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An anecdote, but I used to be a night owl. Like you, I had trouble falling asleep in the evening and then getting up in the morning. Now in my thirties, it tur

An anecdote, but I used to be a night owl. Like you, I had trouble falling asleep in the evening and then getting up in the morning. Now in my thirties, it turned around. I fall dead asleep at 9-10 PM and wake up at 4-5 AM, not being able to sleep further. The change coincides with me getting kids, but I don't think it alone can explain this.

PaulRobinson 2y ago
It can definitely change over time. In my 30s I went from wanting to stay up until 2am or later, and getting up at 9-10am, to wanting to be asleep by 10pm and getting up before 6am, every day of the week, including weekends - staying out late socialising is now weirdly hard work, and I'm basically done with work by 4:30-5pm and ready to start winding down. I don't have kids, something just flipped over the course of a year or two.
- seba_dos1 2y ago
  I'm flipping regularly, every month or two. All you need is lack of constant schedule and ADHD; suddenly days start to be longer than 24h and you can't just go to bed earlier (well, you can, but you'll just lay there awake for hours). For a while I had one meeting each week at work and free rein otherwise - so sometimes I was waking up early for it, and sometimes went to bed late because of it. I've noticed that when I'm flipped to be awake in early morning, I get tired really fast. It's like a cutoff hour - I have missed some concerts just because they started at 7-8 PM which was around bed time for me at the time. When I'm in the evening/night mode, I can be much more flexible. It seems much harder to flip out of morning mode than to flip into it, even though I really don't like how I'm feeling across the day. It requires conscious effort to beat the cutoff, while flipping out of evening mode just happens on its own eventually if I'm not careful enough. I was never a morning person whenever I had to follow a schedule.
  - PaulRobinson 2y ago
    I think structuring days can help. I often am up at 6am with nothing to do for hours on end (it's a Sunday, my partner is not getting up until 10am, so I guess it's reading time or going for a walk time...?), but what I've found helps is marking blocks out in my calendar and then getting a reminder what its time to do. Some weekdays at a certain time, it's time to go for a run. Saturday afternoons are side projects or spending time doing something with friends and family. Weekday evenings have a broad pattern to them (you won't see me in a cinema on a Friday night, or in the pub on a Monday...) This structure seems to help regulate a ton of stuff, including eating, sleeping and so on. Some people "don't like routine", which I get, but you can basically block out sleep (plus an hour either side), and then riff in the middle, the key is try and get your head down around the same time, 7 nights a week, and try and learn the military sleep method [1] to get some consistency if you need it. Good luck with settling it down, if that's what you want/need! [1] https://www.dreams.co.uk/sleep-matters-club/what-is-the-military-sleep-method https://www.dreams.co.uk/sleep-matters-club/what-is-the-mili...
vundercind 2y ago
Kids actually helped me, too. Strangest thing. But only (any one of) three things have proven to reliably get me all the way to being able to sleep like a normal person every day (while sustained): 1) Being totally exhausted by my day. This requires a lot of physical activity. Basically impossible on a work day or if I have significant amounts of anything not-very-active to do. I rarely achieve this one on except on vacation. 2) Zero electronics, including electric lights, after sundown (or at least for a full two or more hours before I want to be asleep). 3) 5mg of weed gummy Only the third one is compatible with normal modern life with an office job.
tensor 2y ago
Oh yeah, I've improved over time for sure. Right now I need those extra two hours, when I was younger I'd roll around for 4-5h at times. In high school I routinely slept through my morning classes (in class), and in university I just stopped taking classes before noon. Now I can almost do a 9-5 if I get up at 9 to be at work for 10. It's a vast improvement!

PaulRobinson 2y ago

It can definitely change over time. In my 30s I went from wanting to stay up until 2am or later, and getting up at 9-10am, to wanting to be asleep by 10pm and getting up before 6am, every day of the week, including weekends - staying out late socialising is now weirdly hard work, and I'm basically done with work by 4:30-5pm and ready to start winding down. I don't have kids, something just flipped over the course of a year or two.

seba_dos1 2y ago
I'm flipping regularly, every month or two. All you need is lack of constant schedule and ADHD; suddenly days start to be longer than 24h and you can't just go to bed earlier (well, you can, but you'll just lay there awake for hours). For a while I had one meeting each week at work and free rein otherwise - so sometimes I was waking up early for it, and sometimes went to bed late because of it. I've noticed that when I'm flipped to be awake in early morning, I get tired really fast. It's like a cutoff hour - I have missed some concerts just because they started at 7-8 PM which was around bed time for me at the time. When I'm in the evening/night mode, I can be much more flexible. It seems much harder to flip out of morning mode than to flip into it, even though I really don't like how I'm feeling across the day. It requires conscious effort to beat the cutoff, while flipping out of evening mode just happens on its own eventually if I'm not careful enough. I was never a morning person whenever I had to follow a schedule.
- PaulRobinson 2y ago
  I think structuring days can help. I often am up at 6am with nothing to do for hours on end (it's a Sunday, my partner is not getting up until 10am, so I guess it's reading time or going for a walk time...?), but what I've found helps is marking blocks out in my calendar and then getting a reminder what its time to do. Some weekdays at a certain time, it's time to go for a run. Saturday afternoons are side projects or spending time doing something with friends and family. Weekday evenings have a broad pattern to them (you won't see me in a cinema on a Friday night, or in the pub on a Monday...) This structure seems to help regulate a ton of stuff, including eating, sleeping and so on. Some people "don't like routine", which I get, but you can basically block out sleep (plus an hour either side), and then riff in the middle, the key is try and get your head down around the same time, 7 nights a week, and try and learn the military sleep method [1] to get some consistency if you need it. Good luck with settling it down, if that's what you want/need! [1] https://www.dreams.co.uk/sleep-matters-club/what-is-the-military-sleep-method https://www.dreams.co.uk/sleep-matters-club/what-is-the-mili...

vundercind 2y ago

Kids actually helped me, too. Strangest thing. But only (any one of) three things have proven to reliably get me all the way to being able to sleep like a normal person every day (while sustained): 1) Being totally exhausted by my day. This requires a lot of physical activity. Basically impossible on a work day or if I have significant amounts of anything not-very-active to do. I rarely achieve this one on except on vacation. 2) Zero electronics, including electric lights, after sundown (or at least for a full two or more hours before I want to be asleep). 3) 5mg of weed gummy Only the third one is compatible with normal modern life with an office job.

tensor 2y ago

Oh yeah, I've improved over time for sure. Right now I need those extra two hours, when I was younger I'd roll around for 4-5h at times. In high school I routinely slept through my morning classes (in class), and in university I just stopped taking classes before noon. Now I can almost do a 9-5 if I get up at 9 to be at work for 10. It's a vast improvement!