9 ms·

I’m certifiably a night-owl and definitely not a morning-person (to the point where I employ licensed caregivers to yell at me in the morning - my psychologist

I’m certifiably a night-owl and definitely not a morning-person (to the point where I employ licensed caregivers to yell at me in the morning - my psychologist recommended it!) - but I wouldn’t attribute it in any way to being “social” - for some reason I just find it significantly easier to be focused, motivated, and productive after 6pm than any time before. I used to attribute it to my horrible procrastination and how only in the night before a school or uni homework deadline I’d crank something out out of desperation, but it’s still an ongoing habit with my current day-job (er... night-job?) where deadlines aren’t really a thing (I love my boss) but I still feel most-productive in the evenings. I’m ASD+ADHD[1] too - and I see similar things with other people I know with similar diagnoses. I believe they’re all related. [1]: I really dislike the “ADHD” label because I’m not hyperactive in any way - or resemble stereotypical symptoms - if I could rename whatever it is I’ve got I’d call it “Motivation deficit” or similar.

OriginalPenguin 6y ago
You employ licensed caregivers to yell at you in the morning? Can you explain more? Are you implying you are paying a nurse to open your door and yell at you "get out of bed sleepyhead?" Or is your insurance paying? Do they actually drive to your house and do this? Do they do anything else for you?
- DaiPlusPlus 6y ago
  > You employ licensed caregivers to yell at you in the morning? Yes. I use sites like Care.com and WellBeyondCare.com to find them. > Are you implying you are paying a nurse to open your door and yell at you "get out of bed sleepyhead?" They aren’t nurses. The going rate for a caregiver in the US is only slightly above minimum-wage which is awful - especially considering the “human” value of the work they do for us and our loved-ones. > Or is your insurance paying? I pay for it myself. A good chunk of my income is 1099-based and my CPA said I can deduct my caregiving expenses as a business expense because without their help I wouldn’t be working anywhere near as many hours as I do otherwise. I pay them $30-35/hr - with a 1-hour minimum. They pay for themselves as far as I’m concerned. > Do they actually drive to your house and do this? Yes. They come-by around 6-7am and spend about 15-30 minutes with me before they go off to their main day job, so I imagine it’s a nice little (easy!) side-gig for them. > Do they do anything else for you? I’ve had a few that stayed for a full hour - they’d make me a proper cooked breakfast while I’m spending 20+ minutes just waking up in the shower. ...it’s like living with my parents again. My generation likes to joke about “bed gravity” but it’s a real problem :/
  - GEBBL 6y ago
    This is shocking! You spend about $700 a month just to be woken up? I can’t get my head round this at all.
    - netsharc 6y ago
      I've wanted to wake up at 5AM for the last... maybe 5 years, so I could do side projects before work; but I've always ended up waking up at the latest time where I can shower, get dressed and take the bus to work so I'm not late to the daily status meeting. Being able to have that 3 more hours every day is probably worth some money. Although 5 years of that service (let's say minus the time I'd be on vacation) is about $40000...
      - abiogenesis 6y ago
        Make a baby, or adopt. Much cheaper way to wake up early.
        abalashov 6y ago
        And, as I’ve learnt, a much more expensive way to do anything else whatsoever. :-)
        ghostbrainalpha 6y ago
        But defeats the purpose of having MORE time for a side project. Babies are the side project destroyers.
    - DaiPlusPlus 6y ago
      Probably closer to $1000/mo, actually. But as I said - it literally pays for itself: say my time is worth $100/hr[1] and paid on an IRS 1099 schedule - so it’s a deductible expense. The extra 3-4 hours it gets me ($300-400) is worth the $35 opportunity cost, because that’s $5,000+ extra monthly income - so minus the $1000 as a pre-tax deductible business expense then that’s $4000 I wouldn’t have had otherwise. Spreadsheets don’t lie! Even if I was paid on a W-2 basis, I could probably pay for it using pre-tax money from my HSA - though that would sap all of my HSA contributions though. [1]: Why yes, I do live on the US west-coast.
james_s_tayler 6y ago
As I read the first two paragraphs I was like "sounds like ADHD". Yeah, agree about the name too. It's terrible. Doesn't describe the lived experience remotely. Just how it annoys other people around you.
- DaiPlusPlus 6y ago
  > Just how it annoys other people around you Hah! Yes. I grew up when ASD and ADHD couldn’t be comorbid diagnoses - and as I wasn’t hyperactive or fidgety, and was considered professorial or studious it was never brought up. Academic problems caused by “not applying oneself” only started around the time I was 15-16, prior to that I just coasted my way through primary and secondary school with high grades. Growing-up, I think I weirded-out people far more then I annoyed them - hence the primacy of the ASD diagnosis - my last psychologist said he couldn’t tell I was ASD at all until I told him - I think I’m just good at hiding it, but I definitely still have problems.
  - ElFitz 6y ago
    Given the ASD and ADHD diagnoses, coupled with the "coasting" through most of school, did you get tested for giftedness? I've been told it can often be misdiagnosed as either or both of these two
    - DaiPlusPlus 6y ago
      Yeah, I spent some time growing up at a huge American international school in South East Asia that had a large G&T program in the elementary school with separate classrooms and teachers and I was in there for English classes only in Grade 4 - I still didn't have a good head for mathematics at that point (heck, I didn't until I repeated the last 2 years of Sixth Form some 10 years later). I was kicked out of that program when I entered Grade 5: they said I wasn't applying myself in the class (naturally). In Grade 4 the class' "objective" was to write an anthology book (we got them printed and bound and everything!) - at the end of the year my anthology was physically the thinnest compared to the ~7-8 others in the same class (this was Southeast Asia - there's a lot of overachievers with Tiger Moms there, I remember one girl's book was almost an inch thick - I didn't know how that was humanely possible for a 10 year-old...). When I was in primary and secondary school I did have IQ tests and other cognitive ability tests done by the educational psychologist assigned to me and I had results varying from 125 to 135 - but I don't put too much weight on them. There was an ASD test for face-reading ability that had a question I got wrong because I said there was nothing abnormal about a drawing of a face without eyelashes (what...). What's weird is every time I've taken the GRE (for Masters degree course applications) I've scored 97%+ percentile in the language questions... but only 75%+ in the quant sections - but that's because I keep on missing some quant questions because I run out of time. I know I can apply for extra time but ETS' instructions on their website for getting extra-time are contradictory and confusing. In secondary-school in the UK for our GCSE qualifications the year-group's subject classes were split into ability groups and I was in the highest ability group in all of the subjects (but that really isn't saying much though). My second sixth-form did have a G&T program but no-one told me about it and I didn't think to apply - I imagine those who were in it had referrals from their feeder-schools whereas I was an individual student coming from a different Sixth Form (I was 18, everyone else around me was 16). I don't think I would have coped with the workload anyway - and I don't know what, exactly, if anything, a G&T program would have helped for A-Levels really - I only know one person who did 5 courses at A-Level and he wasn't in the G&T program. Call me naive, but I was surprised to learn that G&T programs are still a thing in industry: When I got my first job after uni at Microsoft in Redmond I learned about their semi-secretive "HiPo" ("High-potential") employee program (think: SDEs and PMs who get fast-tracked for Director roles or executive positions beyond). To get in to it your skip-level will inform you in a private meeting, and you can't apply or ask to join (some joke that asking to join it instantly disqualifies you for life - or something).
digitaltrees 6y ago
I think the article actually states that early risers are more social and empathetic. It was worded in a very confusing way and I had to read it a few times.
mirimir 6y ago
I'm a lot like that. Probably some mix of A... and bipolar II. I've never managed day jobs for long. So I ended up consulting.
WarChortle18 6y ago
I have the same schedule, but I'm ADHD only. My doctor said that the Hyperactive part means more then just always moving. Before my medication my mind would jump around a lot I would have trouble focusing. So while physically I'm not hyper, mentally I was. That's how my doctor described it to me anyway.
- DaiPlusPlus 6y ago
  I only noticed my mind starting to jump around after I got addicted to Dexedrine... I do wonder if (in my case specifically, not other people) if it's a case of the drugs inducing the symptoms rather than the symptoms justifying the drugs...
dorchadas 6y ago
I really don't think I could agree more, and I was actually discussing this with my housemate last night. He's very much a morning person, and literally can't grasp the fact that I stay up late and enjoy it. Let alone the fact that I actually get more stuff done at night and in the evening than during the day, especially after everything's closed and people are asleep. It's just so much easier to focus (well, as easy as it can be considering focus is something I struggle with). Also, reading your first two paragraphs makes me wonder, again, about whether I might have ADHD, especially without the hyperactive part.
- RickS 6y ago
  ADHD is terribly misnamed, and doesn't usually manifest as physical hyperactivity in adults. It's an executive function disorder. This means things like time blindness – difficulty conceptualizing and persisting tasks into the future, and difficulty keeping short term goals in mind. I think about it like packet loss, but for intent. With healthy executive function, one's goals and intents are persistent streams that can be held on to like a train track. (This is based on other people's description of how their mind works – I would consider that ability a superpower). With ADHD, the tracks will just fall out like a trapdoor every so often – sometimes every few seconds. You have to reinitiate the connection, but because the thing that failed is the same thing that remembers what to connect to, I have to reestablish what I want to do in the first place, and it's usually not the thing I was doing before. So I end up shooting around in semi-productive bursts, unable to see things to completion. The other counterintuitive thing is hyperfocus – people with ADHD periodically experience the inverse. I spent nearly every waking moment in the last 3 days working intently on a software project I'm interested in. Short bouts of intense concentration (especially if you don't feel in control of their application) do not mean you don't have ADHD. They could mean the opposite. Here's the best explanation I've ever seen of the subject: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SCAGc-rkIfo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SCAGc-rkIfo
  - dorchadas 6y ago
    Thank you for that link, and that analogy. Definitely going to see about getting myself in to get tested and see if I can't get some medicine.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
brailsafe 6y ago
I fit the same attributes. ADHD (with hyperactivity in this case) and can't really get anything done before 8pm usually. There isn't a force I've found that will actually wake me up and get me to start my day, and I naturally slip into a 4-6am bedtime to 3pm wake time. Lost my job recently in large part because of this (not the first time). I'm kind of lost atm for the nth time and probably burned out. Could you elaborate or your circumstances or whatever you care to? Any misc advice is always welcome as well. Edit: Read the rest of your replies about caregivers
- irrational 6y ago
  I am the same. During the quarantine I’ve moved back to going to sleep at 3-4am. However, I have a kids and when the school year is in session I have to get up at 5am to start getting them ready. So that gets me up and going so that I can make it into work at a decent time. So, I guess my misc advice is to find some sort of responsibility that forces you to get up early.
  - DaiPlusPlus 6y ago
    > So, I guess my misc advice is to find some sort of responsibility that forces you to get up early. What I find is that my judgement is impaired in the morning - and that I don’t act rationally: it’s like I prefer that nice feeling in my head I get when I’m half asleep - if I had responsibilities I’d just disregard them because at that point in time I value being in bed more than anything else. It’s why alarm clocks, sunshine, Hue light bulbs with a Wakeup routine set, all don’t work for me :(
    - irrational 6y ago
      Those don’t work for me either. But having kids does. I guess being responsible for the welfare of another human is enough for me to overcome my need to sleep.
    - brailsafe 6y ago
      I think this is a great description of that feeling, and one I share. It's led me to the thought that at the moment, I just won't be able to do something in the morning I'm not intrinsically motivated to do more than just continue sleeping. Extrinsic rewards don't seem to do that, but meeting friends for a sporadic event like coffee early in the morning, or a hiking trip do. I think you've solved this in a novel way with your caregiver.
sk0g 6y ago
I'm no medical professional, but if you're ADHD without the hyperactivity, isn't that just ADD, which is also a recognised disorder?
- DaiPlusPlus 6y ago
  “ADD” isn’t a disorder in DSM-V.
- X-Istence 6y ago
  ADD isn't a recognised disorder. However, ADHD has many sub-categorizations. ADHD: Mostly Inattentive Is what used to be known as ADD. It is also the one that I have.
_bxg1 6y ago
I'm ADD myself, and a night owl most of the time, and you've got me wondering if I get into a groove in the evenings because I'm less hyperactive and more relaxed. There's a kind of peace to the night time for me. Maybe it's the lack of outside pressures, maybe it's tiredness, maybe it's something else, but I find it weirdly comforting.
- dx034 6y ago
  That's interestingly enough exactly the reason why I like to get up at 4-5am and work before anyone else gets up. It's calm, no distraction (even less so than late at night) and I'm well rested for the night.
throwaway743 6y ago
Been diagnosed with ADHD as well since my 20s. One could say I'm introverted, but struggle with hyperactivity in thought processes. My whole life I've had issues with both organizing my environments and thoughts, finishing one project before starting another, time management, list making (end up making lists within lists within lists), and bunch of other things. This sense of self loathing that comes in waves from all this. It definitely has some upsides when it comes to conceptualizing digital art projects and prototypes for business ideas, but those aspects are also the curse of it all... because shit never gets finished and I move onto the next thing after some time. Idk why I'm writing this. I guess it was just on my mind and felt like joining in the discussion.
- dvcrn 6y ago
  Must be nice to be normal and just 'do things', right? Still good that we have the medicine available that we have right now. Born in a different time and ADHD wouldn't even be considered a real thing. Hang in there and sometimes just let your brain do whatever it wants :) Constantly forcing and fighting things can get you stuck in a stress spiral. That, and meditation also helps with being more aware of what your brain is doing
  - httpsterio 6y ago
    I display 100% of the issues you two listed, but for me medication hasn't helped. granted I only tried one medication for a week, but it didn't really do anything.
    - scns 6y ago
      Some people who have ADD get worse on Ritalin. Check out Healing ADD by Daniel Amen. In there you will find recommendations for 7 different types of ADD.
    - DaiPlusPlus 6y ago
      “Medication” is an ill-defined term because amongst the currently prescribed substances in the US and most of the EU there’s very different mechanisms-of-action. Strattera, for example, is worlds apart from Dexedrine (...or Desoxyn, if you’re an extreme case). Most drugs need at least two weeks to start having any effect - and the drugs that are shorter-acting (AMP-family mostly) still have a “breaking-in” period before they have the desired effect.
benwills 6y ago
+1 for ASD and being a night owl. I have tried anything reasonable to get on a "normal" schedule, but the only thing that sticks is sleeping from 4am-noon. 12+ years on this schedule, which started immediately after I left corporate. I don't believe I fit the criteria for ADHD (maybe I do?), but I certainly have challenges with executive function. And those reduce a bit once the world goes to sleep.
- PinkMilkshake 6y ago
  I'm a night owl as well. 3am would be about bedtime for me if I had my way. What happened after you were able to follow your natural rhythm? Did you feel better?
  - benwills 6y ago
    I'd say the biggest difference is that I feel like I'm not held back in terms of focus and energy. This isn't to say I have a ton of energy; I don't. (that's a separate thing) But the energy I have isn't held back by messing with my circadian rhythm. I'd liken it feels going to a more "normal" schedule to...someone who feels fine waking up at 7am every day, shifting to then waking up at 2am every day. It's probably not going to work out too great.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
dx034 6y ago
Diagnosed with ADHD but not at all a night owl. After a day of procrastination I'd rather go to bed at 6pm and get up at 2am to work than trying to get anything done in the evening. I might be an outlier but I feel the time of day when I can focus best and my general ability to perform tasks are independent of each other. But there might also be some selection bias on HN. I have the feeling that in tech night owls outweigh early birds more than in other areas (maybe except for designers).
playingchanges 6y ago
The procrastination link is an interesting one. I used to put things off until the day they were due, waking up at 5 in the morning to finish papers etc. But it wasn’t until later in life that I started identifying as a ‘morning person’. Procrastination often seems to be our body / mind subconsciously optimizing for future peak performance.

OriginalPenguin 6y ago

You employ licensed caregivers to yell at you in the morning? Can you explain more? Are you implying you are paying a nurse to open your door and yell at you "get out of bed sleepyhead?" Or is your insurance paying? Do they actually drive to your house and do this? Do they do anything else for you?

DaiPlusPlus 6y ago
> You employ licensed caregivers to yell at you in the morning? Yes. I use sites like Care.com and WellBeyondCare.com to find them. > Are you implying you are paying a nurse to open your door and yell at you "get out of bed sleepyhead?" They aren’t nurses. The going rate for a caregiver in the US is only slightly above minimum-wage which is awful - especially considering the “human” value of the work they do for us and our loved-ones. > Or is your insurance paying? I pay for it myself. A good chunk of my income is 1099-based and my CPA said I can deduct my caregiving expenses as a business expense because without their help I wouldn’t be working anywhere near as many hours as I do otherwise. I pay them $30-35/hr - with a 1-hour minimum. They pay for themselves as far as I’m concerned. > Do they actually drive to your house and do this? Yes. They come-by around 6-7am and spend about 15-30 minutes with me before they go off to their main day job, so I imagine it’s a nice little (easy!) side-gig for them. > Do they do anything else for you? I’ve had a few that stayed for a full hour - they’d make me a proper cooked breakfast while I’m spending 20+ minutes just waking up in the shower. ...it’s like living with my parents again. My generation likes to joke about “bed gravity” but it’s a real problem :/
- GEBBL 6y ago
  This is shocking! You spend about $700 a month just to be woken up? I can’t get my head round this at all.
  - netsharc 6y ago
    I've wanted to wake up at 5AM for the last... maybe 5 years, so I could do side projects before work; but I've always ended up waking up at the latest time where I can shower, get dressed and take the bus to work so I'm not late to the daily status meeting. Being able to have that 3 more hours every day is probably worth some money. Although 5 years of that service (let's say minus the time I'd be on vacation) is about $40000...
    - abiogenesis 6y ago
      Make a baby, or adopt. Much cheaper way to wake up early.
      - abalashov 6y ago
        And, as I’ve learnt, a much more expensive way to do anything else whatsoever. :-)
      - ghostbrainalpha 6y ago
        But defeats the purpose of having MORE time for a side project. Babies are the side project destroyers.
  - DaiPlusPlus 6y ago
    Probably closer to $1000/mo, actually. But as I said - it literally pays for itself: say my time is worth $100/hr[1] and paid on an IRS 1099 schedule - so it’s a deductible expense. The extra 3-4 hours it gets me ($300-400) is worth the $35 opportunity cost, because that’s $5,000+ extra monthly income - so minus the $1000 as a pre-tax deductible business expense then that’s $4000 I wouldn’t have had otherwise. Spreadsheets don’t lie! Even if I was paid on a W-2 basis, I could probably pay for it using pre-tax money from my HSA - though that would sap all of my HSA contributions though. [1]: Why yes, I do live on the US west-coast.

james_s_tayler 6y ago

As I read the first two paragraphs I was like "sounds like ADHD". Yeah, agree about the name too. It's terrible. Doesn't describe the lived experience remotely. Just how it annoys other people around you.

DaiPlusPlus 6y ago
> Just how it annoys other people around you Hah! Yes. I grew up when ASD and ADHD couldn’t be comorbid diagnoses - and as I wasn’t hyperactive or fidgety, and was considered professorial or studious it was never brought up. Academic problems caused by “not applying oneself” only started around the time I was 15-16, prior to that I just coasted my way through primary and secondary school with high grades. Growing-up, I think I weirded-out people far more then I annoyed them - hence the primacy of the ASD diagnosis - my last psychologist said he couldn’t tell I was ASD at all until I told him - I think I’m just good at hiding it, but I definitely still have problems.
- ElFitz 6y ago
  Given the ASD and ADHD diagnoses, coupled with the "coasting" through most of school, did you get tested for giftedness? I've been told it can often be misdiagnosed as either or both of these two
  - DaiPlusPlus 6y ago
    Yeah, I spent some time growing up at a huge American international school in South East Asia that had a large G&T program in the elementary school with separate classrooms and teachers and I was in there for English classes only in Grade 4 - I still didn't have a good head for mathematics at that point (heck, I didn't until I repeated the last 2 years of Sixth Form some 10 years later). I was kicked out of that program when I entered Grade 5: they said I wasn't applying myself in the class (naturally). In Grade 4 the class' "objective" was to write an anthology book (we got them printed and bound and everything!) - at the end of the year my anthology was physically the thinnest compared to the ~7-8 others in the same class (this was Southeast Asia - there's a lot of overachievers with Tiger Moms there, I remember one girl's book was almost an inch thick - I didn't know how that was humanely possible for a 10 year-old...). When I was in primary and secondary school I did have IQ tests and other cognitive ability tests done by the educational psychologist assigned to me and I had results varying from 125 to 135 - but I don't put too much weight on them. There was an ASD test for face-reading ability that had a question I got wrong because I said there was nothing abnormal about a drawing of a face without eyelashes (what...). What's weird is every time I've taken the GRE (for Masters degree course applications) I've scored 97%+ percentile in the language questions... but only 75%+ in the quant sections - but that's because I keep on missing some quant questions because I run out of time. I know I can apply for extra time but ETS' instructions on their website for getting extra-time are contradictory and confusing. In secondary-school in the UK for our GCSE qualifications the year-group's subject classes were split into ability groups and I was in the highest ability group in all of the subjects (but that really isn't saying much though). My second sixth-form did have a G&T program but no-one told me about it and I didn't think to apply - I imagine those who were in it had referrals from their feeder-schools whereas I was an individual student coming from a different Sixth Form (I was 18, everyone else around me was 16). I don't think I would have coped with the workload anyway - and I don't know what, exactly, if anything, a G&T program would have helped for A-Levels really - I only know one person who did 5 courses at A-Level and he wasn't in the G&T program. Call me naive, but I was surprised to learn that G&T programs are still a thing in industry: When I got my first job after uni at Microsoft in Redmond I learned about their semi-secretive "HiPo" ("High-potential") employee program (think: SDEs and PMs who get fast-tracked for Director roles or executive positions beyond). To get in to it your skip-level will inform you in a private meeting, and you can't apply or ask to join (some joke that asking to join it instantly disqualifies you for life - or something).

digitaltrees 6y ago

I think the article actually states that early risers are more social and empathetic. It was worded in a very confusing way and I had to read it a few times.

mirimir 6y ago

I'm a lot like that. Probably some mix of A... and bipolar II. I've never managed day jobs for long. So I ended up consulting.

WarChortle18 6y ago

I have the same schedule, but I'm ADHD only. My doctor said that the Hyperactive part means more then just always moving. Before my medication my mind would jump around a lot I would have trouble focusing. So while physically I'm not hyper, mentally I was. That's how my doctor described it to me anyway.

DaiPlusPlus 6y ago
I only noticed my mind starting to jump around after I got addicted to Dexedrine... I do wonder if (in my case specifically, not other people) if it's a case of the drugs inducing the symptoms rather than the symptoms justifying the drugs...

dorchadas 6y ago

I really don't think I could agree more, and I was actually discussing this with my housemate last night. He's very much a morning person, and literally can't grasp the fact that I stay up late and enjoy it. Let alone the fact that I actually get more stuff done at night and in the evening than during the day, especially after everything's closed and people are asleep. It's just so much easier to focus (well, as easy as it can be considering focus is something I struggle with). Also, reading your first two paragraphs makes me wonder, again, about whether I might have ADHD, especially without the hyperactive part.

RickS 6y ago
ADHD is terribly misnamed, and doesn't usually manifest as physical hyperactivity in adults. It's an executive function disorder. This means things like time blindness – difficulty conceptualizing and persisting tasks into the future, and difficulty keeping short term goals in mind. I think about it like packet loss, but for intent. With healthy executive function, one's goals and intents are persistent streams that can be held on to like a train track. (This is based on other people's description of how their mind works – I would consider that ability a superpower). With ADHD, the tracks will just fall out like a trapdoor every so often – sometimes every few seconds. You have to reinitiate the connection, but because the thing that failed is the same thing that remembers what to connect to, I have to reestablish what I want to do in the first place, and it's usually not the thing I was doing before. So I end up shooting around in semi-productive bursts, unable to see things to completion. The other counterintuitive thing is hyperfocus – people with ADHD periodically experience the inverse. I spent nearly every waking moment in the last 3 days working intently on a software project I'm interested in. Short bouts of intense concentration (especially if you don't feel in control of their application) do not mean you don't have ADHD. They could mean the opposite. Here's the best explanation I've ever seen of the subject: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SCAGc-rkIfo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SCAGc-rkIfo
- dorchadas 6y ago
  Thank you for that link, and that analogy. Definitely going to see about getting myself in to get tested and see if I can't get some medicine.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

brailsafe 6y ago

I fit the same attributes. ADHD (with hyperactivity in this case) and can't really get anything done before 8pm usually. There isn't a force I've found that will actually wake me up and get me to start my day, and I naturally slip into a 4-6am bedtime to 3pm wake time. Lost my job recently in large part because of this (not the first time). I'm kind of lost atm for the nth time and probably burned out. Could you elaborate or your circumstances or whatever you care to? Any misc advice is always welcome as well. Edit: Read the rest of your replies about caregivers

irrational 6y ago
I am the same. During the quarantine I’ve moved back to going to sleep at 3-4am. However, I have a kids and when the school year is in session I have to get up at 5am to start getting them ready. So that gets me up and going so that I can make it into work at a decent time. So, I guess my misc advice is to find some sort of responsibility that forces you to get up early.
- DaiPlusPlus 6y ago
  > So, I guess my misc advice is to find some sort of responsibility that forces you to get up early. What I find is that my judgement is impaired in the morning - and that I don’t act rationally: it’s like I prefer that nice feeling in my head I get when I’m half asleep - if I had responsibilities I’d just disregard them because at that point in time I value being in bed more than anything else. It’s why alarm clocks, sunshine, Hue light bulbs with a Wakeup routine set, all don’t work for me :(
  - irrational 6y ago
    Those don’t work for me either. But having kids does. I guess being responsible for the welfare of another human is enough for me to overcome my need to sleep.
  - brailsafe 6y ago
    I think this is a great description of that feeling, and one I share. It's led me to the thought that at the moment, I just won't be able to do something in the morning I'm not intrinsically motivated to do more than just continue sleeping. Extrinsic rewards don't seem to do that, but meeting friends for a sporadic event like coffee early in the morning, or a hiking trip do. I think you've solved this in a novel way with your caregiver.

sk0g 6y ago

I'm no medical professional, but if you're ADHD without the hyperactivity, isn't that just ADD, which is also a recognised disorder?

DaiPlusPlus 6y ago
“ADD” isn’t a disorder in DSM-V.
X-Istence 6y ago
ADD isn't a recognised disorder. However, ADHD has many sub-categorizations. ADHD: Mostly Inattentive Is what used to be known as ADD. It is also the one that I have.

_bxg1 6y ago

I'm ADD myself, and a night owl most of the time, and you've got me wondering if I get into a groove in the evenings because I'm less hyperactive and more relaxed. There's a kind of peace to the night time for me. Maybe it's the lack of outside pressures, maybe it's tiredness, maybe it's something else, but I find it weirdly comforting.

dx034 6y ago
That's interestingly enough exactly the reason why I like to get up at 4-5am and work before anyone else gets up. It's calm, no distraction (even less so than late at night) and I'm well rested for the night.

throwaway743 6y ago

Been diagnosed with ADHD as well since my 20s. One could say I'm introverted, but struggle with hyperactivity in thought processes. My whole life I've had issues with both organizing my environments and thoughts, finishing one project before starting another, time management, list making (end up making lists within lists within lists), and bunch of other things. This sense of self loathing that comes in waves from all this. It definitely has some upsides when it comes to conceptualizing digital art projects and prototypes for business ideas, but those aspects are also the curse of it all... because shit never gets finished and I move onto the next thing after some time. Idk why I'm writing this. I guess it was just on my mind and felt like joining in the discussion.

dvcrn 6y ago
Must be nice to be normal and just 'do things', right? Still good that we have the medicine available that we have right now. Born in a different time and ADHD wouldn't even be considered a real thing. Hang in there and sometimes just let your brain do whatever it wants :) Constantly forcing and fighting things can get you stuck in a stress spiral. That, and meditation also helps with being more aware of what your brain is doing
- httpsterio 6y ago
  I display 100% of the issues you two listed, but for me medication hasn't helped. granted I only tried one medication for a week, but it didn't really do anything.
  - scns 6y ago
    Some people who have ADD get worse on Ritalin. Check out Healing ADD by Daniel Amen. In there you will find recommendations for 7 different types of ADD.
  - DaiPlusPlus 6y ago
    “Medication” is an ill-defined term because amongst the currently prescribed substances in the US and most of the EU there’s very different mechanisms-of-action. Strattera, for example, is worlds apart from Dexedrine (...or Desoxyn, if you’re an extreme case). Most drugs need at least two weeks to start having any effect - and the drugs that are shorter-acting (AMP-family mostly) still have a “breaking-in” period before they have the desired effect.

benwills 6y ago

+1 for ASD and being a night owl. I have tried anything reasonable to get on a "normal" schedule, but the only thing that sticks is sleeping from 4am-noon. 12+ years on this schedule, which started immediately after I left corporate. I don't believe I fit the criteria for ADHD (maybe I do?), but I certainly have challenges with executive function. And those reduce a bit once the world goes to sleep.

PinkMilkshake 6y ago
I'm a night owl as well. 3am would be about bedtime for me if I had my way. What happened after you were able to follow your natural rhythm? Did you feel better?
- benwills 6y ago
  I'd say the biggest difference is that I feel like I'm not held back in terms of focus and energy. This isn't to say I have a ton of energy; I don't. (that's a separate thing) But the energy I have isn't held back by messing with my circadian rhythm. I'd liken it feels going to a more "normal" schedule to...someone who feels fine waking up at 7am every day, shifting to then waking up at 2am every day. It's probably not going to work out too great.

deleted 6y ago

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dx034 6y ago

Diagnosed with ADHD but not at all a night owl. After a day of procrastination I'd rather go to bed at 6pm and get up at 2am to work than trying to get anything done in the evening. I might be an outlier but I feel the time of day when I can focus best and my general ability to perform tasks are independent of each other. But there might also be some selection bias on HN. I have the feeling that in tech night owls outweigh early birds more than in other areas (maybe except for designers).

playingchanges 6y ago

The procrastination link is an interesting one. I used to put things off until the day they were due, waking up at 5 in the morning to finish papers etc. But it wasn’t until later in life that I started identifying as a ‘morning person’. Procrastination often seems to be our body / mind subconsciously optimizing for future peak performance.