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Counter-anecdote: I also tried to shift from my extreme night owl schedule to something more reasonable, particularly due to social reasons. I struggled with it
by weland 13y ago
Counter-anecdote: I also tried to shift from my extreme night owl schedule to something more reasonable, particularly due to social reasons. I struggled with it for four years -- including dietary change, workouts and alcohol abstinence, and eventually gave up.
I managed to get myself into the lark schedule three or four times for various periods of time (2-3 weeks minimum, about 6-7 months in the longest streak) but it took a lot of energy to keep myself there. I had to get up very early even during weekends, and push myself to go to sleep around 10 PM, because a single hour off my regular sleep hour was enough to kick my schedule into chaos again. I wasn't drowsy during the day, but I wasn't too productive, nor too energetic, either, and overall my productivity plummeted.
I eventually gave it up. It reverted to more normal hours when I moved in with my girlfriend, who wakes up a bit earlier. Nowadays, I can typically wake up around 10:30 AM without an alarm (and would generally fall asleep around 4 AM), which is a lot better than before when, left to my own devices, I'd wake up around noon. During weekdays, I wake up around 08:30 (fortunately, my workplace is quite close to home -- it's a twenty minute walk); I need the alarm clock for that, but except for Fridays, I'm not too exhausted.
- MarcusVorenus 13y agoConsider sleeping with the curtains open, your circadian rhythm is sure to shift to a lark schedule then.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- Nursie 13y agoNonsense. As an owl I have no problem sleeping when it's light.
- MarcusVorenus 13y agoThere's research supporting my claim: http://www.boston.com/news/education/k_12/articles/2010/02/16/study_lack_of_early_light_upsets_teen_sleep_clock/ http://www.boston.com/news/education/k_12/articles/2010/02/1...
- Nursie 13y agoI'm 35, not exactly a teenager. The pilot study was published 3 years ago, comes to no firm conclusions and isn't yet backed up by a statistically significant study. What it certainly does not say is that people who have had an owl pattern long beyond adolescence can be cured by leaving the curtains open.
- weland 13y agoI used to, exactly for this reason. I otherwise have a fair deal of aversion to light (the first sunny days of spring are unbearable to me without sunglasses), but I tried to make sure there's plenty of light for me in the morning, as I knew it could have an impact over my circadian rhythm. Unfortunately, all that did was hurt my eyes when I woke up :-).