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Try doing something physically exhausting. Otherwise, if you're just hacking in the lab, you're going to be up all night. I think this is normal and inevitable

Try doing something physically exhausting. Otherwise, if you're just hacking in the lab, you're going to be up all night. I think this is normal and inevitable. Even the fictional Dr. Frankenstein had similar habits. My strategy has been to binge on a project and go all out, then recover with periods of no computer, just necessary emails. I use this time to binge on outdoors or gym. Sleeping 10 hours is a plus for recovery time.

shrimp_emoji 5y ago
There's also psychological, not just physical, implications to hacking in the lab til late: recently, I've been dreaming about the problems I've been working on, and I think so hard about them in the dream that I wake up. :D As though the brain goes, "There isn't enough CPU for this; let's quit sleep mode so we can work on this with all cylinders." (Even if all I wanna do is sleep! Mentally pretending that I already fixed the problem seems to disarm things and lets me go back to sleep.)
dspillett 5y ago
> then recover If you do much physical activity and train for it (I'm a mediocre ultra runner) you'll know that as you work the body breaks a bit through the effort and your improvements come during rest days and easy weeks when the muscles “build back better”. I find the mind has similar behaviour so if you've been pulling extra time for a short while you need to properly take it easy, not just return to normal levels of effort, in order to recover and be ready for the next challenge. If you've been pulling extra time for a long while, then you are at risk of burning out and this is even more important.