7 ms·

Doesn't work for me, sure, I can drive myself to exhaustion but my day simply doesn't feel right. Morning is usually fine for 2 hours, followed by waves of exha

by GuB-42 5y ago

Doesn't work for me, sure, I can drive myself to exhaustion but my day simply doesn't feel right. Morning is usually fine for 2 hours, followed by waves of exhaustion. There is something about the night that boosts me and fascinates me, it feels like it is my world. And it has been the case since early childhood, even before I can remember according to my parents. And it is not just about the sun. I love the feeling of being the last one standing, the calm after everyone went to sleep. I also asked myself the same question about timezones and also DST, why can't I be a morning person when I can naturally adjust to clock change? And I came to the conclusion that there is a lot more than the clock.

TravHatesMe 5y ago
> I love the feeling of being the last one standing, the calm after everyone went to sleep. I love being the first one standing. Get to the office early for that 30-60mins of quiet and peace. Most productive time of my day.
- birdyrooster 5y ago
  we must have always needed night owl and early riser humans to serve as watchers of our sleeping civilizations for hundreds of thousands, if not millions of years, and our genome is adapted to the need. Do you think so?
  - bemmu 5y ago
    Rest of the tribe is asleep, we’re the ones keeping watch while the stars are out, left to our own thoughts.
  - pharmakom 5y ago
    But then the tribe is on the move and a few need to sleep. I think a mostly synchronised schedule is more likely.
    - AuryGlenz 5y ago
      There’s a potential study for someone out there - see if descendants of nomadic tribes have less of a variance in circadian rhythms as opposed to people descending from static tribes.
  - laurent92 5y ago
    I think screens just keep us awake as I.T. workers. Unnatural as ever, much more probable in my opinion.
  - johnchristopher 5y ago
    Last theory I heard it's why we have depressed people and asperger/autism: all qualities fitted to perform some edge functionalities (being alone at night, extreme dedication to problem solving,etc.). Anyway, seriously: just because our genomes stir us to it doesn't mean it's good for the individual.
Swizec 5y ago
> There is something about the night that boosts me and fascinates me, it feels like it is my world This is exactly why I used to stay up all night and why I now wake up early. Same feeling of aloneness and serenity, except the brain is nice and fresh full of your own thoughts instead of everybody else’s crap. Hardest part is staying away from thought pollutants for the first 3 hours of the day.
- nefitty 5y ago
  That is a great way of framing it. My own sleep habits are definitely sustained by my thoughts around night time, relaxation, solitude, etc. I’m not sure why, thanks to your comment, I’m just now realizing that the early morning hours are a good approximation of being awake at 3am.
- BeFlatXIII 5y ago
  I’ve found that early mornings are the best when I need to write while late nights are better for programming. It may be that running on deadline-induced adrenaline and caffeine pushes me to turn off my internal editor and write, while I need the low-energy calm of a late night to stay focused on my code and only my code.
  - notdang 5y ago
    Same happens to, and I realized that I am wasting my life procrastinating during working hours and being able to work only during deadline-induced adrenaline, as you formulated it. Now I am thinking to get some profet help, since others on HN mentioned that this is possible.
- saurik 5y ago
  This is why I simply sleep during the day: if you wake up and appear after everyone else starts "closing up shop" (around 3-4pm usually) then there is no way for them to fill your head with their "crap"; the secret is that it is absolutely imperative that you go to sleep before they start waking up (which has been a bit hard recently as I am working with someone now who lives on the other coast and wakes up early enough that they can sometimes catch me before I commit to going to sleep at 6 or 7).
unishark 5y ago
Do you also feel much more creative and confident at this time? Personally I feel like there is a sort of weak hypomania that kicks in right after bedtime if I let it. It can be fairly irresistible, especially when under stress and having trouble sleeping anyway.
salty_biscuits 5y ago
I used to think I was the same, but I realised (embarrassingly slowly), that every time I went camping/hiking away from artificial light I would just go to a natural sleep cycle. It was artificial stimulation all along, I wasn't really a night owl.
- laurent92 5y ago
  This - the startup industry is full of late night owls and spike-oriented because they are kept awake by screen light and by the contraption they are mentally building. And this sounds ridiculously lazy to physical workers, and even to my former self, when I woke up at 4.30 in Australia to cut the first trees at 6:00 ;) That was the only moment of my life where I wasn’t depressed. Maybe this blue light has a very palpable effect on sleep cycles and depression, after all.
- alert0 5y ago
  Same here, but I can not go camping for a living and I enjoy building things with code after midnight.
Wxc2jjJmST9XWWL 5y ago
I think it has to do with what I would call "social pressure". During daytime you have to be ready for a phone / doorbell to ring, a package to be delivered, a package by a neighbor who isn't there being brought to you, an e-mail reaching you, which demands attention, et cetera. It's louder outside. In front of your house kids might play, a dog might bark, traffic is heavier, gardening work is going on,... it feels like a world for extroverts and there is the risk of something demanding your immediate attention while you don't feel like it. There is a "societal" pressure on you to be functioning. And at night, it's the opposite. You can finally relax, focus, you know nothing of that will happen. You feel safe knowing that people around you are sleeping. No one expects anything from you during these hours, because it's the designated time for sleep. What you do now is outside of anyone's expectations, it's your time, your time alone. No commitments, freedom, and focus. So I wonder if night owls are predominantly introverts with some form of social anxiety (whether they realize it or not) and I certainly think there's a large overlap there. I'm speculating, and I am sure it's not true for plenty of people, but it certainly describes me.
- jlokier 5y ago
  I feel like that if I get up early enough. (I'm a night owl but my sleep is all over the place.) Getting at 2-4am, feels great, like there's plenty of time and the hordes are fast asleep, or going to sleep. Finally I have a stretch of time to get some real work done Getting up at 7am doesn't have any of that benefit. There are too many people around by then.
  - eitland 5y ago
    My experience as well. Waking up at 0600 instead of 0700 is one wasted sleep. Waking up 0400 means two peaceful hours before the hordes wake up, and I am awake when they do wake up.
- linkdd 5y ago
  I relate so much to this. No matter how early (or late) I get up, my day is not done until 3-4am when I had time for myself without the bothering of others/society's expectations. During the week, I'll sleep 5-6h and start to work, on the weekend I'll pay my sleep debt and sleep 10-11h.
graeme 5y ago
I had the same feeling but like much else in life it turned out to be adaptable. I find similar feelings from mornings while the world is asleep. As someone else mentioned, if I camped without artificial light I would get tired at eight. So I switched my evening routine to only use lamps, created a wind down routine, and now I get sleepy around ten and don’t feel good if I stay up. Feel free to stick with your schedule. But if it is causing you trouble you are probably more adaptable than you think.
AuryGlenz 5y ago
I’m right there with you. I can go to bed early and wake up early, but I straight up feel gross/sick/off until my normal wake up time, don’t feel great the rest of the day, and my peak hours are after 10pm so I’d miss out on them. It has dominated my life choices and I wish there was a way around it.

by GuB-42 5y ago

TravHatesMe 5y ago

> I love the feeling of being the last one standing, the calm after everyone went to sleep. I love being the first one standing. Get to the office early for that 30-60mins of quiet and peace. Most productive time of my day.

birdyrooster 5y ago
we must have always needed night owl and early riser humans to serve as watchers of our sleeping civilizations for hundreds of thousands, if not millions of years, and our genome is adapted to the need. Do you think so?
- bemmu 5y ago
  Rest of the tribe is asleep, we’re the ones keeping watch while the stars are out, left to our own thoughts.
- pharmakom 5y ago
  But then the tribe is on the move and a few need to sleep. I think a mostly synchronised schedule is more likely.
  - AuryGlenz 5y ago
    There’s a potential study for someone out there - see if descendants of nomadic tribes have less of a variance in circadian rhythms as opposed to people descending from static tribes.
- laurent92 5y ago
  I think screens just keep us awake as I.T. workers. Unnatural as ever, much more probable in my opinion.
- johnchristopher 5y ago
  Last theory I heard it's why we have depressed people and asperger/autism: all qualities fitted to perform some edge functionalities (being alone at night, extreme dedication to problem solving,etc.). Anyway, seriously: just because our genomes stir us to it doesn't mean it's good for the individual.

Swizec 5y ago

> There is something about the night that boosts me and fascinates me, it feels like it is my world This is exactly why I used to stay up all night and why I now wake up early. Same feeling of aloneness and serenity, except the brain is nice and fresh full of your own thoughts instead of everybody else’s crap. Hardest part is staying away from thought pollutants for the first 3 hours of the day.

nefitty 5y ago
That is a great way of framing it. My own sleep habits are definitely sustained by my thoughts around night time, relaxation, solitude, etc. I’m not sure why, thanks to your comment, I’m just now realizing that the early morning hours are a good approximation of being awake at 3am.
BeFlatXIII 5y ago
I’ve found that early mornings are the best when I need to write while late nights are better for programming. It may be that running on deadline-induced adrenaline and caffeine pushes me to turn off my internal editor and write, while I need the low-energy calm of a late night to stay focused on my code and only my code.
- notdang 5y ago
  Same happens to, and I realized that I am wasting my life procrastinating during working hours and being able to work only during deadline-induced adrenaline, as you formulated it. Now I am thinking to get some profet help, since others on HN mentioned that this is possible.
saurik 5y ago
This is why I simply sleep during the day: if you wake up and appear after everyone else starts "closing up shop" (around 3-4pm usually) then there is no way for them to fill your head with their "crap"; the secret is that it is absolutely imperative that you go to sleep before they start waking up (which has been a bit hard recently as I am working with someone now who lives on the other coast and wakes up early enough that they can sometimes catch me before I commit to going to sleep at 6 or 7).

unishark 5y ago

Do you also feel much more creative and confident at this time? Personally I feel like there is a sort of weak hypomania that kicks in right after bedtime if I let it. It can be fairly irresistible, especially when under stress and having trouble sleeping anyway.

salty_biscuits 5y ago

I used to think I was the same, but I realised (embarrassingly slowly), that every time I went camping/hiking away from artificial light I would just go to a natural sleep cycle. It was artificial stimulation all along, I wasn't really a night owl.

laurent92 5y ago
This - the startup industry is full of late night owls and spike-oriented because they are kept awake by screen light and by the contraption they are mentally building. And this sounds ridiculously lazy to physical workers, and even to my former self, when I woke up at 4.30 in Australia to cut the first trees at 6:00 ;) That was the only moment of my life where I wasn’t depressed. Maybe this blue light has a very palpable effect on sleep cycles and depression, after all.
alert0 5y ago
Same here, but I can not go camping for a living and I enjoy building things with code after midnight.

Wxc2jjJmST9XWWL 5y ago

I think it has to do with what I would call "social pressure". During daytime you have to be ready for a phone / doorbell to ring, a package to be delivered, a package by a neighbor who isn't there being brought to you, an e-mail reaching you, which demands attention, et cetera. It's louder outside. In front of your house kids might play, a dog might bark, traffic is heavier, gardening work is going on,... it feels like a world for extroverts and there is the risk of something demanding your immediate attention while you don't feel like it. There is a "societal" pressure on you to be functioning. And at night, it's the opposite. You can finally relax, focus, you know nothing of that will happen. You feel safe knowing that people around you are sleeping. No one expects anything from you during these hours, because it's the designated time for sleep. What you do now is outside of anyone's expectations, it's your time, your time alone. No commitments, freedom, and focus. So I wonder if night owls are predominantly introverts with some form of social anxiety (whether they realize it or not) and I certainly think there's a large overlap there. I'm speculating, and I am sure it's not true for plenty of people, but it certainly describes me.

jlokier 5y ago
I feel like that if I get up early enough. (I'm a night owl but my sleep is all over the place.) Getting at 2-4am, feels great, like there's plenty of time and the hordes are fast asleep, or going to sleep. Finally I have a stretch of time to get some real work done Getting up at 7am doesn't have any of that benefit. There are too many people around by then.
- eitland 5y ago
  My experience as well. Waking up at 0600 instead of 0700 is one wasted sleep. Waking up 0400 means two peaceful hours before the hordes wake up, and I am awake when they do wake up.
linkdd 5y ago
I relate so much to this. No matter how early (or late) I get up, my day is not done until 3-4am when I had time for myself without the bothering of others/society's expectations. During the week, I'll sleep 5-6h and start to work, on the weekend I'll pay my sleep debt and sleep 10-11h.

graeme 5y ago

I had the same feeling but like much else in life it turned out to be adaptable. I find similar feelings from mornings while the world is asleep. As someone else mentioned, if I camped without artificial light I would get tired at eight. So I switched my evening routine to only use lamps, created a wind down routine, and now I get sleepy around ten and don’t feel good if I stay up. Feel free to stick with your schedule. But if it is causing you trouble you are probably more adaptable than you think.

AuryGlenz 5y ago

I’m right there with you. I can go to bed early and wake up early, but I straight up feel gross/sick/off until my normal wake up time, don’t feel great the rest of the day, and my peak hours are after 10pm so I’d miss out on them. It has dominated my life choices and I wish there was a way around it.