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| Wake up 2-3 hours earlier than usual and get plenty of outdoor light in the morning | Eat breakfast as soon as possible | Exercise only in the morning | Ha
by dpeck 7y ago
| Wake up 2-3 hours earlier than usual and get plenty of outdoor light in the morning
| Eat breakfast as soon as possible
| Exercise only in the morning
| Have lunch at the same time every day and eat nothing after 19:00
| Banish caffeine after 15:00
| Have no naps after 16:00
| Go to bed 2-3 hours earlier than usual and limit light in the evenings
| Maintain the same sleep and wake times every day
So basically, stop being a night owl. Great advice.
- accnumnplus1 7y agoYou beat me to it. Exactly - become a lark.
- world32 7y agoYeah rubbish article.
- koboll 7y agoMost people who self-apply the title "night owls" are probably artificially inhibiting their sleep by blue light exposure, so this advice is useful to many.
- anonu 7y agoIs it right to assume that night owls are up in front of a screen?
- stronglikedan 7y agoNo, especially considering screens have only been around for a very small fraction of a percentage of time that night owls have, to the point of being negligible to discussion on the topic of night owls.
- pavel_lishin 7y agoIt's possible that the prevalence of screens is driving a significant number of people into the same sleeping patterns as natural night owls.
- AllegedAlec 7y agoN == 1, but IME, even before screens were a thing in my house, when I was around eight years old, I still had huge issues sleeping early. I'd regularly lie in bed until one, two AM not being able to fall asleep.
- modzu 7y agothe distinction between larks and night owls is a robust psychological finding that predates iphones; there is some evidence to suggest it is genetic; and night owls represent a significant percentage of the population (about 20%). that isn't to discount the point about blue light exposure.
- magnamerc 7y agoNight owls are absolutely real and they are genetically predisposed. In fact, night owls will always be night owls and there's really nothing you can do about it. Everyone should read Dr. Matthew Walker's book 'Why We Sleep'.
- dpeck 7y agoIt fits "just so" like a lot of evolutionary biology hypothesis but it does seem that there would be an advantage to have some portion of the population that spent a significant part of their waking hours after dark. People to keep the fires going, to keep away predators, warn the rest of the group of danger, etc.
- tayo42 7y agoI've been wondering how much of night owls are just victims of modern life, screens, sedantary indoor jobs, caffeine addiction, sugary foods, sleep over compensation on weekends. It makes so sense for humans to not a sleep schedule that aligns with the sun. If you have a truly active day I find it hard to believe you won't sleep.
- dota 7y agoCircadian rhythm is 40-70% genetic. And there's an evolutionary advantage to not having everyone asleep at the same time. Early humans would have been safer at night with some people in the group awake. https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-40568997 https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-40568997
- tayo42 7y agoWhat does the percentage mean exactly? Sounds like you can have a preference but it's really under your control? Did other animals develop a similar group sleeping pattern? Humans wouldn't be the only ones to potentially benefit
- pseudalopex 7y agoThe article explains that the other 30-60% is influenced by environment and age. Other animals have similar variation in sleep patterns.
- koboll 7y agoBut how big is the inter-person variation? "Out of some 200 hours for the entire study, for only 18 minutes were they actually all sleeping synchronously" is a pretty useless quote -- how much of that was due to a handful of extreme outliers? People's sleep times were obviously not evenly distributed over the other 1422 minutes per day. And obviously environment is going to play an outsize role in causing outliers, since people who work the graveyard shift aren't going to spontaneously revert to a normal sleep schedule when they enter a sleep lab.
- rhino369 7y agoYea, I do essentially all of those things they recommend avoiding. So there is a definite chance I'm making my self a night owl by not using a routine.
- mabbo 7y agoIgnoring the "go to bed" and "wake up" advice, one could be a night owl and still be healthier for following the rest of the advice. I myself used to be much more of a night owl- bed before 11:30 was just not going to happen. My wife is not. When we moved in together, I wanted to match her schedule. I started doing most of the things on this list and it worked for me. I went to bed last night at 10 and got up at 5:30 so I could go to the gym. Me of 10 years ago would have said that was impossible.
- stronglikedan 7y agoYou'd also have to ignore the "Exercise only in the morning" advice. Exercising any time of day will keep you just as healthy.
- JoelMcCracken 7y agoI don't have citations, but have read data that supports the idea that exercising in the evening results in higher cortisol levels, and thus lower levels of melatonin in the evenings.
- stronglikedan 7y agoSure, if you buy into the "you can't be a night owl and be healthy" thing (as this article seems to suggest). I think you can have both. I feel that making people think it's somehow better to exercise only in the morning will discourage some people from exercising daily, which I feel is more important than the time of day.
- ehnto 7y agoThe grandparent comment is also assuming that you want to sleep in the evening, which means you wouldn't be a night owl so it kind of misses the point. There are still lots of people in this thread assuming that the "problem" that night owls face is that they're not sleeping in the evening, that's not it at all. They're sleeping in their natural cycle, it just doesn't fit with typical modern life. So if exercising in the evening raises cortisol, and makes it hard to sleep for normal people, then that's not going to be a problem from someone sleeping at 4am. I train anywhere from 9pm-1am and always sleep better at what seems to be my natural sleep time, which is around 3-5am.
- kzrdude 7y agoIt's what happened to me when I stopped using caffeine and started taking sleep seriously. I stopped being a night owl.
- gubbrora 7y agoI have found myself to feel much more energetic and happy when I rein in my night owl tendencies.
- bryanlarsen 7y agoThey shifted study participants sleep time from 2:30AM to midnight. They're still night owls.
- CodiePetersen 7y agoRight xD. I was thinking it was going to be advice to be a more effective night owl and still get the rest you need.
- lostmyoldone 7y agoI love how the article essentially ends with "These are relatively simple things anyone can do that makes an impact, and that to me is surprising." No, those are not relatively simple things that anymore can do. Like getting that morning sunlight in the winter when sun rises close to 10? Not to mention my ADD causing every single new routine to be a continuous, unabating battle for years, at best! I really wish people would stop assuming that what is simple for them, just might not be it for anyone.
- 0815test 7y ago> Like getting that morning sunlight in the winter when sun rises close to 10? Blue LED's to the rescue! (ha ha only serious)
- rblatz 7y agoAs someone that has ADD, do not use it as a crux for you to not improve yourself. It's offensive and in my experience just an excuse people tell themselves to justify being lazy.
- ultimape 7y ago"lazy" > Research on ADHD has particularly emphasized impairments in inhibitory control (Barkley, 1997; Nigg, 2000) and working memory (Castellanos & Tannock, 2002; Martinussen, Hayden, Hogg-Johnson, & Tannock, 2005). Barkley’s (1997) model of ADHD emphasizes inhibitory control (i.e. inhibition of prepotent response, stopping an ongoing response, and interference control) as the primary neuropsychological impairment, which underlies secondary impairments in working memory and related functions https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4425416/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4425416/ Trouble managing and structuring time, remembering things, paying attention to relevant cues, and avoiding impulsive behavior are some of the defining factors of ADD. Have you considered that others with ADD have more extreme symptoms on a different axis from you, or perhaps their life experience and stress have amplified underlying proclivities? Or maybe they have mutations that make normal medication not effective.
- 7y ago
- TomK32 7y agoStop being so lefty and get used to everything being right-handed.
- nprz 7y ago|Comfortable |Not drinking too much |Regular exercise at the gym, 3 days a week |Getting on better with your associate employee contemporaries |At ease |Eating well, no more microwaved diners and saturated fats |A patient better driver, a safer car
- ScottBurson 7y agoI have found that eating dinner as early as possible — anyway, earlier than 8:30 or 9:00, which is my natural tendency — does help. I get an energy burst about an hour after dinner; it's hard (and pointless) to get myself to go to bed until it runs its course, so eating earlier is the only solution.
- hinkley 7y agohttps://www.reddit.com/r/thanksimcured/ https://www.reddit.com/r/thanksimcured/
- kpU8efre7r 7y agoMore like be consistent and have a routine. Really complex stuff, I know.