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> Many cultures chastise sleepers as lazy, but every time you sleep, it's like a big reconstruction process in your body. The morning alarm is society telling

> Many cultures chastise sleepers as lazy, but every time you sleep, it's like a big reconstruction process in your body. The morning alarm is society telling you "stop reconstructing yourself, start working on our problems."

have_faith 5y ago
Not using an alarm clock 90% of the time is one of the greatest privileges I experience in life. One which I wish more people were fortunate to share.
- falcor84 5y ago
  As a parent of a young child, I'd welcome the routine tyranny of an alarm clock
  - alostpuppy 5y ago
    Oh man. You aren’t kidding.
  - fullstop 5y ago
    Eventually the human alarm clocks do grow up. Part of the problem is that children occupy a lot of your time. After you get them in bed, it's tempting to stay up later than one usually would in order to have some personal time. This doesn't change the time that the human alarm clocks go off, though, and it can quickly spiral out of control. It gets better. When they are older you can include them into your passion projects, or whatever sort of hobbies you have. This part is great because you are both teaching them and having fun at the same time. I say this all the time because it showcases how little time you have with them, but you only have about 1,000 weekends with them until they are adults. It all happens so fast. I enjoy the time that I spent with them, especially over the last year when we were all together as a family for so many months. I, myself, am nearing the end of those 1,000 weekends with my oldest and I miss some of those human alarm clock days when they were up early and just wanted to play together.
    - bumby 5y ago
      On a similar note: "It turns out that when I graduated from high school, I had already used up 93% of my in-person parent time." https://waitbutwhy.com/2015/12/the-tail-end.html https://waitbutwhy.com/2015/12/the-tail-end.html
  - astrange 5y ago
    Even if you just have a pet, many of them are very excited for you to get up in the morning and feed them. And worse, they don't even understand DST!
- nefitty 5y ago
  A lot of us get a taste of this on weekends or days off, but what have you personally noticed the difference to be? Maybe in terms of productivity, fatigue, mood, health, etc.
  - causasui 5y ago
    I went from waking up at 6AM every day for 6 years (US mil) to not setting an alarm in the last 6 (remote employee). The main thing I notice in the rare event where I have to set an alarm these days is this 15-30 minutes of heavy brain fog after waking up. In my experience it feels very similar to the sensation in your head shortly after you've taken a dose of melatonin, which I guess makes sense. It's hard to put into words but obviously we've all experienced it. I don't ever experience this sensation waking up naturally. The end result is early morning grumpiness, in my case. I'm just in a foul mood for the first hour or two after being ripped from sleep via an alarm. I otherwise don't feel more productive or healthy. I'm curious why this is; I assume it has to do with the natural sleep cycle. Do those chemicals metabolize in some way shortly before you wake up naturally vs waking up by an alarm where they're still present?
  - have_faith 5y ago
    I find it to be almost universally positive. I'm a freelancer and I work practically "full time" but I don't start work until I naturally wake up unless I happen to have a meeting scheduled. One of first things I noticed is hunger. When I wake up to an alarm I generally feel sluggish and immediately hungry. If I wake up to my alarm at 8 then I need to eat almost immediately. If I naturally wake up at 9 I might potter about and eat breakfast at 10 without thinking much about it. Alarms seem to induce stress and stress induces hunger. I generally find that only having weekends alarm free provides just enough respite and replenishment for taking on the work week but not enough to reduce mental stress across the board. Being able to have a lay in on any given day that requires it makes a world of difference to mid week slumps.
- SketchySeaBeast 5y ago
  Do you find your sleep skews? Any longer (2-3 week) vacations I've taken I've found that my waking up time keeps skewing even if I'm not going to bed later. Maybe I've never seen the end where it stabilizes.
  - have_faith 5y ago
    My wake up time is a 2 hour window between 7:30 and 9:30 but usually around the middle of that. It varies day to day. Whether it's earlier or later mostly depends on how much exercise I do the day before. My training has large spikes where I go out rock climbing all day and then have multiple "rest" days so I let my body get whatever sleep it needs.
  - gibspaulding 5y ago
    My waking times definitely skew, but for me I think it happens because my bed time pushes it later and later until my night owl habits and my guilt over sleeping late reach an equilibrium. When I was in college I'd pretty quickly drift to a 4:00AM to noon sleep schedule on holidays. Even today (in my mid 20's) I find I'm happiest sleeping from roughly 2:00AM to 10:00AM.
  - jedberg 5y ago
    At the beginning of the pandemic, no one in our family had any fixed time obligations other than my afternoon meetings, so we basically stopped enforcing any bedtimes or wake up times for the kids (and ourselves). Pre-pandemic we were all waking around 8am to get my daughter to pre-school. Within a week of foregoing bedtimes, we were all going to bed between 2am and 4am and waking up around 11am. So the kids still got their 9 hours and the adults got their 7, but it did stabilize.
  - hypertele-Xii 5y ago
    (Not the parent) My sleep cycle naturally drifts infinitely by some 30 minutes a day on average. It makes life strange at times, especially on this latitude. Imagine waking up at night through a whole winter, not seeing the Sun for months. I've tried to hold steady cycle but I just grow more and more tired every day until finally the alarm fails to wake me. School was hell. Was absent a lot simply for sleeping.

have_faith 5y ago

Not using an alarm clock 90% of the time is one of the greatest privileges I experience in life. One which I wish more people were fortunate to share.

falcor84 5y ago
As a parent of a young child, I'd welcome the routine tyranny of an alarm clock
- alostpuppy 5y ago
  Oh man. You aren’t kidding.
- fullstop 5y ago
  Eventually the human alarm clocks do grow up. Part of the problem is that children occupy a lot of your time. After you get them in bed, it's tempting to stay up later than one usually would in order to have some personal time. This doesn't change the time that the human alarm clocks go off, though, and it can quickly spiral out of control. It gets better. When they are older you can include them into your passion projects, or whatever sort of hobbies you have. This part is great because you are both teaching them and having fun at the same time. I say this all the time because it showcases how little time you have with them, but you only have about 1,000 weekends with them until they are adults. It all happens so fast. I enjoy the time that I spent with them, especially over the last year when we were all together as a family for so many months. I, myself, am nearing the end of those 1,000 weekends with my oldest and I miss some of those human alarm clock days when they were up early and just wanted to play together.
  - bumby 5y ago
    On a similar note: "It turns out that when I graduated from high school, I had already used up 93% of my in-person parent time." https://waitbutwhy.com/2015/12/the-tail-end.html https://waitbutwhy.com/2015/12/the-tail-end.html
- astrange 5y ago
  Even if you just have a pet, many of them are very excited for you to get up in the morning and feed them. And worse, they don't even understand DST!
nefitty 5y ago
A lot of us get a taste of this on weekends or days off, but what have you personally noticed the difference to be? Maybe in terms of productivity, fatigue, mood, health, etc.
- causasui 5y ago
  I went from waking up at 6AM every day for 6 years (US mil) to not setting an alarm in the last 6 (remote employee). The main thing I notice in the rare event where I have to set an alarm these days is this 15-30 minutes of heavy brain fog after waking up. In my experience it feels very similar to the sensation in your head shortly after you've taken a dose of melatonin, which I guess makes sense. It's hard to put into words but obviously we've all experienced it. I don't ever experience this sensation waking up naturally. The end result is early morning grumpiness, in my case. I'm just in a foul mood for the first hour or two after being ripped from sleep via an alarm. I otherwise don't feel more productive or healthy. I'm curious why this is; I assume it has to do with the natural sleep cycle. Do those chemicals metabolize in some way shortly before you wake up naturally vs waking up by an alarm where they're still present?
- have_faith 5y ago
  I find it to be almost universally positive. I'm a freelancer and I work practically "full time" but I don't start work until I naturally wake up unless I happen to have a meeting scheduled. One of first things I noticed is hunger. When I wake up to an alarm I generally feel sluggish and immediately hungry. If I wake up to my alarm at 8 then I need to eat almost immediately. If I naturally wake up at 9 I might potter about and eat breakfast at 10 without thinking much about it. Alarms seem to induce stress and stress induces hunger. I generally find that only having weekends alarm free provides just enough respite and replenishment for taking on the work week but not enough to reduce mental stress across the board. Being able to have a lay in on any given day that requires it makes a world of difference to mid week slumps.
SketchySeaBeast 5y ago
Do you find your sleep skews? Any longer (2-3 week) vacations I've taken I've found that my waking up time keeps skewing even if I'm not going to bed later. Maybe I've never seen the end where it stabilizes.
- have_faith 5y ago
  My wake up time is a 2 hour window between 7:30 and 9:30 but usually around the middle of that. It varies day to day. Whether it's earlier or later mostly depends on how much exercise I do the day before. My training has large spikes where I go out rock climbing all day and then have multiple "rest" days so I let my body get whatever sleep it needs.
- gibspaulding 5y ago
  My waking times definitely skew, but for me I think it happens because my bed time pushes it later and later until my night owl habits and my guilt over sleeping late reach an equilibrium. When I was in college I'd pretty quickly drift to a 4:00AM to noon sleep schedule on holidays. Even today (in my mid 20's) I find I'm happiest sleeping from roughly 2:00AM to 10:00AM.
- jedberg 5y ago
  At the beginning of the pandemic, no one in our family had any fixed time obligations other than my afternoon meetings, so we basically stopped enforcing any bedtimes or wake up times for the kids (and ourselves). Pre-pandemic we were all waking around 8am to get my daughter to pre-school. Within a week of foregoing bedtimes, we were all going to bed between 2am and 4am and waking up around 11am. So the kids still got their 9 hours and the adults got their 7, but it did stabilize.
- hypertele-Xii 5y ago
  (Not the parent) My sleep cycle naturally drifts infinitely by some 30 minutes a day on average. It makes life strange at times, especially on this latitude. Imagine waking up at night through a whole winter, not seeing the Sun for months. I've tried to hold steady cycle but I just grow more and more tired every day until finally the alarm fails to wake me. School was hell. Was absent a lot simply for sleeping.