14 ms·

As a night owl who was forced to wake up early all the first two decades of his life to kindergarten, school or university, all I can say is “no shit, Sherlock”

As a night owl who was forced to wake up early all the first two decades of his life to kindergarten, school or university, all I can say is “no shit, Sherlock”. I didn’t even choose to be a late sleeper, that’s how I always was. Yet the worldwide conspiracy to wake up absurdly early for any important matter is really annoying /s. As I’m approaching my 40s and am lucky enough to have a flexible schedule, waking up early is still borderline painful for me, and if I don’t wake up late enough, my day is usually not as productive as I would want it to be, if not outright ruined. Glad to see my impressions of this global early morning stupidity /s being validated somewhat.

ricksunny 4y ago
Absolutely identify with this. 9am engineering classes were a struggle for me. Absolutely affected my attention & retention. Wish it could have been otherwise, for my choice of major that was the only schedule available.
- leeoniya 4y ago
  i failed a 7:30am calc class in my freshman year of engineering school that was a 1 mile hike uphill in the middle of winter...NOPE!
blackhaz 4y ago
No /s. That's exactly why I dreamed about working in my own startup. So I wouldn't have to wake, like at 6 AM to have a chance for proper shit and shower. Now I simply can skip sleeping altogether!
WaterSupreme 4y ago
I am interested in your take on "conspiracy". While I understand it might feel that way for you as a night owl I would raise you a question. How else could we structure our universities and workdays if not according to our natural environment? We cannot fill the employment roles for professors, support staff, and every other type of worker even with this rigid 8AM system. In my head that new world would include layers and layers of renduncancies which would be a system we could not feed with our current worker population.
- j_crick 4y ago
  That you cannot fill some roles in an organisation is a problem of, well, organisation and motivation, isn’t it? My “conspiracy” remark was with /s which meant sarcasm. It’s just that it can very practically suck to be an outlier from the blessed “norm” of having your sleep schedule more or less synced with day-night cycle.
- eastbound 4y ago
  Classroom and gear utilization of only 8hrs/day would be unacceptable in the industry. I never envisioned that some people might want 8pm classes but maybe it’s an idea. I know that my father, headmaster for high schools, sometimes received threats at home from teachers at 8am on Sunday during the period of establishing the schedules, to tell him that he’d better not assign this or that teacher to the 8am class or…
- Broken_Hippo 4y ago
  Teachers generally have duties that extend beyond the classroom. There is no reason that they couldn't do this before class instead of after. If they want to, of course - some of them would probably just have a later day. This "rigid 8am system" is part of the problem and it affects everyone. It certainly isn't the only problem: A lot of professors wind up having to have second jobs. We could pay more - and have slightly more flexible scheduling - and take care of some of the issues. And realistically, it isn't like they are proposing offering more evening classes. Most proposals for later start times are advocating starting 1-2 hours later, not "lets all work second shift".
  - seb1204 4y ago
    I'm sure we could come up with time tables that would allow more senior classes is high school to start later. E.g. year 9 & 10 start one lesson after year 7 & 8. This would mean scheduling challenges for families, school/public transport and other areas but maybe the outcome would be better? The challenge that will remain is that you might have groups/classes where there are early risers and night owls in one. What to do then?
Silverback_VII 4y ago
I'm probably a night owl as well since I'm always going to bed too late yet I find the idea of already having done a large part of the work by midday kind of alluring. Also the concept of the "magical morning" like doing stuff for your own improvement before working for someone/something else seems to be a good way to start a day. Why not waking up at 3am and do some weightlifting or whatever?
- ilyt 4y ago
  > I find the idea of already having done a large part of the work by midday kind of alluring Oh, no that's not what you do when you get up early! You do the fun stuff first, have a break to go to the shop when there is near-no traffic, and start working at the end of your day. Then finish the work and just drop on bed and sleep. The problem with getting up early is no partying of any sort really, or any evening activities.
- soco 4y ago
  And ruin my Netflix relaxing evening? 3am has drawbacks too, it's not like magically you end up with more time out of the 24h.
lordnacho 4y ago
Rumor has it they don't do this in warm countries. Spain for instance is supposed to have a late night culture where people eat dinner at 9PM. Seems to be true based on what my Spanish friends say. But generally you're right. I don't get it, what's the fuss about doing things early? Artificial light has existed for a long time now, why not get up a little later, relax, eat, chat a bit, and then go do whatever it is?
- j_crick 4y ago
  > what's the fuss about doing things early? I feel like it has to do a lot with the most recent industrial revolution and how factories had to operate, and the school systems built around that. Most of places and industries, it hasn’t gone anywhere. And I guess it won’t until we solve the problem of massive energy generation for pennies, orders of magnitude more than we have now, and bump up production output everywhere across the board, with AI or else.
  - cafard 4y ago
    The industrial revolution made us get up with the chickens?
    - yamtaddle 4y ago
      Winter with a fairly-common work-and-getting-the-kids-places schedule means getting up before the chickens. I actually think it'd be great if we could have seasonal work schedules. Winter work days should be 6 hours, not 8. Let the whole of society hibernate a bit. Leave at least one or two daylight hours that aren't taken up by work or commute.
      - SketchySeaBeast 4y ago
        > Winter work days should be 6 hours, not 8. That'd be offset by having to work 15 during the summer. Up here in Alberta our shortest days are 7.5 hours and longest are 17.
      - 4y ago
bartread 4y ago
I'm in my 40s. Same. This morning I had to get up at 0615 for the second morning in succession due to a couple of appointments. This is absolutely not normal for me and it's completely painful. Obviously sometimes it has to happen, and that's OK, but it comes at a cost. People will say, "just go to bed earlier", but actually that doesn't really work because unless I go to bed hours after I've eaten I don't sleep and tend to get heartburn. Case in point, last night: got home at about 1915, ate dinner just after 2000, went to bed at 2200 (because I had to get up early this morning), slept like absolute crap. Sorry (not sorry), but I can't live like this. I need a good 8 hours a night every night, and that means going to bed at 2300 - 0000 and getting up at 0700 or, ideally, 0800. I work much better that way, and am much happier with it. More than that, I'm not falling asleep by lunchtime.
- j_crick 4y ago
  > I go to bed hours after I've eaten I feel like this is extremely important. I try very hard to eat no late than at least 4 hours before I feel like going to sleep. And get as sober as possible before that too.
- mrpopo 4y ago
  You can eat earlier than 20.00?... I think it's detrimental to someone's quality of life to be unable to shift their sleping schedule. The only physiological thing you cannot shift is the sunlight. If I have to wake up early before sunrise and feel like crap, I will take a walk out a couple hours later and the rest of my day will be productive.
  - bartread 4y ago
    Not when I've got in after 1900 I can't.
    - bosie 4y ago
      why not? eat before 7pm?
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
ryanjshaw 4y ago
I recently listened to an old startup podcast where the guest spoke about how waking up 3 hours before everybody else is the smartest thing you can do because you get an extra 3 hours on everybody else. It didn't cross his mind you can also go to bed 3 hours later than everyone else. On a different startup podcast, there was a guy claiming he went to bed at 7pm and woke up at 3am! He claimed his kids went to bed at 7pm too. I mean sure, maybe between 1 and 3 years of age, but in the long run this is just absurd (or you are not putting in an equal share of parenting, or spending time with your kids or spouse in the evening.)
- logifail 4y ago
  > waking up 3 hours before everybody else is the smartest thing you can do because you get an extra 3 hours on everybody else Perhaps it's not "extra" hours, it's time you can use productively vs time you can't. Three completely uninterrupted hours in the morning while everyone else is asleep vs three hours in the evening while everyone is is awake? To actually concentrate on something important, I'd always pick the former.
  - ryanjshaw 4y ago
    Everybody else in my household goes to bed before 22:00 and wakes up early - so there's fewer interruptions for me if I work at night. I find the quiet and cooler temperatures much more productive, too - but this could be a geographical thing
  - kuschku 4y ago
    > Three constantly interrupted hours in the morning while everyone else is awake vs three quiet hours in the evening while everyone is asleep? I do my best work after 22:00, when it's quiet. In the morning, I usually can't get anything done.
- imarg 4y ago
  I've tried going later to bed to use these as more productive hours for my sideprojects (heck I am still going too late to bed). Although I say that I have more energy in the night the thing is that after a full day it is not easy to concentrate. In the morning you are fresher (provided you get enough sleep).
seer 4y ago
A bit off topic I know, but as a night owl till my mid 30s I actually managed to flip to an early bird. Maybe it was just a fluke or something and this is totally anecdotal but what I think happened is for about 3-4 months I was doing a physical activity in the morning that I _really wanted_ to do - some martial arts classes. And then one faithful morning there was this training session that was just sublime - working out outside, in the heat of the rising sun, very idilic. From that morning onwards, I started waking up 7am by myself, whatever I do, no matter if I stay late or not ... it was very bizarre, I just "flipped" from one day to the next. I attribute this to the fact that most really fun things in my life happen late - parties, dancing, playing computer games to 3am, bouts of in the zone coding, spending nights with my partner - all happening in the evening, so my body obviously tries to "optimise" its attention to when I crave it most. When I consistently had a thing that was really engaging for me for a long enough period (and no corresponding "high" in the evening) I switched to an early bird. Last year I've stopped doing the fun morning stuff and I can sense slowly moving back to late evenings and unpleasant mornings.
- PragmaticPulp 4y ago
  > Maybe it was just a fluke or something and this is totally anecdotal but what I think happened is for about 3-4 months I was doing a physical activity in the morning that I _really wanted_ to do - some martial arts classes. I suspect this is at the root of a lot of “night owl” personalities: Night time is equated with freedom, whereas mornings are equated with having to do something they don’t like (work, school). Finding something semi-enjoyable to do in the morning is key to not hating mornings. If someone’s mornings are just a painful slog to a job you dislike and a detour until you can get to the evening where you can maybe enjoy something, of course they’re going to be a night owl.
  - matwood 4y ago
    > Night time is equated with freedom Interesting thought. I enjoy being alone and have always equated early morning with freedom. There are very few distractions at 5am. Night owls just get to that sweet spot in time from the other direction.
konschubert 4y ago
I am also a late sleeper. I just don’t like going to bed. If University started at 11 I would still be tired though. I would just go to bed later.
- 2-718-281-828 4y ago
  adhd? if I wouldn't set artificial constraints forcing my sleep-wake-rhythm into a frame it would probably rotate continuously. let's say you catch me at 1am to 9am. next day it would be 1am30 to 9am30. next day 2am to 10am etc ... I'd fight against my urge to sleep forcing the rhythm to move like that. now how to learn liking to go to bed? that's my 1 million dollar problem - paradoxically I very much like to _stay_ in bed ...
  - konschubert 4y ago
    https://xkcd.com/320/ https://xkcd.com/320/
2-718-281-828 4y ago
but are you able to maintain a consistent sleep rhythm long-term? like going to bed at 2am and waking up at 11am? or do you have to guard against continuous rotation of that rhythm (going to bed later and waking up later until you basically wake up at 2pm or later)?
- ilyt 4y ago
  Oh hey that's me. It's a fucking curse. I just can't get to sleep earlier, and any delay (indulging into "one more episode", or reading a book a bit too long) just makes me wake up later. Even setting alarm clock doesn't really work I just... start getting sleepy at same late hour even if I feel groggy half the day coz of reduced sleep
- j_crick 4y ago
  > but are you able to maintain a consistent sleep rhythm long-term? like going to bed at 2am and waking up at 11am? Most of the time it’s steady 3am-11am for the last couple of years, and it’s perfect for me based on how I feel. 5am-12pm works well enough too if needed. Usually I can’t sleep earlier than 12am, but even if I do, if I wake up 10am or earlier, it doesn’t feel good. In that case, if I’ve slept less than four uninterrupted sleep cycles, I’m most likely a wreck.
nkozyra 4y ago
I'm not even a late sleeper but as soon as I got to make my own schedule the idea of learning went from painful at best to actual fun. Like a lot of people I hated high school but I attribute 75% of that or more to the fact that it started at 6:45 and that I spent most of my days catatonic.
zajio1am 4y ago
It is just discrimination of circadian-challenged persons.
mancerayder 4y ago
I read this at 8:22 laying in bed waiting for my coffee to kick in and feeling drowsy - a daily drowsiness that only disappates after multiple days off where I can wake up with no alarm (i.e. vacation). Even if I try to sleep early, my sleep is choppy most of the night and requires being able to go back to sleep til 10 or 11. I have more energy at midnight than at 8a. There's no blue light or other trick, here, it's been like this since childhood.
GypsyKing716 4y ago
By thinking this way - I gained 30 lbs, developed a little drinking habit, and stopped bathing .. wife stopped giving me the "social" attention, and I withered socially. HOWEVER, I got a 6-figure job, an MBA, a Master's in Physics, and a hell of a lot smarter. That took 4 years to do, but took 4 years off the end of my life, I'm sure. In the long run though, the >adversity< experience that is the human condition trains us to be hard. I'm not talking about body wise, but in fortitude. We weren't meant to be given everything on a silver platter, yet here we are in modern society. You don't have to go all "liver king" on this one, but recognizing that a healthy dose of day-walker ain't so bad. I returned to the day-walker realm about 3 months ago and have since dropped 20 of the 30, drink about 1x a month (best I can tell that trend will continue) and I actually give a sh*t. I don't want to say this is wrong, but its a cautionary tale about taking the uphill battles as a challenge to sharpen you for the time you really meet adversity.
manmal 4y ago
My life has genuinely improved when we signed up all kids in a school which starts not earlier than 8:30. Where I live, all public schools start at 7:45, which is just way too early for me.
robomartin 4y ago
> As a night owl I'll echo the early morning exercise suggestion as an additional data point. I was worse than you...for over ten years. I used to work nights. I'd go into work at 4 PM and get back home anywhere between 2 AM and 4 AM (my theoretical midnight out-time never happened). As a result, waking up between noon at 2 PM was pretty normal. Again, this was the case for over ten years. I was eventually faced with having to flip my life to a normal schedule. That took a few years. What made a huge difference was exercise. This is when I got into strength training. I'd get out of the house at 5:30 AM to go to the gym. By the time I went to the office I was definitely fully awake and functional. It didn't take more than a couple of months for this schedule to become my new normal and for it to feel easy. A year later, waking up at 5:30 AM happened normally and without having to use multiple alarms. These day I wake up at 6 AM even if I go to sleep at 1 AM. If you are interested in making a change, you might want to consider early morning exercise.
starkd 4y ago
But if policies delay those early morning classes, won't those night-owls just go to bed even later? I have had the same trouble, but any effort to address that by not scheduling anything in the morning has only led to sleeping in even later. The internal clock just shifts to compensate. Not sure how to address the night-owl phenomenon, but there seem to be people who have successfully converted from being a night-owl to an early riser. The only thing I have seen to help is sticking to a strict schedule.
UnpossibleJim 4y ago
This is exactly why I didn't get a degree in biology. Organic chem was at 7:30 in the morning and I couldn't cut it that early in the morning. All the lectures just washed over me. All worked out in the end though =)
bitwize 4y ago
Showing up on time for work/school/etc., early in the morning, is a sign of grit and determination. It's virtue signaling, from the Before Times when "virtue signaling" wasn't right-wing dogwhistle for "I resent anyone who puts in effort not to come off as a bigoted asshole". We live in a society, which judges us according to ancient agricultural-society standards according to which those who sleep in late when there's chickens to be fed and cows to be milked are lazy; and the health benefits that accrue from such signaling (i.e., the ability to feed yourself and your family and secure a more comfortable life for them) outweigh the health deficits of getting up early itself.
- vouaobrasil 4y ago
  I prefer to look for signs of grit and determination in a person's actions where those actions have signficant meaning to that person. Also, showing up on time is a sign of determination, but making someone get up at 7AM because you do is a sign of narcissism.
jdc0589 4y ago
im in my mid 30s and have been the same since I was ~12 years old. I finally figured out why in the past year since having a good sleep tracker: 75% of my rem sleep happens between 5:30am and 8:30am. I go to bed around 12:00 and sleep until 8:30am usually. if I have to get up before 8:30 i frequently feel totally out of it and exhausted for a while, now I'm thinking because thats frequently being woken up directly from REM sleep.
lamontcg 4y ago
> Yet the worldwide conspiracy to wake up absurdly early for any important matter is really annoying /s. Doesn't need the "/s" At some point I hope to see Delayed Sleep Phase Disorder treated like a proper medical disability and for discrimination cases to be won by people with it. That should cause corporate legal departments to shift schedules to being later.
kilgnad 4y ago
Being a night owl is artificial. It's virtually impossible for most of human existence because for most of human existence we didn't have strong lights at night. The most natural thing to do for a human is to sleep when it's dark and get up when it's light. The second best thing given that nobody does the above anymore is to sleep late and get up late. But make no mistake it is more "healthy" and "natural" to have classes early in the morning.
thegrim22 4y ago
Ironically, when I saw the headline I thought to myself "what's with this conspiracy with people constantly trying to push this narrative that people should reject morning stuff", and then the top comment is complaining about a "conspiracy to make people wake up early". From an evolutionary perspective I guess you can try to argue that in the past there was some benefit to some people being on a shifted schedule so they can stay awake to keep watch at night, but I feel like overwhelmingly throughout human history people mostly just naturally woke up when the sun rose and anyone that stayed at camp sleeping in, not helping with duties, was very looked down upon by the rest of the group.
- j_crick 4y ago
  You probably haven’t noticed /s but that’s alright. I strongly agree that it feels like this whole thing came from ancient times and the need to sync to day-night cycle because of how things were. In the same time I feel like the “morning conspiracy” is being sort of inertially reinforced in modern times for no measurable metric gain of anything. See, I don’t wanna rise and shine and shit, because it’s not only the early bird that gets the worm really; I want to wake up after enough of sleep at the time when I feel optimally the best possible for a day, and that’s about it. Question is whether I can afford it. Covid mess showed that many of us actually can work remotely, and if anything else, it also showed that many of us can wake up when they feel optimally good without hindering the business we’re contributing to. I didn’t quite expect my comment to be a top comment here though, but reading from people who have simialr experiences makes me feel a bit less conspiratorial. Or more! :)

ricksunny 4y ago

Absolutely identify with this. 9am engineering classes were a struggle for me. Absolutely affected my attention & retention. Wish it could have been otherwise, for my choice of major that was the only schedule available.

leeoniya 4y ago
i failed a 7:30am calc class in my freshman year of engineering school that was a 1 mile hike uphill in the middle of winter...NOPE!

blackhaz 4y ago

No /s. That's exactly why I dreamed about working in my own startup. So I wouldn't have to wake, like at 6 AM to have a chance for proper shit and shower. Now I simply can skip sleeping altogether!

WaterSupreme 4y ago

I am interested in your take on "conspiracy". While I understand it might feel that way for you as a night owl I would raise you a question. How else could we structure our universities and workdays if not according to our natural environment? We cannot fill the employment roles for professors, support staff, and every other type of worker even with this rigid 8AM system. In my head that new world would include layers and layers of renduncancies which would be a system we could not feed with our current worker population.

j_crick 4y ago
That you cannot fill some roles in an organisation is a problem of, well, organisation and motivation, isn’t it? My “conspiracy” remark was with /s which meant sarcasm. It’s just that it can very practically suck to be an outlier from the blessed “norm” of having your sleep schedule more or less synced with day-night cycle.
eastbound 4y ago
Classroom and gear utilization of only 8hrs/day would be unacceptable in the industry. I never envisioned that some people might want 8pm classes but maybe it’s an idea. I know that my father, headmaster for high schools, sometimes received threats at home from teachers at 8am on Sunday during the period of establishing the schedules, to tell him that he’d better not assign this or that teacher to the 8am class or…
Broken_Hippo 4y ago
Teachers generally have duties that extend beyond the classroom. There is no reason that they couldn't do this before class instead of after. If they want to, of course - some of them would probably just have a later day. This "rigid 8am system" is part of the problem and it affects everyone. It certainly isn't the only problem: A lot of professors wind up having to have second jobs. We could pay more - and have slightly more flexible scheduling - and take care of some of the issues. And realistically, it isn't like they are proposing offering more evening classes. Most proposals for later start times are advocating starting 1-2 hours later, not "lets all work second shift".
- seb1204 4y ago
  I'm sure we could come up with time tables that would allow more senior classes is high school to start later. E.g. year 9 & 10 start one lesson after year 7 & 8. This would mean scheduling challenges for families, school/public transport and other areas but maybe the outcome would be better? The challenge that will remain is that you might have groups/classes where there are early risers and night owls in one. What to do then?

Silverback_VII 4y ago

I'm probably a night owl as well since I'm always going to bed too late yet I find the idea of already having done a large part of the work by midday kind of alluring. Also the concept of the "magical morning" like doing stuff for your own improvement before working for someone/something else seems to be a good way to start a day. Why not waking up at 3am and do some weightlifting or whatever?

ilyt 4y ago
> I find the idea of already having done a large part of the work by midday kind of alluring Oh, no that's not what you do when you get up early! You do the fun stuff first, have a break to go to the shop when there is near-no traffic, and start working at the end of your day. Then finish the work and just drop on bed and sleep. The problem with getting up early is no partying of any sort really, or any evening activities.
soco 4y ago
And ruin my Netflix relaxing evening? 3am has drawbacks too, it's not like magically you end up with more time out of the 24h.

lordnacho 4y ago

Rumor has it they don't do this in warm countries. Spain for instance is supposed to have a late night culture where people eat dinner at 9PM. Seems to be true based on what my Spanish friends say. But generally you're right. I don't get it, what's the fuss about doing things early? Artificial light has existed for a long time now, why not get up a little later, relax, eat, chat a bit, and then go do whatever it is?

j_crick 4y ago
> what's the fuss about doing things early? I feel like it has to do a lot with the most recent industrial revolution and how factories had to operate, and the school systems built around that. Most of places and industries, it hasn’t gone anywhere. And I guess it won’t until we solve the problem of massive energy generation for pennies, orders of magnitude more than we have now, and bump up production output everywhere across the board, with AI or else.
- cafard 4y ago
  The industrial revolution made us get up with the chickens?
  - yamtaddle 4y ago
    Winter with a fairly-common work-and-getting-the-kids-places schedule means getting up before the chickens. I actually think it'd be great if we could have seasonal work schedules. Winter work days should be 6 hours, not 8. Let the whole of society hibernate a bit. Leave at least one or two daylight hours that aren't taken up by work or commute.
    - SketchySeaBeast 4y ago
      > Winter work days should be 6 hours, not 8. That'd be offset by having to work 15 during the summer. Up here in Alberta our shortest days are 7.5 hours and longest are 17.
    - 4y ago

bartread 4y ago

I'm in my 40s. Same. This morning I had to get up at 0615 for the second morning in succession due to a couple of appointments. This is absolutely not normal for me and it's completely painful. Obviously sometimes it has to happen, and that's OK, but it comes at a cost. People will say, "just go to bed earlier", but actually that doesn't really work because unless I go to bed hours after I've eaten I don't sleep and tend to get heartburn. Case in point, last night: got home at about 1915, ate dinner just after 2000, went to bed at 2200 (because I had to get up early this morning), slept like absolute crap. Sorry (not sorry), but I can't live like this. I need a good 8 hours a night every night, and that means going to bed at 2300 - 0000 and getting up at 0700 or, ideally, 0800. I work much better that way, and am much happier with it. More than that, I'm not falling asleep by lunchtime.

j_crick 4y ago
> I go to bed hours after I've eaten I feel like this is extremely important. I try very hard to eat no late than at least 4 hours before I feel like going to sleep. And get as sober as possible before that too.
mrpopo 4y ago
You can eat earlier than 20.00?... I think it's detrimental to someone's quality of life to be unable to shift their sleping schedule. The only physiological thing you cannot shift is the sunlight. If I have to wake up early before sunrise and feel like crap, I will take a walk out a couple hours later and the rest of my day will be productive.
- bartread 4y ago
  Not when I've got in after 1900 I can't.
  - bosie 4y ago
    why not? eat before 7pm?
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]

ryanjshaw 4y ago

I recently listened to an old startup podcast where the guest spoke about how waking up 3 hours before everybody else is the smartest thing you can do because you get an extra 3 hours on everybody else. It didn't cross his mind you can also go to bed 3 hours later than everyone else. On a different startup podcast, there was a guy claiming he went to bed at 7pm and woke up at 3am! He claimed his kids went to bed at 7pm too. I mean sure, maybe between 1 and 3 years of age, but in the long run this is just absurd (or you are not putting in an equal share of parenting, or spending time with your kids or spouse in the evening.)

logifail 4y ago
> waking up 3 hours before everybody else is the smartest thing you can do because you get an extra 3 hours on everybody else Perhaps it's not "extra" hours, it's time you can use productively vs time you can't. Three completely uninterrupted hours in the morning while everyone else is asleep vs three hours in the evening while everyone is is awake? To actually concentrate on something important, I'd always pick the former.
- ryanjshaw 4y ago
  Everybody else in my household goes to bed before 22:00 and wakes up early - so there's fewer interruptions for me if I work at night. I find the quiet and cooler temperatures much more productive, too - but this could be a geographical thing
- kuschku 4y ago
  > Three constantly interrupted hours in the morning while everyone else is awake vs three quiet hours in the evening while everyone is asleep? I do my best work after 22:00, when it's quiet. In the morning, I usually can't get anything done.
imarg 4y ago
I've tried going later to bed to use these as more productive hours for my sideprojects (heck I am still going too late to bed). Although I say that I have more energy in the night the thing is that after a full day it is not easy to concentrate. In the morning you are fresher (provided you get enough sleep).

seer 4y ago

A bit off topic I know, but as a night owl till my mid 30s I actually managed to flip to an early bird. Maybe it was just a fluke or something and this is totally anecdotal but what I think happened is for about 3-4 months I was doing a physical activity in the morning that I _really wanted_ to do - some martial arts classes. And then one faithful morning there was this training session that was just sublime - working out outside, in the heat of the rising sun, very idilic. From that morning onwards, I started waking up 7am by myself, whatever I do, no matter if I stay late or not ... it was very bizarre, I just "flipped" from one day to the next. I attribute this to the fact that most really fun things in my life happen late - parties, dancing, playing computer games to 3am, bouts of in the zone coding, spending nights with my partner - all happening in the evening, so my body obviously tries to "optimise" its attention to when I crave it most. When I consistently had a thing that was really engaging for me for a long enough period (and no corresponding "high" in the evening) I switched to an early bird. Last year I've stopped doing the fun morning stuff and I can sense slowly moving back to late evenings and unpleasant mornings.

PragmaticPulp 4y ago
> Maybe it was just a fluke or something and this is totally anecdotal but what I think happened is for about 3-4 months I was doing a physical activity in the morning that I _really wanted_ to do - some martial arts classes. I suspect this is at the root of a lot of “night owl” personalities: Night time is equated with freedom, whereas mornings are equated with having to do something they don’t like (work, school). Finding something semi-enjoyable to do in the morning is key to not hating mornings. If someone’s mornings are just a painful slog to a job you dislike and a detour until you can get to the evening where you can maybe enjoy something, of course they’re going to be a night owl.
- matwood 4y ago
  > Night time is equated with freedom Interesting thought. I enjoy being alone and have always equated early morning with freedom. There are very few distractions at 5am. Night owls just get to that sweet spot in time from the other direction.

konschubert 4y ago

I am also a late sleeper. I just don’t like going to bed. If University started at 11 I would still be tired though. I would just go to bed later.

2-718-281-828 4y ago
adhd? if I wouldn't set artificial constraints forcing my sleep-wake-rhythm into a frame it would probably rotate continuously. let's say you catch me at 1am to 9am. next day it would be 1am30 to 9am30. next day 2am to 10am etc ... I'd fight against my urge to sleep forcing the rhythm to move like that. now how to learn liking to go to bed? that's my 1 million dollar problem - paradoxically I very much like to _stay_ in bed ...
- konschubert 4y ago
  https://xkcd.com/320/ https://xkcd.com/320/

2-718-281-828 4y ago

but are you able to maintain a consistent sleep rhythm long-term? like going to bed at 2am and waking up at 11am? or do you have to guard against continuous rotation of that rhythm (going to bed later and waking up later until you basically wake up at 2pm or later)?

ilyt 4y ago
Oh hey that's me. It's a fucking curse. I just can't get to sleep earlier, and any delay (indulging into "one more episode", or reading a book a bit too long) just makes me wake up later. Even setting alarm clock doesn't really work I just... start getting sleepy at same late hour even if I feel groggy half the day coz of reduced sleep
j_crick 4y ago
> but are you able to maintain a consistent sleep rhythm long-term? like going to bed at 2am and waking up at 11am? Most of the time it’s steady 3am-11am for the last couple of years, and it’s perfect for me based on how I feel. 5am-12pm works well enough too if needed. Usually I can’t sleep earlier than 12am, but even if I do, if I wake up 10am or earlier, it doesn’t feel good. In that case, if I’ve slept less than four uninterrupted sleep cycles, I’m most likely a wreck.

nkozyra 4y ago

I'm not even a late sleeper but as soon as I got to make my own schedule the idea of learning went from painful at best to actual fun. Like a lot of people I hated high school but I attribute 75% of that or more to the fact that it started at 6:45 and that I spent most of my days catatonic.

zajio1am 4y ago

It is just discrimination of circadian-challenged persons.

mancerayder 4y ago

I read this at 8:22 laying in bed waiting for my coffee to kick in and feeling drowsy - a daily drowsiness that only disappates after multiple days off where I can wake up with no alarm (i.e. vacation). Even if I try to sleep early, my sleep is choppy most of the night and requires being able to go back to sleep til 10 or 11. I have more energy at midnight than at 8a. There's no blue light or other trick, here, it's been like this since childhood.

GypsyKing716 4y ago

By thinking this way - I gained 30 lbs, developed a little drinking habit, and stopped bathing .. wife stopped giving me the "social" attention, and I withered socially. HOWEVER, I got a 6-figure job, an MBA, a Master's in Physics, and a hell of a lot smarter. That took 4 years to do, but took 4 years off the end of my life, I'm sure. In the long run though, the >adversity< experience that is the human condition trains us to be hard. I'm not talking about body wise, but in fortitude. We weren't meant to be given everything on a silver platter, yet here we are in modern society. You don't have to go all "liver king" on this one, but recognizing that a healthy dose of day-walker ain't so bad. I returned to the day-walker realm about 3 months ago and have since dropped 20 of the 30, drink about 1x a month (best I can tell that trend will continue) and I actually give a sh*t. I don't want to say this is wrong, but its a cautionary tale about taking the uphill battles as a challenge to sharpen you for the time you really meet adversity.

manmal 4y ago

My life has genuinely improved when we signed up all kids in a school which starts not earlier than 8:30. Where I live, all public schools start at 7:45, which is just way too early for me.

robomartin 4y ago

> As a night owl I'll echo the early morning exercise suggestion as an additional data point. I was worse than you...for over ten years. I used to work nights. I'd go into work at 4 PM and get back home anywhere between 2 AM and 4 AM (my theoretical midnight out-time never happened). As a result, waking up between noon at 2 PM was pretty normal. Again, this was the case for over ten years. I was eventually faced with having to flip my life to a normal schedule. That took a few years. What made a huge difference was exercise. This is when I got into strength training. I'd get out of the house at 5:30 AM to go to the gym. By the time I went to the office I was definitely fully awake and functional. It didn't take more than a couple of months for this schedule to become my new normal and for it to feel easy. A year later, waking up at 5:30 AM happened normally and without having to use multiple alarms. These day I wake up at 6 AM even if I go to sleep at 1 AM. If you are interested in making a change, you might want to consider early morning exercise.

starkd 4y ago

But if policies delay those early morning classes, won't those night-owls just go to bed even later? I have had the same trouble, but any effort to address that by not scheduling anything in the morning has only led to sleeping in even later. The internal clock just shifts to compensate. Not sure how to address the night-owl phenomenon, but there seem to be people who have successfully converted from being a night-owl to an early riser. The only thing I have seen to help is sticking to a strict schedule.

UnpossibleJim 4y ago

This is exactly why I didn't get a degree in biology. Organic chem was at 7:30 in the morning and I couldn't cut it that early in the morning. All the lectures just washed over me. All worked out in the end though =)

bitwize 4y ago

Showing up on time for work/school/etc., early in the morning, is a sign of grit and determination. It's virtue signaling, from the Before Times when "virtue signaling" wasn't right-wing dogwhistle for "I resent anyone who puts in effort not to come off as a bigoted asshole". We live in a society, which judges us according to ancient agricultural-society standards according to which those who sleep in late when there's chickens to be fed and cows to be milked are lazy; and the health benefits that accrue from such signaling (i.e., the ability to feed yourself and your family and secure a more comfortable life for them) outweigh the health deficits of getting up early itself.

vouaobrasil 4y ago
I prefer to look for signs of grit and determination in a person's actions where those actions have signficant meaning to that person. Also, showing up on time is a sign of determination, but making someone get up at 7AM because you do is a sign of narcissism.

jdc0589 4y ago

im in my mid 30s and have been the same since I was ~12 years old. I finally figured out why in the past year since having a good sleep tracker: 75% of my rem sleep happens between 5:30am and 8:30am. I go to bed around 12:00 and sleep until 8:30am usually. if I have to get up before 8:30 i frequently feel totally out of it and exhausted for a while, now I'm thinking because thats frequently being woken up directly from REM sleep.

lamontcg 4y ago

> Yet the worldwide conspiracy to wake up absurdly early for any important matter is really annoying /s. Doesn't need the "/s" At some point I hope to see Delayed Sleep Phase Disorder treated like a proper medical disability and for discrimination cases to be won by people with it. That should cause corporate legal departments to shift schedules to being later.

kilgnad 4y ago

Being a night owl is artificial. It's virtually impossible for most of human existence because for most of human existence we didn't have strong lights at night. The most natural thing to do for a human is to sleep when it's dark and get up when it's light. The second best thing given that nobody does the above anymore is to sleep late and get up late. But make no mistake it is more "healthy" and "natural" to have classes early in the morning.

thegrim22 4y ago

Ironically, when I saw the headline I thought to myself "what's with this conspiracy with people constantly trying to push this narrative that people should reject morning stuff", and then the top comment is complaining about a "conspiracy to make people wake up early". From an evolutionary perspective I guess you can try to argue that in the past there was some benefit to some people being on a shifted schedule so they can stay awake to keep watch at night, but I feel like overwhelmingly throughout human history people mostly just naturally woke up when the sun rose and anyone that stayed at camp sleeping in, not helping with duties, was very looked down upon by the rest of the group.

j_crick 4y ago
You probably haven’t noticed /s but that’s alright. I strongly agree that it feels like this whole thing came from ancient times and the need to sync to day-night cycle because of how things were. In the same time I feel like the “morning conspiracy” is being sort of inertially reinforced in modern times for no measurable metric gain of anything. See, I don’t wanna rise and shine and shit, because it’s not only the early bird that gets the worm really; I want to wake up after enough of sleep at the time when I feel optimally the best possible for a day, and that’s about it. Question is whether I can afford it. Covid mess showed that many of us actually can work remotely, and if anything else, it also showed that many of us can wake up when they feel optimally good without hindering the business we’re contributing to. I didn’t quite expect my comment to be a top comment here though, but reading from people who have simialr experiences makes me feel a bit less conspiratorial. Or more! :)