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Most 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.
by koboll 7y ago
Most 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.