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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

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.

cadence- 7y ago
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.
- phero_cnstrcts 7y ago
  Which is why I hate Scrum.
- nefitty 7y ago
  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
ZanyProgrammer 7y ago
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.
- giancarlostoro 7y ago
  Well, they're the ones most likely to click on threads about sleep probably.
  - bilekas 7y ago
    I definitely opened the link to read up on something relating to me! :)
- npongratz 7y ago
  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.
- poulsbohemian 7y ago
  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 7y ago
    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/ 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.
giancarlostoro 7y ago
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 7y ago
  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 7y ago
    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/files/dworkin-_laws_empire_critical_review.pdf https://scholar.princeton.edu/sites/default/files/tpavone/fi...
    - TomMarius 7y ago
      I used to stay awake until 5 AM reading as a child. Might not be a working advice for some people :P
      - airstrike 7y ago
        Hopefully you were not reading a review on Jurisprudence, though!
- cadence- 7y ago
  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.
zozbot234 7y ago
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 7y ago
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.
collyw 7y ago
How long does it take you to adjust when the clocks change in Spring?

cadence- 7y ago

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.

phero_cnstrcts 7y ago
Which is why I hate Scrum.
nefitty 7y ago
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

ZanyProgrammer 7y ago

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.

giancarlostoro 7y ago
Well, they're the ones most likely to click on threads about sleep probably.
- bilekas 7y ago
  I definitely opened the link to read up on something relating to me! :)
npongratz 7y ago
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.
poulsbohemian 7y ago
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 7y ago
  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/ 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.

giancarlostoro 7y ago

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 7y ago
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 7y ago
  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/files/dworkin-_laws_empire_critical_review.pdf https://scholar.princeton.edu/sites/default/files/tpavone/fi...
  - TomMarius 7y ago
    I used to stay awake until 5 AM reading as a child. Might not be a working advice for some people :P
    - airstrike 7y ago
      Hopefully you were not reading a review on Jurisprudence, though!
cadence- 7y ago
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.

zozbot234 7y ago

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 7y ago

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.

collyw 7y ago

How long does it take you to adjust when the clocks change in Spring?