing. Not
| for lack of trying to have a "normal" schedule...oh god I
| try really hard multiple times a year. It's just not
| natural.
|
| You should know that stimulants are only one type of
| approach for treating ADHD. Your best resource, you may
| have discovered, is Russell Barkley; I cannot recommend him
| enough. Also check out the YouTube channel How to ADHD.
|
| Some relevant Barkley videos:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LnS0PfNyj4U
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BzhbAK1pdPM&list=PLzBixSjmb
| c...
|
| Fair warning: You may discover some of the things you've
| done for your whole life without second guessing are
| actually typical ADHD symptoms. And if you're like me, this
| might thoroughly shake your snowglobe.
| bArray wrote:
| I'm unsure, I certainly show the symptoms, but never got
| myself diagnosed as I was investigating the possibility of a
| military career. Thinking about it, quite a few of my family
| members also have ADHD.
| fxtentacle wrote:
| My impression is that people who stay up late and sleep late are
| more productive, while people who get up early are more social
| and/or do more planning work.
|
| Is anyone aware of scientific research that looked into the
| possibility of awaking early vs. awaking late being different,
| but equally useful evolutionary strategies?
| 1e-9 wrote:
| It seems that sleep pattern variation is an evolutionary
| consequence of the survival benefit of having someone awake when
| others are sleeping [1]. A good combination of night owls,
| insomniacs, and early risers in camp probably made it far less
| likely a sleeper got hauled off by the hyenas. This also seems to
| be the reason that anxiety (sense of danger) reduces our sleep.
| There's a part of our brain that doesn't differentiate well
| between today's worries and predation risk. For this reason, I
| think that addressing anxiety is often the best way to improve
| sleep.
|
| [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4972941
| jvm_ wrote:
| So my natural rhythm is working 10-2 and then a lull until 4-6,
| and then a lull until midnight, I wouldn't get tired until 2am.
|
| Not ideal for a 9-5 job with kids. I'd also need a nap around
| 5:30-7 or so, also not wife-compatible to fall asleep at 5:30pm
| for an hour.
|
| I started using a SAD lamp and it makes a huge difference, 30
| minutes in the morning, I just browse my phone in front of it. It
| feels like a cup of coffee and a 30 minute nap.
|
| The biggest is not needing the evening nap followed by actually
| being tired at midnight, and the ability to fall sleep between
| 10pm-midnight if I need to get up early. It makes a major
| difference to me, it has about a 2-day effect, I can skip the 30
| minutes for a day or two, but after day 3 my clock resets.
|
| I'd get a 4pm boost at work, I could tell the time by how
| productive I was being. Same thing with midnight, I'd sit on the
| couch from 9-midnight, and then find myself cleaning up exactly
| at midnight. With the light, everything is 2 hours earlier, 2pm
| work boost, and 10pm boost at home.
|
| I have one of the larger lights, don't want to be accused of
| shilling.
| dewy wrote:
| At the risk of you being accused of shilling (a risk I'm happy
| to take ;) ), would you mind sharing the model of the lamp you
| have found to work well?
| jvm_ wrote:
| I picked up this one on craigslist, Northern Light Technology
| Boxelite, Light Therapy Box. The effect is enough that I
| bought a smaller Verilux touch model for work, but it's a
| third of the size (but much slimmer so it'll fit on my desk
| in the office). Haven't remembered to bring the smaller one
| to work, but I'd imagine I'd need more time in front of it.
|
| The big one I have is the 4th one on this page.
| https://nymag.com/strategist/article/best-sad-lamps.html
| y-c-o-m-b wrote:
| > Some people are early risers, wide awake at the crack of dawn.
| Others are night owls who can't seem to get to bed until well
| after midnight and prefer to sleep in
|
| I am neither one of those? I hate waking up early and I dislike
| going to bed late. My preferred hours awake are 8:00AM-10PM; I
| found this to give me the most optimal amount of physical and
| mental energy throughout the day. Not sure why 10 hours of sleep
| works best for me, but I've experimented with that number and
| always come back to it.
|
| Side note: I do have sleep apnea and sleep with a CPAP, but my
| AHI is below 3 on average (down from 43 before treatment!).
| adrianmonk wrote:
| There might just be some people who need 10 hours, but I would
| still look at sleep quality issues. The CPAP thing sounds like
| a good step, but there could be other causes.
|
| Do you wake up feeling well-rested? I know that when I used to
| always sleep 10 hours/night, I still wanted more sleep when I
| got up.
|
| Somehow I managed to change that, though, and now I wake up
| after 6-6.5 hours. And I feel more well-rested than I did
| before after 10+ hours. I'm not completely sure of the reasons,
| as I wasn't seeking it out, but the timing correlates well with
| starting to exercise regularly. Finally getting a mattress that
| works for me might also be part of it.
|
| At any rate, the main thing is that it happened. I didn't
| really know it would or could, which is why I didn't aim for
| it, but I'm glad it did. And I'd hope for the same for anyone
| else in a similar position. Sleep quantity only goes so far to
| make up for quality, and life is too short to be struggling to
| get proper rest.
| johnward wrote:
| I'm the same way. 10-12 hours of sleep is optimal for me. I
| also have apnea.
| adamnemecek wrote:
| I have a hunch that this difference boils down to how happy one
| is with his main a ctivity (school, work etc.).
| bloogsy wrote:
| Here's a thought, try reading the article.
| mdturnerphys wrote:
| The linked paper gives evidence that genetic differences
| resulting in changes to the CK1 enzyme or the PERIOD protein
| play a role. Occupation and behavior may affect sleep but here
| there are demonstrated factors innate to someone's DNA.
| vordoo wrote:
| A good read on sleep (not just Early Riser or Night Owl) - Why We
| Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams / Matthew Walker
| PhD
| sethammons wrote:
| I've always been a morning person. 5 years old waking up at 5am
| to watch Thunder Cats. Highschool, waking up at 4am to finish up
| any homework and then get video game time in. I sleep in more now
| than ever before, typically up around 5:50 to 6:30. My most
| productive coding time is 5 or 6am to around 11am. Typically, I'm
| tired around 8pm, and in bed before 10pm.
| taberiand wrote:
| Well, it's crunch time so - ?Por que no los dos?
| engineerblaze wrote:
| I recently moved to a new apartment that has a window above my
| bed, that I keep open, so that natural light falls on me and
| gradually wakes me up such that I am fully awake by 8:30am
| whereas previously it was pretty dark in my room at all times and
| I had trouble getting out of bed at all. My guess is that the
| lighting situation before I moved messed up my circadian rhythms
| and made more more of a night person, but now that's changing?
| tzs wrote:
| I accidentally shifted from mostly night to mostly day, by
| starting to sleep with my curtains open. I sleep in a room with a
| large south facing window right near me, and a good sized east
| facing window not too far away.
|
| I found that this resulted in my naturally waking up refreshed
| near sunrise.
|
| I also found that I started doing segmented sleep [1], as was
| common in pre-industrial times. As with getting up near sunrise,
| this was not intentional. It just happened.
|
| [1] https://www.webmd.com/sleep-disorders/features/what-is-
| segme...
| nkrisc wrote:
| I was never a night owl but I've found that allowing the sun to
| naturally wake me leaves me much more rested and refreshed in
| the morning.
|
| Sure there's those "sunrise lamps", but nothing compares to the
| real thing.
|
| Go to bed with your blinds open or get ones that are
| translucent.
| hanche wrote:
| At my latitude, that's excellent advice - for a few weeks
| each spring and fall. The rest of the year, the day is either
| too long or too short.
| dentisto wrote:
| There's this coming soon with what seems to be pretty good
| material from people with solid background in the space of sleep:
| https://bestsleepsummit.com/
| sqs wrote:
| I used to be a night owl but switched to being an early riser in
| the last 3 months. I didn't intend to switch and am not sure why
| it happened, but here's what happened that probably contributed
| to it:
|
| - Started working out 1-2 hours per day (trail hiking/running)
|
| - Stopped reading my iPhone in bed at night, now I just read my
| backlit Kindle
|
| - Company switched to all-remote (used to commute to SF)
|
| - Had a daughter (~9 months old now, so not coincident with the
| sleep switch)
|
| - Almost all of my job responsibilities are management now
| (previously I was still doing more IC-like work)
|
| - Cut down on sugar intake
|
| If you asked me 3 months ago, I would have sworn I'd be a night
| owl for the rest of my life. So, this is quite a (pleasant) shock
| to me. Posting this in case it's helpful to anyone who's a night
| owl and thinks it's impossible for anyone to switch.
| pbhjpbhj wrote:
| I started a new job, started walking to/from work (c.2
| miles/3km each way), started IF, reduced my caffeine intake
| dramatically.
|
| For the first 2 months or so I was able to sleep early and wake
| earlier. Now I've got used to the exercise - that's my theory -
| I've shifted back to being more wakeful at night. Which is fine
| for work hours as that's flexible (but perception of early
| risers is that late risers are lazy, so still a little
| problematic). But, I'd like to shift my pattern to match my
| kids' schedules better.
| kart23 wrote:
| Yeah, I see way too many people watching an hour of tv on their
| phone or iPad in bed before going to sleep and then complaining
| they cant go to sleep. I find that I sleep a lot better if i
| put away screens for an hour before sleeping.
| jniedrauer wrote:
| I had a similar experience, and starting to run was what did
| it. These days I wake up at 5am and run for 1-2 hours. I've
| been on this schedule for over a year now, and it's completely
| changed my life. I don't know how I used to function waking up
| 15 minutes before work.
| frosted-flakes wrote:
| > Stopped reading my iPhone in bed at night, now I just read my
| backlit Kindle
|
| I think you mean your _front-lit_ Kindle. The iPhone has a
| back-lit screen.
| ldng wrote:
| What is IC work ? Seen it a lot around here lately but have no
| idea what that is.
| jetpackjoe wrote:
| I think he means "Individual Contributor". i.e., not
| management.
| thebruce87m wrote:
| I concur. I used to work at a company that had IC levels
| for individual contributors and M levels for management.
| wenc wrote:
| > - Had a daughter
|
| Not coincident, but helps a lot. Anecdotally, in my circles,
| the switch happened when folks had children or when they joined
| the military.
| zer00eyz wrote:
| > - Cut down on sugar intake
|
| This is what does it for me. Refined sugar in most forms, and
| excessive fruit will keep me up at night.
|
| That having been said, I'm not productive in the mornings. I
| don't write good code, or create good solutions before 10 am
| still. Early morning have become my time to catch up on
| administrative work, or reading.
| milofeynman wrote:
| The largest factor was having a kid. It happens to all of us.
| When you have a kid, suddenly sleeping in an extra hour isn't
| an option anymore and your body adjusts. It's also much easier
| to fall asleep early after getting up early to take care of the
| kid!
| sqs wrote:
| Yeah. When she was under 6 months, being a night owl was a
| huge benefit because it was easy for me to do the overnight
| wake-ups and feedings. Now she is (crosses fingers, knocks on
| wood) usually sleeping pretty well through the night, so
| there aren't overnight feedings anymore.
| anewhope wrote:
| That's awesome. Reminder that for some people nothing will
| work. I'm diagnosed DSPD; I feel like the laundry list of life
| changes folks tout contributes to a lack of understanding and
| empathy for legitimate medical issues.
| Avamander wrote:
| I only have to have a kid to change my sleep, nice.
| WhompingWindows wrote:
| It sucks that a German industrialist decided we should work 9-10
| hours, and then it further sucks that 7-15, 8-16, or 9-17 are
| deemed the "respectable" shifts for work. I get that some
| companies are flexible on this, but honestly, I've been held back
| in life by being a night owl. Classes at 8-10 am were so much
| harder to focus in, getting to work early is a burden, and
| working into the evening is not an option at many jobs.
|
| It's just straight up better to be a morning person in our
| civilization.
| dot1x wrote:
| For those interested, Internal Time [1] does a good job at
| explaining chronotypes.
|
| People that say they "changed from night owl to early riser" (or
| vice-versa) have never been night owls in the first place, but
| something else was the cause (diet, screen time, etc).
|
| Chronotypes are genetics-based so no amount of wishful thinking
| will make you a night owl or an early riser (though obviously you
| can try and force this with alarm clocks / melatonin... to your
| own risk).
|
| Another book worth mentioning is Why we sleep by Walker. It has
| it's flaws but overall does a good job at explaining the
| importance of sleep.
|
| [1] https://www.amazon.co.uk/Internal-Time-Chronotypes-Social-
| Yo...
| andai wrote:
| Thanks, I am definitely going to check out Internal Time.
|
| > Early birds and night owls are born, not made. Sleep patterns
| may be the most obvious manifestation of the highly
| individualized biological clocks we inherit, but these clocks
| also regulate bodily functions from digestion to hormone levels
| to cognition. Living at odds with our internal timepieces, Till
| Roenneberg shows, can make us chronically sleep deprived and
| more likely to smoke, gain weight, feel depressed, fall ill,
| and fail geometry. By understanding and respecting our internal
| time, we can live better.
| vneur wrote:
| Some caveats to think about for that particular book in this
| blog post: https://guzey.com/books/why-we-sleep/ (I'm not a
| researcher in the area, so not sure how valid either side of
| this is!)
| dewy wrote:
| That's actually about a different sleep book, Why We Sleep
| pknight wrote:
| An interesting read, but the article comes across as an
| unhinged attack piece brimming with silliness. Better to get
| a take from a proper scientist with more balanced views.
|
| Point number one of his list of 'egregious' errors is the
| idea that shorter sleep does not imply shorter life span, but
| all of the recently published meta-analyses make that
| connection convincingly (for the population sleeping <6 hrs).
| Anyone can look up these studies. And Walker does not advise
| people to sleep 9+ hrs (which is also thought to be a risk
| group on a population level). The author of the piece from
| the outset is quite evidently arguing in bad faith.
|
| There is criticism to be had on Walker, he overstimulates his
| readers with fear-inducing statements which can definitely
| backfire.
| rjpn wrote:
| It is surprising that companies don't let employees work in their
| most productive hours. When will this trend start?
| hadlock wrote:
| Once I stopped eating snacks after 7pm, no coffee after 11am, no
| booze after 8pm had a significant impact on my sleeping patterns.
| Anyone can stay up until 3am if you feed them soda every 45
| minutes after dark.
| dijit wrote:
| I've been a night owl my whole life, with the exception of that
| period during secondary school where I was so depressed in the
| evenings I went to bed early and as a consequence woke up super
| early.
|
| I have followed every advice, meditation (1yr), excercise
| (3*1.5hrs per week for 18 months), staving off screens after
| 18:00 (8mo), no caffiene, no sugar, no food of any kind, I also
| tried: too much food, cooling my body down before I go to bed,
| valerian root, sleeping pills, codeine, running before sleep..
| absolutely positively everything.
|
| Why? because there is a strongly negative view society has on me
| for waking up at nearly 9am every day, or staying at work longer
| into the evenings.
|
| At some point I have to call it quits, it's not working.
|
| (FWIW my brain "wakes up" at night, I get the majority of my best
| work done between midnight and 4am, and for 6 years now I have
| avoided being awake during that time for any reason.. but
| recently I let it happen for one night and the output was insane
| compared to my daily hours)
|
| EDIT: Based on the comments here, I just need to have a kid.
| Funes- wrote:
| >EDIT: Based on the comments here, I just need to have a kid.
|
| Or a sick relative you have to take care of, or a physically
| draining job.
| golergka wrote:
| There's one tactic I've tried that worked wonders for me: get a
| job where it doesn't matter.
|
| It's midnight here, I just had dinner with my gf, and after
| kissing her goodnight I'll come back to work, until about 4 am.
| Tomorrow I'm coming to office for the meeting at 5pm, so I'll
| have to wake up about 1pm. I'm delivering the product on time,
| cheaper then expected, and nobody gives a flying fuck where and
| when I'm doing it.
| beagle3 wrote:
| I was, and still am, a night owl - if there are no constraints.
|
| However, there often are constraints that require me to be up
| earlier (yes, a kid is among them), and I found the following
| helps maintain reasonable focus and relative ease of waking up
| early:
|
| 1. About 10,000 IU of vitamin D (at 190lbs), taken before 10am
| - as a replacement for significant sun exposure which I don't
| have. This is significantly higher than the RDA, though still
| below the toxic levels (50,000 IU/day or so at my weight). The
| timing is important - vitamin D is apparently part of the
| body's sunlight clock PLL. Gwern has some n=1 experiments and
| references.
|
| 2. Sufficient protein intake (between 0.5gr and 1gr per lbs of
| body weight - low end for sedantry, high end for very active).
| Don't know the mechanism - discovered by trial and error - but
| makes a huge difference for me. If I don't have enough protein,
| I can't fall asleep before 3am regardless of how tired I am.
| (Well, except when I do a multi day fast and everything goes
| berserk, but that's for another post).
|
| Even with those, at times I am not constrained I will naturally
| nightowl.
|
| Don't trust me. Do your own research and n=1 experiments.
| IndrekR wrote:
| > Based on the comments here, I just need to have a kid.
|
| Sorry to say that, but in my case it did not help, made things
| worse instead. Seriously. It forces my body into unnatural
| rhythm and feel sleepy most of the days. Even if I get 7..9h of
| sleep.
|
| Oh, how I love those productive hours from 22:00 till 03 in the
| morning and waking up between 10 and 12 next day fully rested!
| shawabawa3 wrote:
| Wait, is waking up at nearly 9am late?
|
| I wake up between 8 and 10 daily (I have very flexible working
| hours atm)
|
| I optimised my home for a short commute and have never had a
| job where arriving before 10am was required
| paulrpotts wrote:
| Yes, by the standards of most employers and schools it is
| very late. I am fortunate in that I can often sleep until
| past 8, and I'm much saner and healthier for it. But all
| through high school I had to get up at 6:30. Since I was
| _also_ an extreme night owl and used to do all my schoolwork
| after everyone else in my house was asleep, I'd usually get
| to bed by 1:30 or 2:00, which meant I was severely sleep-
| deprived all through high school.
|
| I've had to take various contract gigs where I had to start
| my commute at 7, or be at meetings that started at 7, and
| it's terrible. Employment arrangements like this wind up
| getting a version of me that is at my lowest, least-focused,
| least-productive ebb, no matter how much coffee I pour down
| my gullet.
|
| These days I still get my best, most focused programming work
| done between about 4:30 p.m. and 8:30 p.m. It's a constant
| strain because it means my time at home with my family is
| foreshortened every single weeknight.
| ghostbrainalpha wrote:
| There are jobs in I.T., like emergency Server Admins for
| hospitals who get paid extra to work the "night shift".
| That might be worth looking into.
|
| Or if you live on the East Coast working Remote with a
| company in Pacific Time Zone.
|
| The thing that finally worked for me was finding out the
| amount of sleep I ABSOLUTELY needed to function. Which was
| about 4-5 hours. My body wants 8, but I can make it through
| the day with 4 hours.
|
| Try to only sleep this minimum about for several weeks, and
| eventually you will be tired enough to go to bed exactly
| when you want. For me that was a midnight to 4:00am
| schedule, and I was gradually able to add a couple hours
| sleep to that over the course of a year. Now I'm sleeping
| 11:30pm to 5:30am.
| hypervis0r wrote:
| 4 hours? You are insane (in a good way), mate. Any less
| than 7 hours and I literally can't even wake up. If I
| force myself, my body will literally not respond to my
| commands and getting up and straight becomes as hard as
| deadlifting 100kg...
| spease wrote:
| I'd be worried about the long term health implications of
| missing that much sleep.
|
| https://www.helsinki.fi/en/news/health-news/deep-sleep-
| clean...
| sk0g wrote:
| How do you manage to exercise 31.5 hours a week? That's
| basically a full time job!
|
| I'd say I'm in pretty good shape, and I gym around 5 hours a
| week and play sport another one hour, so that's 6 total.
| rriepe wrote:
| He meant 3 times a week, 1.5 hours at a time.
| inetknght wrote:
| I'd be skeptical of you trying to assume what someone else
| said. However `3` is un-italic while `1.5` is italic. It
| can be hard to spot that difference in font. I'd say you're
| right.
| sk0g wrote:
| The edit makes it a lot clearer, indeed. Cheers!
| OJFord wrote:
| Notice that's where the italics start, i.e. '3*1.5 hours a
| week', and if I carefully don't use another asterisk at the
| end of my post (unlike GP)...
| sk0g wrote:
| That makes a lot more sense! The comment is edited now
| though, much more readable :)
| dijit wrote:
| My __EDIT __: caused my first * to be consumed.
|
| I exercise 3 times per week roughly 90 minutes. each time.
| Elof wrote:
| Your edit is spot on. I was exactly like you until I became a
| father. Now up at 6:15 and asleep at 9:30. I used to have a
| horrible time falling asleep and on and off insomnia. All that
| is no more too.
| grumpy8 wrote:
| You say "You've followed every advice", but what were you
| trying to achieve exactly? Is it that you can't fall asleep or
| that you're not productive in the morning, or something else?
|
| Personally what worked best for me is just to wake up at 6am
| for 2 weeks without nap during the day.
|
| Most people try to adjust their sleeping time to match their
| waking time, but they've got it backward. Set your wake up time
| and listen to your body for when it's sleepy, then go to sleep
| and wake up at the same time the following day.
|
| The "have a kid" is just a way to force this behavior because
| they will wake up early every day over a long period of time.
| TheTrotters wrote:
| Counterexample: I had to wake up at 6-6:30 am Monday-Friday
| for over half a year. I never adjusted and was chronically
| sleep deprived.
|
| Chronotypes can only be bended so much.
| jotm wrote:
| Pretty much. I'll wake up because I need to go to work. But
| I'm always tired :/
|
| Sometimes I wish I could work nights, but I did work from
| home like that and sleeping during the day is also pretty
| bad. Especially during winter, not seeing much daylight can
| mess you up.
|
| Going to sleep at 2-3am and waking up at 10-11am seems like
| it would be great.
| grumpy8 wrote:
| And just as a curiosity, were you taking nap? What about
| the weekend?
|
| I'm curious as I have a few friends with a similar problem
| (I.e. struggling to wake up early for work). But they often
| party hard the week-end and wake up between 11am-3pm, so
| it's hard to tell if that's the reason it's so hard for
| them.
| jjoonathan wrote:
| Ditto. When I was in a warm climate with no access to air
| conditioning, I forced myself to follow the early bird
| schedule for 3 months so that I could hit the daily
| temperature minimum for my run. Contrary to popular
| mythology, not only did this fail to turn me into a paragon
| of virtue in all aspects of life, it robbed me of my
| highest productivity / highest energy free-time, which
| typically happens late at night.
| dijit wrote:
| > You say "You've followed every advice", but what were you
| trying to achieve exactly? Is it that you can't fall asleep
| or that you're not productive in the morning, or something
| else?
|
| Well, that's a good question since I assumed that the answer
| was obvious but putting it down is important:
|
| I wanted to:
|
| A) Not spend hours trying to fall asleep at night.
|
| and
|
| B) Have energy in the Morning, not feel groggy all day after
| forcing myself awake.
|
| --
|
| When I was in my early 20s and had long vacations my body
| fell into a natural sleep cycle of 4am to 12pm, when I woke
| up I had enough energy that I actually _wanted_ to do things
| and the energy lasted until I fell asleep in the night. Now
| I'm just groggy and tired and procrastinating all the time.
|
| Of course, I'm _really_ conflating things because; Vacations
| are inherently less energy consuming, waking up naturally is
| going to make you feel more energised too and, obviously, I'm
| falling asleep naturally also.
| soylentcola wrote:
| I have to be very careful when I have more than a few days
| off work in a row. When left to fall back into my own
| schedule, I always drift toward more of a 2am-10am sleep
| schedule.
|
| Normally I need to be up at 7am in order to get to work so
| I have to make certain I'm in bed, in the dark, and reading
| in dim light by 11pm (midnight at the absolute latest) if I
| hope to fall asleep at a reasonable time for a 7am rise.
|
| It's not ideal, and as you mention, I typically spend much
| of the morning groggy and slow, but it's preferable to my
| late teens/early 20s when I followed my natural rhythm and
| missed way too many classes or came in late to early, low-
| level jobs.
|
| I even made sure it wasn't some sort of sleep apnea causing
| problems but I'm clear on that front and I feel fine when I
| am able to keep my natural schedule. When I have a couple
| of weeks off I let myself drift later and get a lot more
| stuff done.
| trustfundbaby wrote:
| > Why? because there is a strongly negative view society has on
| me for waking up at nearly 9am every day
|
| I laughed OUT LOUD at this!! I wake up at 11am/12pm every day,
| and yes there is a strongly negative view society has on it.
| I've been trying to wake up at 8am for almost 10 years now,
| instead my bed time has slowly moved from 2am, to 3am to almost
| 5am now.
|
| however, I get so much done working straight from about 12pm to
| 8pm that its totally worth it to put up with the snide remarks
| about my schedule
| EGreg wrote:
| By the way... have you tried buying those red glasses that
| filter all other frequencies including green?
|
| They make you sleepy on demand.
| AndrewKemendo wrote:
| I'm in the same boat as you. There's no "fix" here, and you're
| not broken.
|
| I have three kids and spent 11 years in the military waking up
| a 5 AM. That didn't reset or change my natural rhythm.
|
| My answer is that you need to find a job/lifestyle that fits
| your natural cycle. It's not perfect but I get to set my own
| schedule for the most part and it's working ok for me right
| now.
| jacobolus wrote:
| > _EDIT: Based on the comments here, I just need to have a
| kid._
|
| My 3.5-year-old wakes up at 9AM, takes 1 nap, and goes to sleep
| at 1 or 2 AM.
|
| Most kids are on an earlier schedule, but don't count on it.
| helij wrote:
| Yes to your edit. Once you have a kid there's no 9am waking up.
| It's 7-7.30am if you're lucky.
| JDiculous wrote:
| Long time night owl here - I just quit office jobs and
| exclusively work remotely now. I'd always joked that my life
| goal was to never have to wake up to an alarm clock, but really
| it is a huge boost to my quality of life.
|
| Funny though as I write this I'm actually waking up very early,
| but that's because this week I flew somewhere 5 timezones
| earlier. Not sure how long this will last.
| d1zzy wrote:
| Screw what others/society thinks and follow your natural
| cycle/needs!
|
| Waking up at 6AM while being rested means having to go to sleep
| before midnight but 10pm to 1am for me it's the best time in
| the day, quiet, alone quality time. Take that away and then it
| just feels like a never ending (rat) race of waking up, go to
| work, come home, eat, go to sleep. I'd hate my life if that was
| all it was left.
| arcturus17 wrote:
| I've done everything too, and the only thing that works for me
| is sleeping pills. I think it's a very unpopular view nowadays
| (esp. after Why We Sleep), but a small dose of a benzodiazepine
| changes my life completely.
|
| I'm in the midst of a full diagnostic course including cerebral
| scans, a sleep study and blood analysis, but my neurologist
| told me there's a good chance that nothing actionable will be
| revealed and that the pill will remain the best treatment for
| the rest of my life.
|
| I just wanted to say to you:
|
| (1) I feel you, it sucks to feel that you're underperforming
| b/c your clock is messed up, and what further sucks more is
| that people, especially the internet, will tell you you're
| doing something wrong, when you're actually a disciplined guy
| that has tried everything.
|
| (2) Get pro help if you can. Seeing my GP and my neurologist is
| the first time I've been assured that there's a good chance
| that this is something that's entirely out of my control, and
| that _actually feels good_.
|
| (3) "If the mountain will not come to Muhammad, then Muhammad
| must go to the mountain" - if you can't fix it just roll with
| it, that's what I've done at times. I've told a few of my
| bosses I'm a night owl, and they've fully respected it and
| given great freedom over my schedule.
|
| You've got plenty of options with your skillset... If you
| wanted to f __* off to the beach and code as a freelancer late
| at night I 'm guessing you could also go do that!
| Anthony-G wrote:
| I've upvoted your comment but I would disagree with saying "
| _your clock is messed up_ ". The OP's clock is fine and
| acting as it it's 'programmed' to. What's messed up is the
| way society places a higher value on the circadian rhythms of
| early-risers over those of night owls.
|
| I recall hearing a theory that having individuals with
| differing circadian rhythms within the same social group
| provided an evolutionary advantage as not all members of the
| group would be asleep - and consequently vulnerable to
| external dangers - at the same time.
| arcturus17 wrote:
| I agree with you, but I wasn't saying OP's clock was messed
| up, I meant they might _feel_ so due to the societal
| pressures you describe.
| Anthony-G wrote:
| Ah, OK. I had originally parsed your sentence as _it
| sucks to feel that you 're underperforming_ and _your
| clock is messed up_ as two separate clauses. On re-
| reading it, I can see that it can be interpreted as "it
| sucks to feel that _you 're underperforming b/c your
| clock is messed up_". Thanks for the clarification. I had
| upvoted your comment because I found the rest to be
| thoughtful and insightful.
| wahern wrote:
| Group selection of any kind isn't an empirically supported
| evolutionary mechanism. See
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Group_selection, especially
| the Criticism section.
| Relys wrote:
| Yes, that theory is actually talked about in the book "Why
| We Sleep" which is mentioned in the comment you are
| responding too.
|
| "Why We Sleep" and "The Body Keeps the Score" are two of
| the most helpful books I've ever read (and both found by
| reading HN book suggestions).
| Anthony-G wrote:
| It was _Why We Sleep_ , alright. I had started the book
| last year but only read the first couple of chapters. I
| must return to it and finish it. Thanks for the other
| suggestion.
| logfromblammo wrote:
| If we define larks as those whose circadian cycle leads the
| day-night cycle, and owls as those whose circadian cycle
| lags the day-night cycle, it's easy to hypothesize reasons
| for lark dominance in the civic schedule.
|
| Hypothetically, say local sunrise is 6 AM, and sunset 6 PM,
| a lark rises at 5 AM and retires at 9 PM, and an owl rises
| at 7 AM and retires at 11 PM.
|
| If the lark wishes to be immediately productive on waking,
| they might generate noise, vibration, or odors in the owl's
| sleeping area, or may simply resent the owl for continuing
| to sleep while the lark has started working, and thus may
| wake the owl intentionally. If they have a task that
| requires cooperation, they could either wait 2 hours for
| the owl to wake, or go rouse them immediately. At that
| point, the owl has had 6 hours of sleep, and could probably
| function on that amount for that day. The owl, on the other
| hand, can work cooperative tasks immediately on waking, as
| the lark is already awake, and has no reason to ever awaken
| the lark prior to the natural conclusion of their sleep
| cycle.
|
| The converse act to the lark waking the owl 2 hours early
| is the owl keeping the lark up 2 hours late, after which
| the lark will likely just wake later. Each has a 2 hour
| sleep deficit, but the owl would have been re-clocked by
| daylight all day, and thus it would be more difficult for
| them to retire early after being awakened early (unless the
| weather was gloomy and overcast). They would also desire to
| awaken 2 hours later than usual the next morning. But there
| the lark is again, waking the owl up early again. The lark
| can cause the owl to be chronically sleep deprived, and the
| owl cannot effectively retaliate.
|
| So the owl can, at best, create rules that prohibit larks
| from disturbing others' sleep before "a reasonable hour".
| Commuting, artificial lighting, time zones, and daylight
| savings have all combined to make that "reasonable hour"
| less reasonable.
|
| Daylight savings is a particularly execrable lark
| tradition. While the owl is sleeping, the lark changes all
| the clocks, and then wakes up the owl, waving the clock in
| their face, so the owl does not murder the lark
| immediately. And then the larks only relent when the
| evidence of the sunrise would reveal the ruse. Only the
| larks have any real incentive to redefine civil time to get
| the owls out of bed earlier. So when someone says, "your
| body-clock is messed up," the best response is, "your civil
| time is messed up," and then roll over for a few more zees.
| bradknowles wrote:
| So, what do you call the creature that rises at 9 AM and
| retires at 1 AM?
|
| Or 11 AM and 3 AM?
|
| Or sleeps straight through to 6 PM before they rise?
| pknight wrote:
| Have you tried Time Restricted Eating(TRE) and limiting food
| intake to daylight hours? Did you notice any changes from
| that?
|
| As someone who was fortunate to fix a self-created sleeping
| disorder where I managed to completely f up my circadian
| rhythms, I wish I had known about TRE years ago. As far as I
| know it's not (yet) part of the usual list of sleep
| hygiene/CBT advice, but for me at least it's been the most
| comprehensive change I've made to my lifestyle that has
| benefited my rhythms and sleep quality.
| fluuuhi wrote:
| I have thought about Benzos but to be honest, all the stories
| of addiction and old people becoming hazi/stupid
| (temporarily) frightens me.
|
| I try to sleep through weed (indica). I'm not to happy about
| it but that works more or less.
| [deleted]
| gyrgtyn wrote:
| from that why we sleep podcast, weed sleep is pretty bad
| sleep. the withdrawals (not being able to sleep) are pretty
| bad too. not that i don't use it too. they said cbd might
| be better, but i haven't bothered.
| aegis4244 wrote:
| Has your GP checked your electrolytes ? I had insomnia for 30
| years. Couldn't find any fix, and I tried everything but
| prescribed drugs. (Addiction issues in my family.)
|
| Fixed my insomnia on accident. Tried the 4HB diet. The
| supplements advice did it for me. Magnesium, calcium, and
| potassium. Overnight fix. Turns out, the culprit was my poor
| diet. Now, I only have trouble sleeping if I try to sleep
| less than 12 hours after waking. Best of luck.
| arcturus17 wrote:
| No, but I will inquire about it, thanks for the tip.
|
| I have taken magnesium supplements and multivitamins before
| (I do quite a bit of exercise), and many dietary
| permutations.
|
| I do notice my insomnia becomes worse on a caloric deficit
| so it might be accentuated by nutrition, but I doubt it's
| the only cause.
| snazz wrote:
| Even if you eat healthy, magnesium is a good way to help
| you fall asleep.
| funklute wrote:
| Re. Why We Sleep, do be aware it's received some criticism:
|
| https://guzey.com/books/why-we-sleep/
| follower wrote:
| If you haven't already, I strongly recommend consulting a
| competent sleep specialist.
|
| > FWIW my brain "wakes up" at night
|
| This suggests to me that researching Delayed Sleep Phase
| Syndrome might be helpful.
| myhf wrote:
| > a competent sleep specialist
|
| You mean there are sleep specialists who can do more than
| schedule a sleep study and then say that it was inconclusive
| because you couldn't fall asleep during the study?
| whywhywhywhy wrote:
| Had very similar experience myself, even had trouble sleeping
| as a kid still remember just laying there for hours and hours
| trying to sleep. Same as you describe, my brains very active in
| the night and I get great creative output in the early hours.
| Caused a lot of problems, almost got me fired on occasion and
| at times I have to do things that seem ridiculous just to fit
| into others schedules, if there is an important meeting, train
| or flight I have to catch 8 or 9 am I often just stay up all
| night just to make sure I get to it then sneak a nap in the
| afternoon or as soon as I get home. Went through a few weeks of
| all nighters after a warning at work about turning up late, my
| output was pretty shocking that week but hey at least I got in
| on time for the watch checker PM to be happy, that's all that
| matters right...
|
| Just seemed absolutely effortless for everyone else to be sleep
| at a sensible time and turn up to work on time and here I am
| setting 30 (Not exaggerating) full volume alarms on my iPhone
| and a backup physical alarm elsewhere in the room and still
| sleeping through it all on occasion.
|
| Really just thought I wasn't trying hard enough or maybe I
| should just get better at forcing myself to sleep until I came
| across Delayed Sleep Phase Disorder [1][2] which seems to
| describe it.
|
| Honestly my only real solution has been finding a job where
| they're not fussed if you show up between 15-45 minutes late
| almost every day and my job starts at 10. Think if I were in a
| normal company it would really just be starting an egg timer
| until I happen to show up late too many times in a row to raise
| a red flag.
|
| Advice intended to help normal people wont work if the system
| you're trying to affect isn't actually normal. That's the most
| frustrating part of all this and why people just think you're
| not trying hard enough or you're just a bit of a screw up who
| hasn't got their stuff together.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delayed_sleep_phase_disorder
| [2] https://www.vox.com/science-and-
| health/2018/2/27/17058530/sl...
| bobwaycott wrote:
| > _EDIT: Based on the comments here, I just need to have a
| kid._
|
| Nope. Father of two here. One is grown. Other halfway through
| high school. I've been single most of their lives. Neither of
| them changed me being a night owl. I've raised them on a few
| hours of sleep each night--regularly awake till 3-5a to get
| those crazy productive hours in when the world is asleep and my
| brain is awake, and still took them to and picked them up from
| school daily (though my high schooler recently started driving;
| the adult child didn't want to drive until after high school).
| I do usually get a short afternoon nap in, though.
| wpietri wrote:
| I made the switch. Not intentionally; it just kind of happened.
| I think there were a lot of things that made it work, like
| taking up running (in the mornings), avoiding stimulants, and
| good sleep hygiene. But the one that finally made the
| difference surprised me: it's that I'm not a responsible
| lightswitch user.
|
| I built an automated lighting system such that dawn in my house
| comes at 6 am and gets gradually brighter. In the evening, it
| gradually dims, going out entirely at 10. As long as my ambient
| lighting is the only thing on in the evenings, I reliably go to
| sleep between 10 and 11 pm. But if I leave my non-automated
| task lighting on, I don't get sleepy until hours later, which
| easily can lead to me falling back into night-owl mode.
|
| I avoid that because my mood is much less even when I'm a late
| riser, so I'm not advocating that anybody necessarily follow my
| approach. But if people do want help going to bed on time and
| getting up early, I strongly recommend automated ambient
| lighting in key rooms that mimics a natural day-night cycle
| (but with little or no seasonal variation).
| sparkie wrote:
| I made the switch unintentionally too. I ended up with a job
| in logistics which required me in work at 0630, with a 30 min
| commute. Started going to bed earlier to try and maintain 6-8
| hours sleep. Was working 13 hour days and pretty tired by the
| end of the day anyway.
|
| I'm pretty sure the biggest change which made me an early
| riser was my diet though. I stopped drinking sugary drinks
| and cut out carbs almost entirely after midday. Diet is
| mostly meat, some dairy (but lactose intolerant). I only
| drink water or zero-sugar drinks after midday too. I drink
| Coffee as soon as I wake and only up to midday.
|
| I no longer work the same job, but I still wake up around
| 0430 every day and do a couple of hours programming before I
| go to the gym for an hour, then have breakfast at 0800.
|
| Also stopped watching TV before sleeping. When I do watch TV
| in bed I feel like shit in the morning. Now I turn off the
| screens around 2000 and am in bed by around 2200. I rarely
| watch any TV anyway, but still spend a large part of the day
| at the computer screen.
| antisthenes wrote:
| I'm sorry, but people who claim "they've made the switch"
| just don't get it.
|
| You don't really make a switch from being a night owl. I
| thought I'd made switches multiple times too:
|
| * Taking early classes in college * Deliberately cooling
| myself down and going to bed super early * Getting a puppy
| that forced me to wake up super early
|
| Every single method regressed to night-owl schedule within
| 2 months. Not to mention my productivity and learning
| ability took a nosedive during the periods I was waking up
| early.
|
| This is over a period spanning 15 years, so it involves
| multiple stages of life as well.
| mindcrime wrote:
| _I 'm sorry, but people who claim "they've made the
| switch" just don't get it._
|
| Agreed. At 46, and having been a night-owl pretty much my
| entire life, I'm skeptical that you can just "switch" to
| another mode. Maybe you can, through very conscious and
| focused effort, manage to adapt to what _appears_ to be a
| "morning person" lifestyle; but I suspect that people who
| do that are ultimately just faking it.
|
| That said, I've never looked at being a night-owl as
| something that needed to be "fixed" or something that I'd
| _want_ to change.
| LameRubberDucky wrote:
| Anecdotally, at 51 and previously thought the same as
| you, I'm going to disagree. I'm closing in on two years
| of getting up at 5:00 am and it doesn't bother me
| anymore. I never thought it would be possible for me to
| adapt, but so far I have and I have no intention of
| changing.
|
| Time will tell.
| wpietri wrote:
| Same. I used to be a night owl. Now I'm not. I could
| engineer a switch back if I wanted to, but I like this
| better, so I don't plan to try.
| pbhjpbhj wrote:
| Maybe there's a hormonal aspect to this? Do you think
| that's possible, as you're getting to be - please forgive
| my noting this - past reproductive age [menopause and/or
| lower testosterone levels come around this age AFAIK].
| hnick wrote:
| People tend to wake earlier as they age, maybe that
| helped?
|
| I've noticed it already in my 30s, I can no longer sleep
| in so easily and have to get up, even if I'm tired.
|
| Unfortunately it is because older people tend to have
| poorer sleep quality in general (less time in deep sleep
| cycles) so that's a pretty big downside.
| sokoloff wrote:
| I was a hard-core night owl for years (all through
| college and my first 20 years of working). Then I had a
| kid, then another. They're 10 (+/- a bit) and I now
| reliably wake up sans-alarm at 5-5:30 every day, after
| years of doing that for [or because of] the kids. They
| even sleep later than that now, but I'm easily up by
| then.
|
| It does mean that I'm tired by 11 or midnight, but even
| when left entirely on my own schedule (kids away on
| school vacation), my "new" natural schedule persists.
|
| I didn't seek to change it (and if it drifted back later,
| I might even be slightly happier).
| avenger123 wrote:
| I don't have an elaborate setup as yours but I have found the
| most dramatic improvement by getting one of these:
|
| https://www.philips.ca/c-p/HF3670_60/smartsleep-connected-
| sl...
|
| It's a sunrise and sunset alarm clock. I wake up at 5:15 AM
| on a daily basis and 20 minutes before, the light starts with
| increasing brightness. At 5:08 AM, I have selected ocean
| waves for the sound and at 5:15 the loud alarm comes on.
|
| It's been a dramatic change for me with this. I would
| normally get 7 to 7.5 hours of sleep but would have a very
| hard time waking up and more often than not, would go back to
| sleep.
|
| With this arrangement, it's been really wonderful. I now tend
| to be mostly awake before the main alarm comes on and I am
| able to just get up.
|
| I know this is not a inexpensive option but there are other
| models without the bells and whistles.
| cuspycode wrote:
| My wife got one of those (or a similar model), and it was
| very helpful for her, especially during the toughest part
| of winter here when it's completely dark for 17 hours. For
| me on the other hand, I just made a deliberate mental
| switch when I was around 35 years old when I decided, for
| efficiency reasons, to stop working late evenings and doing
| all-nighters, and tried to catch the early bird instead.
| The switch was surprisingly easy for me, but YMMV of
| course. And I've since started working late evenings for a
| bit again, but my sleep habits have stuck.
| wpietri wrote:
| Yes! I started with a Philips sunrise alarm clock, an older
| model than that. It was good, but I really wanted more
| light and coverage in more rooms than the bedroom, so I got
| a bunch of Hue bulbs and wrote my own daemon [1]. I added
| the dim-in-the-evening thing more as a lark, but it ended
| up making a big difference for me.
|
| [1] https://github.com/wpietri/sunrise
| leto_ii wrote:
| I also have an older model of that. What I found however is
| that if my back is turned to it when it starts brightening
| up its effect is greatly diminished. It simply doesn't have
| enough power to brighten the whole room.
|
| Does the newer model mitigate this issue?
| avenger123 wrote:
| The lux level on this is 315 which I believe is the
| highest. For me, this hasn't been an issue as it is right
| beside my bed. At this point, I believe the ocean waves
| have become a signal to my brain that I need to start
| getting up. I did have to experiment with how many
| minutes before the alarm goes off to turn on the ocean
| waves sound.
| leto_ii wrote:
| Thanks for the details.
| randomdata wrote:
| _> Based on the comments here, I just need to have a kid._
|
| That did work quite well for me for the first year or so. Now
| with a two year old I'm back to staying up until the middle of
| the night and then being painfully tired when the child decides
| to wake me in the early morning.
| jb775 wrote:
| Same here. I have a 15 month old and find that I'm slowly
| reverting back to my pre-baby sleep routines. I'm well rested
| most days, but when I'm forced to wake up early it impacts my
| entire day.
| matthoiland wrote:
| Exact same. Although I did have a kid - three of them. No
| change. Still most productive between midnight at 4am.
| neuralRiot wrote:
| >Based on the comments here, I just need to have a kid.
|
| I don't know, my sister has 4 and still is a night owl, i can
| confirm it's familial because my mom is the same and so was my
| grandma as i am.
| Non24Throw wrote:
| What you're describing sounds similar to me years ago
|
| Then one day I moved to a house that had no internet, and we
| would have to wait a month to have satellite put in, and we had
| no smartphones
|
| After 20+ years of just thinking I had a sleeping disorder,
| losing internet access and living like a pilgrim caused my
| sleep schedule to naturally coincide with the setting and
| rising of the sun
|
| Without any deliberate effort from myself whatsoever, I would
| get sleepy at like 9pm, and wake up around sunrise, wide-eyed
| and ready to start the day
|
| I thought I had tried everything too, including screen
| limitations and so on. That probably didn't work because just
| the awareness that I could go online if I wanted was enough to
| keep me awake, feeling like there was a party going on that I
| wasn't there for. And of course I would cheat some days, and
| doing that even occasionally was enough to reset my progress to
| zero.
|
| There's probably some kind of "disconnection retreat" nearby
| you could try, where people get together in some remote place
| and stay off tech for 7+ days. Could be a fun way to see if
| this is the cause of your sleep issues.
| bigbaguette wrote:
| Same when I go camping in a natural reserve, without
| electricity: daylight is the sleep governor and it's
| incredibly effective and effortless, without even a sensation
| of jetlag.
|
| But it's not the place for cerebral activity, where things
| works best after hours.
|
| I guess in the end it's a matter of performing well under
| distractions or not. I often found that the reason for late
| night performance was due to the lack of interruption and all
| sorts of external stimulation that goes with daytime.
|
| Now I wish I could find a middle ground.
| jedberg wrote:
| Do not have a child to solve this issue. It won't work.
|
| My wife and I are both night owls, but having kids just makes
| it worse. We still go to bed at 2am, but now we have to get up
| at 7 to get them ready for school. Then every third night or so
| we crash out around 10:30.
|
| It's a horrible way to live.
| danudey wrote:
| I feel this.
|
| I'm a naturally night owl. I've had years of being more
| productive at the office between 5 PM and 8 PM than the entire
| time between 9 AM and 5 PM. For a while, a sudden burst of
| productivity was the thing that let me know I was at the office
| late.
|
| Conversely, I also have a tendency to wake up with the sun,
| full of energy, when there's sun (and, living in Vancouver,
| that's about 50% of the time on average).
|
| Then... I had a kid.
|
| This morning, I was awake at 5 AM. Got up to go to the
| bathroom, went back to bed, started drifting off, and then what
| felt like a herd of elephants came storming into the bedroom,
| climbed into bed, went for some cuddles, and then just started
| thrashing around from being bored. Guess I'm awake now, then.
| rpiguy wrote:
| Same. I am most productive 10pm-2am (thankfully earlier than
| you so I can actually sometimes work in my productive time and
| get to bed early enough to be okay in the morning).
|
| Kids mess everything up in regard to sleep. It won't put you on
| a schedule :-)
| eitland wrote:
| I'm extremely different. I was tired in the morning and tired
| in the night until I started getting up _much_ earlier.
|
| I now wake up at around 0355 every weekday. I'm still as tired
| in the night but at least my day feels a whole lot better and
| while I'm still tired at night like before it hasn't gotten
| worse, it might even have improved a bit.
|
| I'm wondering if - with todays technology for remoting and
| asynchronous teamwork - if some companies will test if they get
| better results if they let certain people work at night?
|
| (Been living like this for 4+ years now so the novelty should
| be gone by now and I still enjoy it.)
| outworlder wrote:
| > EDIT: Based on the comments here, I just need to have a kid.
|
| Don't. If you haven't figured out your sleep issues, having a
| kid will make them way worse.
| ApolloRising wrote:
| Exercise everyday as soon as you wake up for 30 minutes may
| help reset your brain (treadmill or similar would work or a
| brisk walk before you shower). Your brain will naturally
| anticipate the exercise and wake up faster because it has to do
| so. It would take 3 weeks to become a habit.
|
| Also sometimes this can be an early sign of sleep apnea if you
| fall into the other risk factors. CPAP + room air filter +
| blackout curtains + exercise changed my life. I can't sleep
| later than 6:30 AM if I wanted to now. Used to be a very
| hardcore night owl and now brain shuts down at a reasonable
| time at night with no pills.
| ARandomerDude wrote:
| > Your brain will naturally anticipate the exercise and wake
| up faster because it has to do so.
|
| It's amazing how true this is. My first day in the military
| they woke us up early with an air horn and we immediately
| started running and doing pushups. Like everybody else, I was
| disoriented for a few minutes.
|
| After doing that for weeks it was fine though.
| jjoonathan wrote:
| Counter anecdata: One summer, I didn't have AC available so I
| forced myself onto the early bird schedule for 3 months so
| that I could run at the daily temperature minimum. It did not
| "reset my brain" or "make me wake up faster" -- I was still
| groggy after my run with metabolism ramping during the day
| and peaking at night (with dips after meals), just as it was
| before + after.
| LameRubberDucky wrote:
| Lifelong (51 years) night owl and morning hater. I got in
| trouble at work for being late and that was it for me. I have
| been getting up at 5:00 am for almost two years now. I don't
| leave for work until about 7:30 am. I do now enjoy the time in
| the morning before work and the desire to not miss that time
| has become extra motivation to get up in the morning.
|
| At first I did go to sleep between 9:00 - 10:00 pm every night
| without fail. That seemed to help the transition. Now, I can
| stay up later if I want and "sleep-in" until 6:00 am.
|
| No neat tricks or anything for me, just fear of losing my job
| and the disaster that would cause.
| dijit wrote:
| Thanks for sharing your story.
|
| How did you manage to go to sleep? I find that if I go to bed
| early all I do is lay in bed until 3am wide awake anyway.
| LameRubberDucky wrote:
| Interesting story about sleep. I tossed and turned until 3
| or 4 am every night for most of my life. Horrible horrible
| nightmares every night. Exhausted every day, falling asleep
| behind the wheel on the way to work, nodding off in
| meetings or at my desk. I slept 10-16 hours on weekends
| sometimes and still felt tired. Napped every day after
| work.
|
| About 8 years ago, my co-worker said he used to have the
| same problems until he got a CPAP machine. One sleep study
| and CPAP machine later, now I fall asleep easily and rarely
| dream. If on the rare occasion I can't go to sleep, I just
| accept it, get up for an hour or two, then go back to sleep
| knowing that I'm gonna suffer a little that day. Definitely
| the exception though.
| madrox wrote:
| I feel this in my bones. You described my entire 20s. I felt
| pretty ashamed that I couldn't master this single skill.
|
| When I got into my thirties, I chose to embrace it instead of
| fight it. I worked at companies that were understanding of my
| chosen schedule. By every metric across the board I've been
| happier since then. The single exception was a period of time
| where I had to be up on a 7am international conference call
| every morning. The stress necessary to maintain that schedule
| was enormous, and came with consequences to my health. Never
| again.
|
| I just don't think humans are meant to keep to a schedule. It
| requires massive amounts of stress to keep up.
| mlangenberg wrote:
| So recognizable! Thanks for sharing. It can be so frustrating
| lying awake at night, with no probable cause.
|
| The more I look forward to a new day, the later I fall asleep.
| Causing the new day to turn into a total disaster as I walk
| around like a zombie on 20% of my usual energy level.
|
| That makes me even more anxious to go to bed, creating a self-
| fulfilling prophecy.
| mFixman wrote:
| I had the exact opposite experience as you.
|
| I was a night owl my entire life until my last few years of
| college, when it got difficult. Then I was able to transition
| to being an early riser in a couple of weeks, and I carry that
| experience many years later.
|
| Waking up early does have a practical advantage: your free time
| is before you go to work, so then you have energy to do
| important things.
| jjoonathan wrote:
| My energy peaks towards the end of the day, not right after I
| wake up. I'm a night owl so that I have energy to do
| important things during my free time.
| Arcsech wrote:
| > Waking up early does have a practical advantage: your free
| time is before you go to work, so then you have energy to do
| important things.
|
| This doesn't make any sense to me. I have zero energy or
| drive in the morning, it's a struggle to do anything. My
| brain turns on at about 11am - I can be active before that,
| but serious creative work or figuring out something that
| requires mental effort is going to be much less effective
| than if I waited until later in the day.
|
| It doesn't even really matter when I wake up. I can wake up
| at 6am and be a zombie for 5 hours, or wake up at 10:30am,
| shower, and be ready to go for the day. Sufficient
| application of caffeine helps a bit if I need to be fully on
| before that, but the quantity necessary to do so is not
| sustainable.
| mFixman wrote:
| Doesn't work tire you down?
|
| I'm not able to do anything productive after leaving my
| office.
| hinkley wrote:
| What I never told my parents until I was an adult is that the
| entire reason I still had a night light at 12 years old was
| because it was just bright enough to play with my favorite toys
| in the dark. I thought I was so sneaky. However, while I almost
| never missed school as a child, the most common cause of doing
| so was exhaustion. Too many late nights and I'd pay for it,
| badly, sleep in until 1pm and then feel like I could win a war
| single-handedly.
|
| So somewhere between keeping me from getting sick and just
| appreciating that as long as I pretended to be asleep they
| could get 2 hours of peace before bedtime, I would get spot-
| checked inconsistently. Got really good at listening for
| footsteps in the hallway.
|
| Getting up early because of kids or dogs isn't a 'fix' for
| insomnia, btw. It's a coping mechanism. If you are too tired at
| 10 because the dog thinks breakfast is to be served sharply at
| 6:30 even though it's been 7:30 since they were puppies, you're
| not gonna stay up trying to invent a new compression algorithm.
| You're gonna collapse like a sad sack and make the most of
| tomorrow.
| GuB-42 wrote:
| I don't understand how kids help.
|
| Sure they will get you to wake up earlier. Even if the kids
| themselves are night owls, you don't decide when school starts.
| But it is not so different from any other obligation.
|
| Waking up early is easy, you just need a loud enough alarm
| clock. Doing so without being in a constant state of jet lag is
| the hard part.
| iso1631 wrote:
| Lots of international travel helps. If you're jetlagged from
| going to a different continent every week or so, when you're
| awake and asleep doesn't really factor into it.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| I can't imagine ever getting used to jet lag. It is the
| most uncomfortable feeling that I am routinely exposed to.
| Feels like my body is failing.
| fxtentacle wrote:
| I have never encountered those strongly negative views, it
| seems.
|
| In high school, I was sleepy during the morning lectures, but
| people just assumed that I was bored or partying too much.
|
| In university, I simply didn't have many lectures before 10 AM.
| Plus there actually were lots of late-night parties going on.
|
| Now that I'm working, I told people that I like to enjoy a
| peaceful morning with my family and it seems nobody really
| cares if start working at 10 or 11.
|
| That said, I noticed that bright lights work wonders for
| helping me to concentrate. I bought a lot of those 1800 lumen
| IKEA LED light bulbs. They need 20W each, so you can connect 3
| of them where normally one lamp would be. And that makes my
| living room bright like a sunny day at the beach :)
| yumraj wrote:
| > Based on the comments here, I just need to have a kid.
|
| Personal anecdote, that won't help much. You'll still sleep at
| midnight, except that instead of waking at 9:00am, you'll have
| to wake up at 6:00am.
| mahalol wrote:
| Midnight to 5.30 for me. It's considerably better than when
| he used to wake up several times a night. Never going through
| that again.
| jotm wrote:
| You could do what most people do and have a day job with a long
| commute :D
|
| Only half joking, it definitely works for waking you up in the
| morning (unless you like being fired) and going to sleep
| earlier (because you're tired).
|
| You will likely feel tired until 11am-1pm or all day, but
| you'll be "normal" in other people's eyes... yay /s
| dota_fanatic wrote:
| Cooling your body down before going to bed will have the
| opposite effect if your goal is to go to sleep. By cooling your
| body it will start to try and warm itself and trigger a stress
| reaction. Eating and working out before bed will similarly
| raise your heart rate and sympathetic nervous system activity,
| the opposite of what you want. Sleeping pills are also bad for
| sleep, ask any sleep doctor. They are great and knocking you
| out, but that's not what sleep is.
|
| Saying you did "meditation" for a year doesn't tell us much,
| just the same as you saying you "exercised" for 4.5 hours a
| week doesn't tell us much. Both of those terms can mean a great
| number of things qualitatively speaking.
|
| Counter-intuitively you could warm yourself 1-2 hours before
| bed with a hot bath or sauna session. This triggers the body to
| bring blood closer to the surface and extremities to shed heat,
| in effect "helping" the body cool itself as it approaches
| bedtime.
|
| Based on these observations I think maybe you haven't tried
| "absolutely positively everything". And even with all the
| environmental and body things you've tried, the mental aspect
| cannot be understated.
|
| EDIT: based on some of the replies about temperature. The hot
| bath method because it will help your body cool in a
| physiological way while a cold bath will do the opposite. A
| cool environment will do the same while a hot one will do the
| opposite. So hot bath 1-2 hours before bed and lower the room
| temp for the best of both worlds. Some people go further with
| chilled blankets such as the Ooler.
| dijit wrote:
| Rising body temperature is correlated with tiredness, that's
| why you feel exhausted after you've been home for 5 minutes.
|
| Meditation itself was 'mindfulness', some of it was guided,
| most of it was not, guided meditation was once a week (I'm
| not counting the yoga, which was also meditative), I spent 5
| minutes in the morning, 5 minutes at lunch, 15 minutes when I
| got home and 5 minutes before bed. (and I'm pretty well
| disciplined so I stuck to that routine).
|
| The reason I say I've tried everything is because I've seem
| therapists/psychologists and taken their recommendations on
| board, I've researched and taken more information on board
| and this is not the first thread where "night owl"
| information has come up, and I took information from there
| too. And, like I said, I'm rigorously self-disciplined; so
| I'm able to stick to things... But, I will happily take your
| advice on board and try that. Since I don't care about
| whinging, I care about results.
| dota_fanatic wrote:
| The only thing I can recommend that's helped me
| significantly in a rigorous way is tracking HRV overnight
| (heart rate variability). This is an objective indirect
| measure of HPA axis activity (parasympathetic vs
| sympathetic nervous systems). Having that data to form a
| feedback loop is priceless in helping you determine what
| things you're doing in the day that is actually having an
| effect on your stress levels one way or the other. As I'm
| sure you can imagine, my best sleep is on nights when my
| HRV is high. I no longer drink alcohol or work on software
| after 7PM in general after seeing just how much those
| activities would wreck my body's ability to sleep well.
|
| I use an Oura ring for this but I bet there are cheaper
| methods, perhaps with a heart rate chest strap, though
| there's an additional bonus with the ring in that it tracks
| sleep phases as well.*
|
| *to some degree of accuracy (~66%?) I use it directionally
| only since the values have big error bars.
| cj wrote:
| > Having that data to form a feedback loop is priceless
|
| I'm surprised to hear this, although I'm glad it works
| for you.
|
| I wear an Apple Watch Series 3 night and day, which
| reports HRV. I've found it to be pretty difficult to draw
| conclusions from since the measurement stays pretty much
| the same even when significantly changing
| lifestyle/habits. Over the past year I have went pure
| vegan (went down 15% body weight), went from exercising 0
| days a week to 6x 1 hour high intensity, went from
| chronically sleep deprived to 7-8 hours / night, and HRV
| has been exactly the same.
|
| Perhaps the accuracy of the apple watch isn't so great
| compared to what you're using. My measurement tends to
| fluctuate between 25ms - 40ms throughout the month with
| an average of 30ms over the entire month for the past
| year, despite the dramatic lifestyle changes mentioned
| above.
|
| I've noticed Apple Watch's VO2 max measurements are also
| -very- unreliable. Mine has decreased 25% in the past
| year despite being at a dramatically higher cardio
| fitness level.
|
| Curious if anyone else with an Apple Watch has had a
| similar experience with these measurements. I really like
| the idea of using them as a feedback loop, which is
| partly why I wear an apple watch to begin with, but
| hasn't quite panned out.
| dota_fanatic wrote:
| That is interesting. I haven't used any of the Apple
| watches so I can't speak to the effectiveness of its HRV
| calculations for me. One of the Oura C-level guys spoke
| in a podcast that doing those kinds of calculations isn't
| as reliable because of differences in vascularity / fit
| on the wrist vs a finger but who knows how true that is.
| Maybe it's true only for the existing monitoring tech?
|
| I've seen my average vary from 10-50 and HRV max from
| 50-140 depending on sickness, exercise routine,
| hydration, drug use, etc. The quality of that average is
| interesting to observe as well, ie two nights' average of
| 40 can look very different depending on the peaks and
| valleys.
|
| It is challenging though to suss out what effects various
| things have. It requires a whole lot of normality in my
| lifestyle so as to limit the number of variables as best
| I can.
| immy wrote:
| Check out the somatic work of Thomas Hanna. 30 minutes of
| supine coordinated movement is great for the
| parasympathetic.
|
| EDIT: the one I use is paid on Glo.com. Found a free one
| that seems similar https://youtu.be/F0jwdoSWsio
| flippyhead wrote:
| This is really surprising. All the studies I have read say
| precisely the opposite. The theory goes that because, in the
| environment in which our minds evolved, the temperature would
| ALWAYS drop at night, this is one of several signals your
| body responds to to prepare for sleep. Others include lower
| availability of food and darkness.
| cgriswald wrote:
| It goes against my experience as well. Years ago someone on
| HN equated an ice bath to elephant tranquilizer. So I tried
| it and can confirm it had a similar effect on me. In
| addition, I grew up in a cold climate. Being cold and
| absorbing my reflected body heat under the blankets made it
| so much easier to sleep. In contrast, hot humid nights were
| impossible.
|
| Edit: Fixed phone's stupid autocorrect.
| cgriswald wrote:
| When my sleeping issues were at their worst, having the pills
| knock me out for a night or two meant I felt tired the
| following nights and got normal sleep. And just having the
| pills really helped with the mental aspect. I knew that if I
| had a bad night it wasn't going to turn into months long
| ordeal.
| winrid wrote:
| I always thought I was a night owl.
|
| Then I realized I just didn't have anything to look forward to in
| the morning.
|
| So now I work on some interesting problem for 30mins at 7am and
| waking up earlier is a lot easier.
| M_V_Nostrand wrote:
| I can relate to this a lot, I love my current job and arrive at
| work around 7am at least 1 hour before my nearest colleagues,
| and just work on fun stuff and learn new things. I did not
| think that would have such an impact. I always thought I was a
| night owl.
| arcturus17 wrote:
| If left to my own devices I'll tend to go to bed towards 3-4am,
| plus sometimes I'll be anxious and gloomy in the mornings and my
| mood will pick up during the day, which makes me thing I'm a
| natural night owl.
|
| However, the most productive times in my life have most
| definitely been when waking up and getting to work early. I don't
| like working at night, just slacking off.
|
| I've read a lot of articles in this vein, but I never see myself
| quite represented.
|
| Anyone else in a similar boat?
| sarora27 wrote:
| I'm pretty similar. Left to my own devices, I usually go to
| sleep between 2-3AM. I definitely relate to the feeling of
| anxiety and gloom in the mornings. My mood picks up as the day
| goes on but I think it may also have to do with a few factors
| in my routine (coffee, using a daylight lamp, etc).
| bilekas wrote:
| I am simular enough in the sense that if I can make it to the
| office early in the morning (usually from just not bothering to
| try sleep anymore) I can get a lot done because of the
| solitude, I focus a lot more when left alone with no
| distractions, which probably adds to the mental energy at night
| preventing sleep.
|
| Of course there is a limit though and tend to eventually crash.
| Which is not healthy at all either.
| jtdev wrote:
| My early riser father in-law likes to give me a hard time about
| sleeping in until ~8 a.m. (in a very "Meet the Parents" passive
| aggressive way) - he then proceeds to take naps throughout the
| day... and seems to have zero ability to focus.
| durpleDrank wrote:
| Long story but I recently got very sick. I was told not to eat
| past 6pm. I found this really helped me with falling asleep. Turn
| on some music around 10 and lay in bed. Read a book. I keep some
| Tums next to my bed (acid reflux also impacts my "sleepiness"). I
| guess what I'm trying to say is that changing how I ate and just
| chilling in bed under the covers at an earlier time really
| helped. I'm still a night owl for sure, but this does combat the
| ratio of staying up till 2am to being asleep by 12. If I really
| tell my mind with my internal monologue "Look, I know we want to
| play videogames and do the dishes, but let's do that in the
| morning" and also craving breakfast before bed (so you are
| excited to wake up early to eat) helps.
| bilekas wrote:
| I am very much a night owl and I have a really hard time getting
| into a routine of getting up early in the morning, even if I do
| manage to get my hours of sleep.
|
| It took a long time to find a balance of forcing to sleep and
| forcing to get up. But now I have to be very concious, if I have
| a late weekend I am out of sync for the rest of the week.
|
| People say its a lazy thing, but its really not.
| giancarlostoro wrote:
| Used to have nasty insomnia, now I've sorta forced myself to
| sleep earlier cause I know if not I will not function at work.
| However, my wife's a night nurse so when she has days off and
| on weekends, it screws with my sleep schedule. I wish I could
| just function on less sleep honestly, but I can't anymore.
|
| One thing I read from a fellow insomniac though was that
| sometimes when you just can't sleep, laying down on your bed
| helps vs walking around or being on a computer. Even if you
| don't fall asleep, and sure enough it does help.
| milofeynman wrote:
| You definitely don't want bright lights in your eyes
| (computer) if you're trying to sleep. I've heard getting up
| and doing a menial task (dishes, knitting, etc) for a few
| minutes can help if you've laid in bed for a long time with
| no luck.
| airstrike wrote:
| My personal tactic is to eat any simple carb and proceed to
| do something incredibly boring like reading https://scholar
| .princeton.edu/sites/default/files/tpavone/fi...
| TomMarius wrote:
| I used to stay awake until 5 AM reading as a child. Might
| not be a working advice for some people :P
| airstrike wrote:
| Hopefully you were not reading a review on Jurisprudence,
| though!
| cadence- wrote:
| I agree. Even if I don't sleep at all, but only lie down at
| night with my eyes closed, I feel better than walking around
| at night.
|
| I mean, I still feel horrible overall. But better than when I
| spend the night out of bed.
| giancarlostoro wrote:
| I read it here on HN coincidentally but I couldnt remember
| by who, but I felt way better later on that day. I think
| the best I can do is force myself to sleep though. I'll
| watch shows on Netflix till my eyes start to shut down
| nowadays.
| cadence- wrote:
| I'm in the same boat. It's very hard for me to operate on a
| schedule compatible with the rest of society. I can force
| myself into it, but I never really feel well rested. What makes
| matters worse is if I don't keep my sleeping schedule for two
| or three days, everything gets messed up again and I see myself
| reverting back to falling asleep at 3am.
|
| It's really hard and it limits greatly my employment options.
| I'm sure my career has been severely impacted by it, since most
| management positions require lots of early meetings. I am an
| engineering manager now, but it's hard for me to enjoy my job,
| because it often requires early meetings. So it's hard to
| really be good at it and progress in the career.
|
| My perception at workplace is that most managers are early
| risers, and people who stay forever at senior engineering level
| are the night owls.
| nefitty wrote:
| One of the worst things that happened to me in my last job is
| that I became important in the mid-level at work. Suddenly, I
| was expected to be at work earlier, be ready to rock at 8am,
| knocking meetings out and making decisions. I ran on fumes
| for years.
|
| A few times, when critical bad shit happened after 5pm and I
| had to stay at work until midnight, I felt like I was the
| competent and motivated person that got me into that position
| to begin with. There was no way my bosses were going to let
| me saunter into the office at 1pm, after all the client
| meetings had already wrapped up... I definitely tried to
| convince them though lol
| phero_cnstrcts wrote:
| Which is why I hate Scrum.
| collyw wrote:
| How long does it take you to adjust when the clocks change in
| Spring?
| zozbot234 wrote:
| Early risers have to "force" themselves to stay up late, since
| they got up so early in the morning. Really, changing one's
| "chronotype" is mostly just a matter of what you're used to,
| and what kinds of "stressors" you incur during the day. If you
| don't want to be a "night owl", don't do stressful stuff late
| in the afternoon or at night.
| raxxorrax wrote:
| No, it is not and it is equally frustrating if people shut down
| early in the evening. Granted, the normal work hours favor
| early-birds, but I think that changes a bit in some
| occupations.
|
| There is certainly some form of habituation and I mostly don't
| need a clock. But I am still considerably more grumpy on week-
| days after waking up.
| ZanyProgrammer wrote:
| Maybe it's just the small subset of software engineers who
| frequent HN, but I swear 99.9% of the people on here are night
| owls, and they very much let their opinions be known on every
| thread about sleep.
| jjoonathan wrote:
| If the passive aggression from early birds weren't so
| intense, us night owls wouldn't have such a chip on our
| shoulder. But it is. Just look at the early birds in this
| thread: nearly every post equates their schedule to virtue.
| giancarlostoro wrote:
| Well, they're the ones most likely to click on threads about
| sleep probably.
| bilekas wrote:
| I definitely opened the link to read up on something
| relating to me! :)
| npongratz wrote:
| Perhaps because this is one place where kindred spirits feel
| comfortable sharing without fear of the denigration we've
| experienced our entire lives -- the overt and the subtle,
| conscious and inadvertent, the malicious and the good-
| intentioned.
| notahacker wrote:
| Makes an amusing change from the percentage of people on
| LinkedIn who need to share morning rituals involving getting
| up at 4am to ensure they have time to read inspirational
| business stories, go to the gym, update their inbox over
| green tea and freshly baked bread and enjoying an hour of
| contemplative meditation before cycling to work to arrive
| before everybody else. :D
| bosswipe wrote:
| You are expressing a common early-morning person
| condescending attitude towards night-owls.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| I am an early-morning person and I am not feeling
| condescending towards you right now. Just slightly put off
| that you decided that all early-morning people have
| something against you.
| poulsbohemian wrote:
| Nearly everywhere in US society where productivity comes up,
| the "early bird" is held up as the standard of efficiency.
| Thus, those people who instead prefer a schedule that doesn't
| begin pre-dawn have been chastised in books, talks, and in
| media despite there not being any proof that that they are
| "lazy" but rather are simply naturally attuned to a different
| schedule.
| wpietri wrote:
| Interestingly, this early=virtue thing goes back more than
| a century. Before electric light, the common sleeping mode
| was in two chunks, first and second sleep. Moralizing
| busybodies, kin to the anti-alcohol movement, decided that
| second sleep was self-indulgent and unnecessary. The
| history podcast Backstory had a great set of segments on
| sleep a while back:
| https://www.backstoryradio.org/shows/on-the-clock-4/
|
| Even as an early riser, I think the virtue part is
| horseshit. Not everybody has to be the same. Indeed, my
| (entirely unsupported) theory is that sleep schedule
| variation is natural and useful. In the wild, it's safer
| for everybody if somebody is always awake keeping an eye on
| things.
| andai wrote:
| _As the olde englysshe prouerbe sayth in this wyse. Who
| soo woll ryse erly shall be holy helthy & zely._
|
| The Book of St. Albans, 1486
| tropdrop wrote:
| It's refreshing to have a space that is welcoming of all
| sorts of circadian schedules instead of subtle shaming. But
| it's not just software engineers who decry the early risers -
| writers, artists, and PhD students constantly speak up about
| their need to stay up late in deep focus mode on a creative
| project. Maybe that's the common denominator - the need to be
| able to focus for hours without the disruption of emails or
| meetings.
| hoka-one-one wrote:
| That's why it's important to go outside and meet real people
| and not make the internet a significant part of your social
| interaction.
| hellofunk wrote:
| There's a neat chart on this page that shows how various well-
| known writers over time balanced sleep with writing, and it
| widely varies: some worked very early while others almost never
| slept or only worked overnight:
|
| https://www.brainpickings.org/2013/12/16/writers-wakeup-time...
|
| There's also this:
|
| https://www.fastcompany.com/3031754/the-sleep-schedules-of-2...
| jfengel wrote:
| How disappointing that the NIH's own blog (with Dr. Collins' own
| byline, though I doubt the director actually wrote it) should
| have such a clickbait headline.
|
| The observation that genetics leads people to different circadian
| clocks is decades old. We already know what enzymes are involved.
|
| What's news is that somebody has worked out some of the
| structures of the enzymes in some people with genetic sleep
| problems. That's one clue in figuring out how those enzymes
| actually work and how they evolved.
|
| "Helps" is science writers' crutch for "here's a minor
| improvement in an ongoing thing, but we're going to pretend that
| we just solved it". I expect that from the clickbait love-
| science's-butt sites, but not from the NIH director's blog.
| inertiatic wrote:
| I've been a night owl all my life.
|
| Now I wake up by 7 before my alarm even rings.
|
| All it took was getting into the habit of trying to get a little
| person to sleep by 10 in the evening and falling asleep with
| them.
|
| I'm still at my most productive at the end of the working day
| however and early morning is still not great.
| mmcgaha wrote:
| Although I wake up for work every day and live the early bird
| schedule, I am a night owl. Every so often my body will reject
| the schedule and I wake up between midnight and 1:00AM. Of
| course I am sleepy by sunrise but I have to push through the
| day to get back on schedule.
| collyw wrote:
| I was the same for many years then travelling from Chile to
| Peru, there was a two hour time difference, despite being
| pretty much the same longitude (there was a one hour
| difference, and I think Chile had daylight savings on top of
| that).
|
| It made me realise that it's all just a number. In other words
| if you don't like getting up early, then go to bed an hour or
| two earlier. It has exactly the same effect. In countries with
| daylight savings we adjust our schedules by an hour two times
| year and no one makes much of a big deal. Its the same as that!
| dhruvkar wrote:
| >>little person to sleep by 10
|
| This.
|
| I regualrly slept between 1-3am for many years. After having a
| baby (6 month old), I'm ready to sleep whenever, and definitely
| can't stay up past 11. Huge win in terms of sleeping early and
| waking up early.
|
| Have a baby. Fix your schedule.
| ActorNightly wrote:
| I dunno if this is hyperbolic, but having a baby to fix a
| sleep schedule seems like an insanely complicated solution
| that carries a lot more side effects to a fairly trivial
| problem.
| dhruvkar wrote:
| In case it wasn't clear (sarcasm is hard in text), this is
| not serious advice.
| yocheckitdawg wrote:
| Don't worry, it was blindingly obvious it was sarcasm to
| anyone with half a functioning brain.
| burlesona wrote:
| Just FWIW this doesn't always work. I'm more of a night owl,
| and having kids didn't flip my schedule, it just left me
| really exhausted. My wife and I ended up working out a sort
| of arrangement where she usually goes to bed earlier and gets
| up earlier, while I stay up later and sleep in more. When our
| kids fail to sleep through the night, it's often a wake up
| around 11-midnight where they want milk or need to use the
| bathroom or something, so since I'm still awake I can field
| those without my wife having to wake up. Thus it works okay,
| but it's not perfect.
| katzgrau wrote:
| Clicked in to say the same thing. My favorite time to work
| usually came between 9pm and 2/3am.
|
| Now with a baby I'm usually sleeping by 10 and up at or before
| 6. I kind of like it though. Now the before-lunch period is the
| productive time.
| schuke wrote:
| I wonder if the genetical night owl can pull this off too?
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| gwbas1c wrote:
| I was quite the night owl before my first child came. I think
| the change is part biology, and part the emotional connection
| to my children.
|
| There is no job, hobby, or other calling that could turn me
| into an early riser like raising children.
| pbhjpbhj wrote:
| I think we perhaps need some info on the sex of, and level
| of responsibilities of, the people claiming to be cured by
| having children.
|
| [Father's testosterone levels drop considerably starting a
| little prior to birth of their children (and when taking on
| care of young children) reportedly. Mother's hormonal
| changes go without saying, I feel.]
|
| Just FWIW none of my well-spaced in age children fixed me.
| But having a fluid sleep cycle often meant I wasn't
| bothered. Sometimes I'm super awake at 4am, sometimes 6am,
| sometimes I'm ready to crash by 4pm, sometimes by midnight.
|
| What killed me was having to work a second job during the
| night-time with our first kid, not fun.
|
| In short, still broken sleep cycle, almost exactly like my
| mother has been through her life AFAICT.
| mathattack wrote:
| I made the swap too. As an individual contributor I wanted to
| work until everything was finished. When I moved to managing
| managers I wanted to get ahead of the day, and be current
| before everyone else started.
| zwieback wrote:
| When my kids were toddlers they switched my wake-up time to
| around 5AM, now I seem to be stuck with that rhythm while they
| sleep in happily.
| hugi wrote:
| This was what did it for me as well. I was alone with my three
| kids (5,6 and 9) for half a year recently (wife went on a
| foreign student exchange program) and to prevent life from
| descending into chaos I established a pretty dictatorial
| parenting style. Kids were asleep by 8-9pm, and we had to be up
| at 7am to prevent our mornings from being stressful. I
| eventually discovered that I could make much better use of the
| day if I also went to sleep early and woke up about 5am to
| prepare the day or start working. These early hours were much
| so much more productive than the evening hours.
|
| I've tried to stick with this program, or at least a version of
| it, but ironically it's kind of harder now that there are two
| of us again.
| lokl wrote:
| #1 sleep aid for me: mitigating dust mite allergens in my bedroom
| danaliv wrote:
| My maternal grandmother (may she rest in peace) and I shared
| eerily similar night owl clocks. Left to our own devices, we'd go
| to sleep and wake up at exactly the same hour (roughly 3am-noon),
| whether we were in the same place or not. I've long been
| convinced that it was genetic.
| clSTophEjUdRanu wrote:
| Anecdote: I was a night owl until I joined the service. Now I'm
| not in the service and I'm still not a night owl.
|
| You can be what you want.
| SeanFerree wrote:
| I'm a mix of both
| sghiassy wrote:
| For all of the various current cultural movements of acceptance -
| accepting night owls (and not thinking they're just lazy) - is
| sorely missing.
| inetknght wrote:
| This blog post discusses circadian rhythms; sleep cycles.
|
| I've noticed that my sleep cycle also differs from 24-hours. It's
| usually around 28-32 hours. Having a 9-5 job _really_ kills my
| productivity.
| follower wrote:
| As I mentioned to someone else on this thread expressing a
| similar experience, if you're not already aware of it you may
| wish to read about "Non-24-hour sleep-wake disorder":
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-24-hour_sleep%E2%80%93wake...
| ivanhoe wrote:
| I live by a "night owl" rhythm, but my feeling is that the real
| reason behind it is that my sleep cycle has just never been
| really adjusted to the 24 hours days. For me a perfect day would
| be somewhere between 28 and 32 hours, and then a good 9h sleep.
| pathartl wrote:
| This might get lost in the flood of comments, but I'm still very
| much a night owl. However, I don't find it difficult getting to
| work at 9AM and making it through the day anymore. Really the
| largest change for me was just not doing as much after work.
|
| I used to work on projects where I'd be up anywhere from 1AM -
| 4AM. I really hated to do it, but I started a new job with new
| responsibilities so I had to be on top of my game during the day.
| It REALLY makes me yearn for a 32 hour work week because now I'm
| missing out on the side stuff I used to do.
| saagarjha wrote:
| There's early risers, night owls, and those who are still awake
| an hour after sunrise and should really get off of Hacker News...
| zozbot234 wrote:
| If you're 'still' awake an hour after sunrise, does that mean
| you're technically an early riser?
| saagarjha wrote:
| I guess I haven't technically risen...
| seer wrote:
| This may be very anecdotal but might help someone in a similar
| predicament. After reading Why We Sleep I think I got some
| explanation what happened to me, but at least for my case it
| seems it wasn't really on the money. I _was_ able to make the
| switch from night owl to an early bird myself so it's certainly
| possible, though requires some effort and dedication.
|
| I naturally woke up at 10 am and didn't really like mornings, and
| my most productive periods were definitely 1-2am. Thats when the
| most exciting coding solutions seemed to come to me.
|
| Then I started going to early martial arts training. Since I
| wanted to go before work, I had to wake up at 7:30. For about 8-9
| months it was quite unpleasant, though the training sessions
| themselves were fun enough for me to want to continue.
|
| But then something strange happened. I vividly remember the day I
| "switched". It was spring time and we just started getting our
| training sessions outside. It was intense enough that the guys
| decided to go shirtless and take in the morning sun. And at that
| exact moment, basking in the sun at 8am, during a demanding
| physical exercise I thought to myself - wow! this is so exciting,
| fun and natural. It felt a bit like a Chinese kung-fu movie. A
| very energising experience.
|
| And from that exact day I start feeling sleepy at 11pm and wake
| up at 7:30 consistently each day and would feel awesome in the
| mornings.
|
| This is I know very anecdotal, but at least I know it's possible.
| And the recipe seemed to be lots and lots of sun, outdoor
| activity and a very positive emotional feedback. This I think
| might be the biggest reason. Currently the most positive feedback
| we usually encounter is in the evening - late night YouTube / tv
| / internet / books / friends / family, ... even intercourse.
| Quite a lot of the stuff we look forward to happens in the
| evening. It makes sense that our bodies adapt to make us most
| alert when it senses we get the most bang for the buck. But if
| you reverse that and attempt to do the stuff you really like
| early, your body might adopt, albeit slowly.
| _1100 wrote:
| I'll add n+1 to this anecdote.
|
| Found a form of exercise I was excited and willing to get up
| for, now I wake up around 5:45 every morning trying to drag my
| "early riser" wife out of bed to go start the day.
|
| Was a complete night owl before, and my wife was constantly
| reminding me that it was late and time to call it a day.
| buzzerbetrayed wrote:
| Off topic, but if you don't mind me asking, what exercise
| could possibly be exciting at 5:45? I ask because I've been
| trying to find exercise that makes me excited to get up and
| do it but I've been drawing blanks.
| seer wrote:
| For me personally it has always be the tribal thing -
| having a group that all subject themselves to an early rise
| helped quite a lot to power through days that I didn't feel
| like it and made the good times a lot more memorable.
|
| Have in mind that 6:00am is some other timezone's 10am. It
| is possible to get accustomed to living in another
| timezone, so thats what you'll generally be doing - getting
| through the "jet lag". How do you do it normally? Well just
| attempt to get into the habits of the locals and you'll get
| there. You just need to find "locals" in your desired "time
| zone" so to speak.
| athenot wrote:
| This is interesting. I wonder if a memorable experience like
| the one you describe is what creates a desire within our brain
| to recreate more of the same. Whether it's the fresh
| air/sun/awesomeness of communal enjoyment of the sunrise or the
| chill afterhours at night when all is quiet and there is that
| feeling that we could code for hours with no fear of
| disruption.
| itsmhuang wrote:
| I'm confused, so an early riser is one that operates on a 20-hour
| cycle? Does that mean they sleep more than a night owl? I always
| thought it was the opposite.
| neilwilson wrote:
| Early riser here. And of course the day length on earth has moved
| from 20 hours to 24 hours over multicellular evolutionary time.
| follower wrote:
| To interject some science into the anecdotes, if the timing of
| your sleep impacts your daily life (i.e. you may have a "sleep
| disorder") the following may be of interest:
|
| * General category of "Circadian rhythm sleep disorders":
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circadian_rhythm_sleep_disorde...
|
| * "Night owl" a.k.a. "Delayed sleep phase disorder" (often
| related to teens & adults) :
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delayed_sleep_phase_disorder
|
| * Extremely early riser a.k.a. "Advanced Sleep Phase Disorder"
| (often related to the older people) :
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_sleep_phase_disorder
|
| * Sleep/wake cycle "a day" significantly longer than 24 hours:
| "Non-24-hour sleep-wake disorder" :
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-24-hour_sleep%E2%80%93wake...
|
| Note that in additional to issues directly connected to sleep
| disorders, there are often significant impacts from
| cultural/societal attitudes to when individuals sleep that lead
| to secondary effects (e.g. shame, guilt,
| depression)--particularly for people who are unaware that sleep
| disorders exist and have not yet been diagnosed.
|
| (Similar dynamics affect people with, for example, executive
| function-related disorders such as ADHD/ADD. Additionally,
| interactions between sleep disorders & ADHD/ADD mean that aids
| such as supplementary Melatonin need to be taken at different
| times and/or e.g. smaller doses.)
|
| I am not a doctor, nor a sleep specialist but I do believe people
| (& their families) who are affected by sleep disorders deserve to
| be informed and not subjected to the feeling that their inability
| to sleep at a societally mandated time is a character flaw or
| evidence of them "just not trying hard enough".
| balfirevic wrote:
| > Additionally, interactions between sleep disorders & ADHD/ADD
| mean that aids such as supplementary Melatonin need to be taken
| at different times and/or e.g. smaller doses.
|
| Do you have more information or links about the interaction
| between ADHD and sleep phase disorders (specifically non
| 24-hour sleep-wake disorder), as it relates to melatonin?
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| hanche wrote:
| There's quite an interesting array of anecdotes here. Mine is a
| bit different: I was always a night owl, staying up late and
| sleeping late into the day if left to my own devices.
|
| In the past couple years that has been completely stood on its
| head. Now, I regularly collapse into bed around 10 in the
| evening, and wake up - very reliably - between 5:30 and 6:30 in
| the morning. I haven't set an alarm in the past two years, except
| once in a while when I have to get up early for something
| important. And even then, more often than not, I wake up before
| the alarm goes off.
|
| I am not sure what triggered this change. Perhaps it's age
| related (I am 66 years old). But really, I have no idea. The
| change is easy to live with, though, so it doesn't freak me out;
| but it does make me wonder what happened.
| irrational wrote:
| I am the classic Night Owl. Left to my own devices I would stay
| up till 3-4am every night and sleep until noon. Unfortunately I
| have to be up at 5am Monday-Friday :-(
|
| Fortunately I'm so exhausted from getting up at 5am that my body
| starts shutting down around 8pm.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2020-02-25 23:00 UTC)