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> 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

> 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.
- derefr 4y ago
  But you don’t spend those hours before work with the inevitability of what you’ll have to deal with at work in just a few hours weighing on your mind? Personally I find evenings a bit different, in that I’m sufficiently worn out mentally from the day that I no longer can think (productively) about work — and so the worries of the upcoming day are temporarily shelved for lack of practical progress to be made on them. Through no particular mental effort on my part, it is easy to relax in the evenings. But in the mornings, I’m fresh enough that that doesn’t work. I can, through an act of willpower and mindfulness, intentionally forget that work is a thing I’ll have to be doing in a few hours, and so just enjoy my mornings like you do — but this was a skill I learned, and I didn’t always have it; and moreover, I suspect it’s a skill many people never develop.
  - abcc8 4y ago
    Yes and no. I enjoy getting personal tasks done in the morning before work, especially those that require a sharp mind. Like you mentioned, I feel worn out mentally and the end of the day, though I find I'm happier and more productive overall if I save a few sharp-minded hours in the early morning for myself.
  - matwood 4y ago
    Work is one of many things I do, and I never feel the need to forget it exists. Dealing with it is inevitable whether it's right before bed or right when I wake up. For me, relaxation comes from doing other things like reading, working out, jiu-jitsu, watching a show, etc... I am sharpest in the morning, and every day gives me a new opportunity on where to apply myself when I'm at my best.
6510 4y ago
I know people who really need to get up early because the morning is their most productive part of the day by a really huge margin. They start yawning around 1-2 pm to really drive the point home. Their circadian rhythm seems heavily stacked towards the early game. I work night shifts, some of the early birds are insanely dumb after 3 am, insanely dumb compared to who they are the rest of the day. I see one student of higher education put down his a tool and turn around for 3 seconds then panic wondering where they put it. Not one time! I see him do that hundreds of times. I keep a mental map of where I see him put stuff so that I can remind him or answer when asked. They had plenty of rest, they work hard. It's supper funny to me because I'm a bit like that before 11 am. I'm physically there, if someone asks me to do something my mind makes a raw audio recording of it that I often revisit later to parse out what it was they actually said. In school I've aced tests with 100% questions I consciously knew nothing about. You have to picture it, its hilarious, I read a question about a topic I've never seen before, 5 seconds later I apparently know the answer to the question. I know the difference in file format, recalling unparsed information comes with a lot of irrelevant data about the moment the teacher explained the topic. After 1 pm I only retain the relevant parts, those files contain almost no information about when I learned it, their attachments are my own thoughts. Of course at times I have to condition myself for morning productivity, I can for example get up at 4 am if I need my brain at 9:00. I can go to bed early, at exactly the same time, rest the body/eyes and think about life for a few hours. It works but it feels wrong, it screams wrong. I did a hilarious experiment one time where I went to bed at 17:30 straight after work and set the alarm at 1 am. It felt perfect but had negative social implications. Maybe its a cool idea for a startup. It seems one hell of a perk from my perspective.
macNchz 4y ago
There may be a kernel of truth to this, but–as a lifelong nightowl who got in the habit of going for morning runs several years ago–I‘ve never been able to wake up as easily as I can stay up. I love the feeling of running early in the morning as the city wakes up around me. I get a lot of the same enjoyment as when I stay up late at night, but I still haven’t been able to maintain a habit of truly early runs. These days I sleep roughly midnight to 8am, and could very easily stay up til 4am if I were to want to, but shifting the other direction and waking up at 5 or 6am to run is super difficult. I can do it for a few days but have never made it stick. Running at 8 or 9am is still nice but not quite the same.
- nonethewiser 4y ago
  > I‘ve never been able to wake up as easily as I can stay up. Is that even quantifiable? Maybe you can stay up till 2 but not wake up by 7. But 2 and 7 nor any other pair are equivalent so I don’t see how you could make that comparison.
pbhjpbhj 4y ago
>> Maybe it was just a fluke or something > Night time is equated with freedom I'm middle-aged. I think my testosterone-levels are falling (sex-drive diminishing, at least). Paired with that I've had less depression [desire a season of grief]. But also I've had periods of morning wakefulness. Someone said downthread "you've just aged". Seems to me, on n=1, like I'm transitioning in my sleepy times. I'm getting up early (for periods of days/weeks at a time), but it's the 'waking and feeling wakeful' that is driving it. On the flipside, I get super-sleepy after lunch. If the drive to get solitude were the cause, then night-time provides that still in my home, despite me finding myself drawn towards being an early-bird (but still only for short periods of a few days to a few weeks, so far). Of course I could just have a brain tumour, but it would be interesting to see some broad studies on sleep pattern changes in middle-age?
- fwungy 4y ago
  Try eating a light meal at lunch if you want to stay awake. Digestion is energetically demanding and causes fluctuations in your blood sugar.
  - pbhjpbhj 4y ago
    Yes, I've always had a postprandial dip in energy levels, but I do only have a light lunch.
innocentoldguy 4y ago
I tried this with scuba diving classes and paragliding classes, but I still hated it. I typically wake up at 9:00 am, but I don't function very well until around 10:00 am. I think the early morning wake-up time (5:00 am for the paragliding classes) was a contributing factor in one of the other paragliding students running into me, collapsing both our wings, and sending us 150 to 200 feet into the ground. Fortunately, neither of us died, but I shattered one of my vertebrae and she shattered her pelvis. Not worth it.
- innocentoldguy 4y ago
  I should mention that paragliding can only safely be done in the early morning or in the evening. The wind gets too choppy during the day, making it a lot more dangerous. For me, evening lessons would have been a much better option than early morning lessons. Had I opted for that, I may still be doing it and wouldn't have had to deal with a multi-year recovery, multiple operations, and chronic pain today. Lesson learned, I guess.
- TeMPOraL 4y ago
  Reminds me of my early-morning driving lessons. No matter how much I prioritized being rested for them, on the morning drives my attention was always 60%+ focused on just not falling asleep. Several times I had a situation when I would suddenly realize I've been asleep for the past 5+ seconds - while going down a road at 100km/h. The fear of this resulting in an actual accident is a major factor why, after random life circumstances interrupted my learning, I haven't pursued that license again.
tayo42 4y ago
One of the more interesting things I had happen to me while being unemployed was I actually liked waking up relatively early. I'm was always a "nightowl". now I had the feeling that the whole day was mine and I wanted the most from it. Before I'd stay in bed pretty much to the last minute
nickstinemates 4y ago
> Night time is equated with freedom The tagline and part of what is explored in a Fall anime - Call of the Night. Was really good, highly recommend

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.

derefr 4y ago
But you don’t spend those hours before work with the inevitability of what you’ll have to deal with at work in just a few hours weighing on your mind? Personally I find evenings a bit different, in that I’m sufficiently worn out mentally from the day that I no longer can think (productively) about work — and so the worries of the upcoming day are temporarily shelved for lack of practical progress to be made on them. Through no particular mental effort on my part, it is easy to relax in the evenings. But in the mornings, I’m fresh enough that that doesn’t work. I can, through an act of willpower and mindfulness, intentionally forget that work is a thing I’ll have to be doing in a few hours, and so just enjoy my mornings like you do — but this was a skill I learned, and I didn’t always have it; and moreover, I suspect it’s a skill many people never develop.
- abcc8 4y ago
  Yes and no. I enjoy getting personal tasks done in the morning before work, especially those that require a sharp mind. Like you mentioned, I feel worn out mentally and the end of the day, though I find I'm happier and more productive overall if I save a few sharp-minded hours in the early morning for myself.
- matwood 4y ago
  Work is one of many things I do, and I never feel the need to forget it exists. Dealing with it is inevitable whether it's right before bed or right when I wake up. For me, relaxation comes from doing other things like reading, working out, jiu-jitsu, watching a show, etc... I am sharpest in the morning, and every day gives me a new opportunity on where to apply myself when I'm at my best.

6510 4y ago

I know people who really need to get up early because the morning is their most productive part of the day by a really huge margin. They start yawning around 1-2 pm to really drive the point home. Their circadian rhythm seems heavily stacked towards the early game. I work night shifts, some of the early birds are insanely dumb after 3 am, insanely dumb compared to who they are the rest of the day. I see one student of higher education put down his a tool and turn around for 3 seconds then panic wondering where they put it. Not one time! I see him do that hundreds of times. I keep a mental map of where I see him put stuff so that I can remind him or answer when asked. They had plenty of rest, they work hard. It's supper funny to me because I'm a bit like that before 11 am. I'm physically there, if someone asks me to do something my mind makes a raw audio recording of it that I often revisit later to parse out what it was they actually said. In school I've aced tests with 100% questions I consciously knew nothing about. You have to picture it, its hilarious, I read a question about a topic I've never seen before, 5 seconds later I apparently know the answer to the question. I know the difference in file format, recalling unparsed information comes with a lot of irrelevant data about the moment the teacher explained the topic. After 1 pm I only retain the relevant parts, those files contain almost no information about when I learned it, their attachments are my own thoughts. Of course at times I have to condition myself for morning productivity, I can for example get up at 4 am if I need my brain at 9:00. I can go to bed early, at exactly the same time, rest the body/eyes and think about life for a few hours. It works but it feels wrong, it screams wrong. I did a hilarious experiment one time where I went to bed at 17:30 straight after work and set the alarm at 1 am. It felt perfect but had negative social implications. Maybe its a cool idea for a startup. It seems one hell of a perk from my perspective.

macNchz 4y ago

There may be a kernel of truth to this, but–as a lifelong nightowl who got in the habit of going for morning runs several years ago–I‘ve never been able to wake up as easily as I can stay up. I love the feeling of running early in the morning as the city wakes up around me. I get a lot of the same enjoyment as when I stay up late at night, but I still haven’t been able to maintain a habit of truly early runs. These days I sleep roughly midnight to 8am, and could very easily stay up til 4am if I were to want to, but shifting the other direction and waking up at 5 or 6am to run is super difficult. I can do it for a few days but have never made it stick. Running at 8 or 9am is still nice but not quite the same.

nonethewiser 4y ago
> I‘ve never been able to wake up as easily as I can stay up. Is that even quantifiable? Maybe you can stay up till 2 but not wake up by 7. But 2 and 7 nor any other pair are equivalent so I don’t see how you could make that comparison.

pbhjpbhj 4y ago

>> Maybe it was just a fluke or something > Night time is equated with freedom I'm middle-aged. I think my testosterone-levels are falling (sex-drive diminishing, at least). Paired with that I've had less depression [desire a season of grief]. But also I've had periods of morning wakefulness. Someone said downthread "you've just aged". Seems to me, on n=1, like I'm transitioning in my sleepy times. I'm getting up early (for periods of days/weeks at a time), but it's the 'waking and feeling wakeful' that is driving it. On the flipside, I get super-sleepy after lunch. If the drive to get solitude were the cause, then night-time provides that still in my home, despite me finding myself drawn towards being an early-bird (but still only for short periods of a few days to a few weeks, so far). Of course I could just have a brain tumour, but it would be interesting to see some broad studies on sleep pattern changes in middle-age?

fwungy 4y ago
Try eating a light meal at lunch if you want to stay awake. Digestion is energetically demanding and causes fluctuations in your blood sugar.
- pbhjpbhj 4y ago
  Yes, I've always had a postprandial dip in energy levels, but I do only have a light lunch.

innocentoldguy 4y ago

I tried this with scuba diving classes and paragliding classes, but I still hated it. I typically wake up at 9:00 am, but I don't function very well until around 10:00 am. I think the early morning wake-up time (5:00 am for the paragliding classes) was a contributing factor in one of the other paragliding students running into me, collapsing both our wings, and sending us 150 to 200 feet into the ground. Fortunately, neither of us died, but I shattered one of my vertebrae and she shattered her pelvis. Not worth it.

innocentoldguy 4y ago
I should mention that paragliding can only safely be done in the early morning or in the evening. The wind gets too choppy during the day, making it a lot more dangerous. For me, evening lessons would have been a much better option than early morning lessons. Had I opted for that, I may still be doing it and wouldn't have had to deal with a multi-year recovery, multiple operations, and chronic pain today. Lesson learned, I guess.
TeMPOraL 4y ago
Reminds me of my early-morning driving lessons. No matter how much I prioritized being rested for them, on the morning drives my attention was always 60%+ focused on just not falling asleep. Several times I had a situation when I would suddenly realize I've been asleep for the past 5+ seconds - while going down a road at 100km/h. The fear of this resulting in an actual accident is a major factor why, after random life circumstances interrupted my learning, I haven't pursued that license again.

tayo42 4y ago

One of the more interesting things I had happen to me while being unemployed was I actually liked waking up relatively early. I'm was always a "nightowl". now I had the feeling that the whole day was mine and I wanted the most from it. Before I'd stay in bed pretty much to the last minute

nickstinemates 4y ago

> Night time is equated with freedom The tagline and part of what is explored in a Fall anime - Call of the Night. Was really good, highly recommend