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Go to bed earlier. I get up early and have since High School. All I do is make sure I go to bed at a reasonable hour. Going to work, lunch, home early is frig

Go to bed earlier. I get up early and have since High School. All I do is make sure I go to bed at a reasonable hour. Going to work, lunch, home early is friggin awesome. Avoiding rush hour, saving me roughly 1 hour a day in traffic, is fantastic. Plus it gives me time to do any personal things in the early afternoon without affecting my work schedule.

anotheryou 9y ago
Yea, that's the "compatibility mode" I'm running on: strictly going to bed at 11pm. I sadly really miss the nights and have to force myself to do this daily. Here in europe daylight saving time just ended, now I have go to bed an hour earlier from one day to another. It took me out for 4 days (really bad performance) and the first 2 days I stayed awake in bed so long I became more awake again before managing to fall asleep.
- justherefortart 9y ago
  I go to bed between 8-9pm, rarely as late as 10pm. Going to bed means I'm reading a book (physical, not digital) and winding myself down from the day. I find exercising during the day helps immeasurably when trying to go to sleep at a reasonable hour (based on your own schedule). Also limiting caffeine after lunch. To people that say it's impossible, maybe it is. I did have a late schedule for a few years in college (waiting tables until close). I still scheduled my classes for 9/10am at the latest starting time though. Maybe my working out when I get up helps as well. Plus personal discipline (both going to bed and getting up regularly). I get 8-9 hours of sleep every night outside of rare exceptions. My mom said I've been this way since childhood. I would never give up sleep to stay up late, unless absolutely necessary. My high school buddies would give me hell during the week, but I got up at 5:30am for my early bird weightlifting every day. So 9pm was "late" for me.
  - anotheryou 9y ago
    Even doing sport or just taking a shower: I prefer both late in the day.
stephen_g 9y ago
This is exactly the kind of thing people with delayed sleep cycles hear all the time. There is a group of people for which your solution is impossible. Your circadian rhythm is compatible with that kind of schedule, and that's great. Some other people can't do that. I mean, I can wake up early regularly but eventually get into a sort of perpetual feeling just like jet-lag with symptoms of sleep deprivation (even when going to bed earlier and falling asleep early due to exhaustion). It was actually funny, after one of my recent trips to Europe from Australia, when I came back my (actual) jet lag weirdly landed me in a sort of normal cycle for a week and a bit. It was truely a bizarre experience - I literally cannot remember a time in my life (I'm almost 30) where I could regularly wake up before 9am and being able to go to sleep before 12:30 to 1:30 am and feel normal. But for this little while I was waking up between 7:30-8:30am and going to sleep between 10pm and 11pm. It quickly wore off (discipline doesn't have anything to do with it, you just can't fight your physiology) but it was really interesting and eye-opening experience...
- jcoffland 9y ago
  Yep, it's just fate. Our genes determine our lives and there's nothing we can reasonable do about it. We're just leaves in the wind of life. Hard work will just make you feel bad so don't even try.
  - danbolt 9y ago
    As I grew into the role of a young adult, I experimented and arranged school and/of work to be later in the day. Why not, especially as a “lazy” student, right? Funny enough, the quality of my work increased and I got better grades. I thought more critically in class and clearly when on the job. I didn’t need caffeine to function when I awoke or have to manage screen time before bed. I became a more productive person like the early birds, but in my own fashion. It can be hard to read comments like this that paint the picture as learned helplessness, especially when it feels like honestly playing to one’s strengths.
- __david__ 9y ago
  I'm the same way. I've had a couple times in my life where things lined up with the rest of the world. Waking up in the 6 to 7am range and going to sleep before midnight. It was interesting to live on a "normal" schedule for a while. And also very convenient--normally all appointments happen happen after noon which halves the available window right off the bat. But my schedule always slides to my natural rhythm.
ryandrake 9y ago
I love how I had to scroll all the way to the bottom to find the actual, practical solution. I’ve had to move farther and farther away form work over the years to the point where I need to wake up before 6AM to get to work on time. So I just go to bed earlier. Problem solved. Start going to bed at 8PM. Give it a try for a week and report back whether you have an easier time in the mornings.
- isostatic 9y ago
  I used to do that at school, lay awake for a few hours in the dark (or in the light in summer term). So useful.
jsutton 9y ago
And if you don't get tired earlier? I find that even when I wake up early, I'm usually wired around 11pm-12am.
- e12e 9y ago
  Physical exertion plays a role - but when I'm rested (~8 hours of sleep) I usually don't get really tired until I've been up 18-20 hours. I've worked with friends that are completely different, and struggle to keep their eyes open after midnight. So there's definitely big differences. I do generally manage to function well on "average" of ~8 hours of sleep every 24 hours: some night 8,9 or 10 some 4 or 5. But yeah, if you're one of the people that can't understand how "changing the rhythm" can be a problem: try starting tour day at 0230 or 0300 am for a couple of weeks. For the vast majority, that is though (hence attack right before dawn...).
antisthenes 9y ago
Here's what happens (from someone who's been trying this for 12 years, to make the switch): You go to bed early, lay in bed for an hour or so trying to fall asleep. Eventually, frustrated, you get back up again and try to read a book again for a few hours to help you fall asleep. By now it's very late and you wake up tired in the morning. Chronic lack of sleep during the week causes you to catch up on the weekend by sleeping in until 11AM or later, which means you can't fall asleep at an early time again. Your advice doesn't work and you have to frame of reference as to why because it doesn't happen to you. Do you go around telling fat people to just eat less also?
- justherefortart 9y ago
  Exactly, eat less and exercise more! Discipline is hard, I know.
bbarn 9y ago
To add to that - cut out screens at a specified time. 8PM, 9PM, whatever makes sense an hour or two hours before going to bed. It has a drastic effect on sleepiness.
anotheryou 9y ago
What actually worked for me, but I can't do it with my current job: bi-phasic sleep. I did this while in school, I slept 2am-7am and 4-6:30pm. Pro: you learn to fall in to deep sleep very quickly and I would often have lucid dreams and you can get away with slightly less sleep. Con: if anything gets in the way of the afternoon sleep phase it feels like missing half a nights sleep...
merinowool 9y ago
> Go to bed earlier. It is the same as telling depressed person to "cheer up"...

anotheryou 9y ago

Yea, that's the "compatibility mode" I'm running on: strictly going to bed at 11pm. I sadly really miss the nights and have to force myself to do this daily. Here in europe daylight saving time just ended, now I have go to bed an hour earlier from one day to another. It took me out for 4 days (really bad performance) and the first 2 days I stayed awake in bed so long I became more awake again before managing to fall asleep.

justherefortart 9y ago
I go to bed between 8-9pm, rarely as late as 10pm. Going to bed means I'm reading a book (physical, not digital) and winding myself down from the day. I find exercising during the day helps immeasurably when trying to go to sleep at a reasonable hour (based on your own schedule). Also limiting caffeine after lunch. To people that say it's impossible, maybe it is. I did have a late schedule for a few years in college (waiting tables until close). I still scheduled my classes for 9/10am at the latest starting time though. Maybe my working out when I get up helps as well. Plus personal discipline (both going to bed and getting up regularly). I get 8-9 hours of sleep every night outside of rare exceptions. My mom said I've been this way since childhood. I would never give up sleep to stay up late, unless absolutely necessary. My high school buddies would give me hell during the week, but I got up at 5:30am for my early bird weightlifting every day. So 9pm was "late" for me.
- anotheryou 9y ago
  Even doing sport or just taking a shower: I prefer both late in the day.

stephen_g 9y ago

This is exactly the kind of thing people with delayed sleep cycles hear all the time. There is a group of people for which your solution is impossible. Your circadian rhythm is compatible with that kind of schedule, and that's great. Some other people can't do that. I mean, I can wake up early regularly but eventually get into a sort of perpetual feeling just like jet-lag with symptoms of sleep deprivation (even when going to bed earlier and falling asleep early due to exhaustion). It was actually funny, after one of my recent trips to Europe from Australia, when I came back my (actual) jet lag weirdly landed me in a sort of normal cycle for a week and a bit. It was truely a bizarre experience - I literally cannot remember a time in my life (I'm almost 30) where I could regularly wake up before 9am and being able to go to sleep before 12:30 to 1:30 am and feel normal. But for this little while I was waking up between 7:30-8:30am and going to sleep between 10pm and 11pm. It quickly wore off (discipline doesn't have anything to do with it, you just can't fight your physiology) but it was really interesting and eye-opening experience...

jcoffland 9y ago
Yep, it's just fate. Our genes determine our lives and there's nothing we can reasonable do about it. We're just leaves in the wind of life. Hard work will just make you feel bad so don't even try.
- danbolt 9y ago
  As I grew into the role of a young adult, I experimented and arranged school and/of work to be later in the day. Why not, especially as a “lazy” student, right? Funny enough, the quality of my work increased and I got better grades. I thought more critically in class and clearly when on the job. I didn’t need caffeine to function when I awoke or have to manage screen time before bed. I became a more productive person like the early birds, but in my own fashion. It can be hard to read comments like this that paint the picture as learned helplessness, especially when it feels like honestly playing to one’s strengths.
__david__ 9y ago
I'm the same way. I've had a couple times in my life where things lined up with the rest of the world. Waking up in the 6 to 7am range and going to sleep before midnight. It was interesting to live on a "normal" schedule for a while. And also very convenient--normally all appointments happen happen after noon which halves the available window right off the bat. But my schedule always slides to my natural rhythm.

ryandrake 9y ago

I love how I had to scroll all the way to the bottom to find the actual, practical solution. I’ve had to move farther and farther away form work over the years to the point where I need to wake up before 6AM to get to work on time. So I just go to bed earlier. Problem solved. Start going to bed at 8PM. Give it a try for a week and report back whether you have an easier time in the mornings.

isostatic 9y ago
I used to do that at school, lay awake for a few hours in the dark (or in the light in summer term). So useful.

jsutton 9y ago

And if you don't get tired earlier? I find that even when I wake up early, I'm usually wired around 11pm-12am.

e12e 9y ago
Physical exertion plays a role - but when I'm rested (~8 hours of sleep) I usually don't get really tired until I've been up 18-20 hours. I've worked with friends that are completely different, and struggle to keep their eyes open after midnight. So there's definitely big differences. I do generally manage to function well on "average" of ~8 hours of sleep every 24 hours: some night 8,9 or 10 some 4 or 5. But yeah, if you're one of the people that can't understand how "changing the rhythm" can be a problem: try starting tour day at 0230 or 0300 am for a couple of weeks. For the vast majority, that is though (hence attack right before dawn...).

antisthenes 9y ago

Here's what happens (from someone who's been trying this for 12 years, to make the switch): You go to bed early, lay in bed for an hour or so trying to fall asleep. Eventually, frustrated, you get back up again and try to read a book again for a few hours to help you fall asleep. By now it's very late and you wake up tired in the morning. Chronic lack of sleep during the week causes you to catch up on the weekend by sleeping in until 11AM or later, which means you can't fall asleep at an early time again. Your advice doesn't work and you have to frame of reference as to why because it doesn't happen to you. Do you go around telling fat people to just eat less also?

justherefortart 9y ago
Exactly, eat less and exercise more! Discipline is hard, I know.

bbarn 9y ago

To add to that - cut out screens at a specified time. 8PM, 9PM, whatever makes sense an hour or two hours before going to bed. It has a drastic effect on sleepiness.

anotheryou 9y ago

What actually worked for me, but I can't do it with my current job: bi-phasic sleep. I did this while in school, I slept 2am-7am and 4-6:30pm. Pro: you learn to fall in to deep sleep very quickly and I would often have lucid dreams and you can get away with slightly less sleep. Con: if anything gets in the way of the afternoon sleep phase it feels like missing half a nights sleep...

merinowool 9y ago

> Go to bed earlier. It is the same as telling depressed person to "cheer up"...