3 ms·

Do you, perhaps subconsciously, prefer the night hours to the day? Can you hypothesize why?

by Camillo 12y ago

VLM 12y ago
When you have kids, you'll understand. I do my best engineering after bedtime, not exactly voluntarily. (edited to add, and after they are old enough for school) I suppose for people who aren't "into" computers, they'll do whatever floats their boat after kids bedtime.
MichaelCrawford 12y ago
Have a look at http://www.circadiandisorders.org/ http://www.circadiandisorders.org/ I do indeed prefer the night hours, however I am often up during the day. I enjoy the mornings, but only when I've been up all night. I don't enjoy the morning if I've slept then gotten up early. I'm pretty sure I have quite an advanced case of Delayed Sleep Phase Syndrome. DSPS is an endocrine condition that has to do with when the pineal gland secretes melatonin, or does not. Melatonin production is cyclic, with the cycle being mostly but not all the way synchronized by exposure to light. In my case my sleeping and waking hours are so irregular that I may actually have "free-running non-24-hour delayed sleep phase syndrome". However that particular kind is thought to occur only among those who are profoundly blind. Most blind people can sense the presence or absence of light, but a very few have no perception of it at all. My preference for the night, I expect, has mostly to do with it being the time that I have the most peace of mind. There is something about daylight that makes me anxious. I can't really explain why.
- dogma1138 12y ago
  Eh? The clinical classification for the majority of blind people(clinical blindness not legal blindness) is NLP which stands for NO LIGHT PERCEPTION. I also find this whole syndrome a bit funny, i sometimes flip my day also you know why? because i can send the GF to bed and watch my shit in peace then realize it's 4am and sleep till 11-12 (after programming the mail client to send couple of emails in the morning as in pretending to be working from home). Besides being lazy and a bit of a bad boyfriend i don't really see this as a clinical syndrome.
  - DanBC 12y ago
    People can sense some light using their skin, which the prompts production of vitamin D and melanin.
    - dogma1138 12y ago
      Thats nonsense melanin and vitamin D production is not promoted by exposure to "light". Melanogenesis happens when skin cells are exposed to UV light which the human eye cannot see in the first place. UV light exposure only happens when you are outside as glass blocks UV light. This is like saying blind people can see light because they can feel the warmth of the sun. Even if blind people could sense melanin being generated (which they obviously can't) you would have to expose them to so much UV light that they will feel it by being burnt and not by sensing it on some mystical cellular level. And Vitamin D? that's even more far fetched than the melanin theory... Some clinically blind people with no eye damage do maintain the ability to distinguish between light and dark, that's due to certain cells in the cornea which are light sensitive and still maintain a neural connection to the brain. People who are legally blind say a really bad case of cataract sill have light vision and usually can identify shapes and see a very very blurry and narrow image of their environment but those are not clinically blind.
- Camillo 12y ago
  > My preference for the night, I expect, has mostly to do with it being the time that I have the most peace of mind. There is something about daylight that makes me anxious. I can't really explain why. This is what I expected, actually. At night you know that nothing is going to happen, nobody is going to call, and nobody is waiting for you to do anything, because they are sleeping. I wonder if this connection between anxiety and sleep patterns has been explored; not the usual "anxiety keeps you up at night", where you're lying in bed worrying, but "anxiety makes you want to stay up at night", where you're staying up and finally relaxing.
dionidium 12y ago
I have at various times in my life enjoyed an unrestricted schedule and each time reverted to a just-before-dawn bedtime. This preference is an enormous factor in my daily life, since, obviously, such an arrangement is impossible in most careers. So I'm never, ever tired when I should be, frequently sleepy when it's inconvenient, and always, always, always, fighting against my body's inclinations.

Do you, perhaps subconsciously, prefer the night hours to the day? Can you hypothesize why?

by Camillo 12y ago

Do you, perhaps subconsciously, prefer the night hours to the day? Can you hypothesize why?

VLM 12y ago

When you have kids, you'll understand. I do my best engineering after bedtime, not exactly voluntarily. (edited to add, and after they are old enough for school) I suppose for people who aren't "into" computers, they'll do whatever floats their boat after kids bedtime.

MichaelCrawford 12y ago

Have a look at http://www.circadiandisorders.org/ http://www.circadiandisorders.org/ I do indeed prefer the night hours, however I am often up during the day. I enjoy the mornings, but only when I've been up all night. I don't enjoy the morning if I've slept then gotten up early. I'm pretty sure I have quite an advanced case of Delayed Sleep Phase Syndrome. DSPS is an endocrine condition that has to do with when the pineal gland secretes melatonin, or does not. Melatonin production is cyclic, with the cycle being mostly but not all the way synchronized by exposure to light. In my case my sleeping and waking hours are so irregular that I may actually have "free-running non-24-hour delayed sleep phase syndrome". However that particular kind is thought to occur only among those who are profoundly blind. Most blind people can sense the presence or absence of light, but a very few have no perception of it at all. My preference for the night, I expect, has mostly to do with it being the time that I have the most peace of mind. There is something about daylight that makes me anxious. I can't really explain why.

dogma1138 12y ago
Eh? The clinical classification for the majority of blind people(clinical blindness not legal blindness) is NLP which stands for NO LIGHT PERCEPTION. I also find this whole syndrome a bit funny, i sometimes flip my day also you know why? because i can send the GF to bed and watch my shit in peace then realize it's 4am and sleep till 11-12 (after programming the mail client to send couple of emails in the morning as in pretending to be working from home). Besides being lazy and a bit of a bad boyfriend i don't really see this as a clinical syndrome.
- DanBC 12y ago
  People can sense some light using their skin, which the prompts production of vitamin D and melanin.
  - dogma1138 12y ago
    Thats nonsense melanin and vitamin D production is not promoted by exposure to "light". Melanogenesis happens when skin cells are exposed to UV light which the human eye cannot see in the first place. UV light exposure only happens when you are outside as glass blocks UV light. This is like saying blind people can see light because they can feel the warmth of the sun. Even if blind people could sense melanin being generated (which they obviously can't) you would have to expose them to so much UV light that they will feel it by being burnt and not by sensing it on some mystical cellular level. And Vitamin D? that's even more far fetched than the melanin theory... Some clinically blind people with no eye damage do maintain the ability to distinguish between light and dark, that's due to certain cells in the cornea which are light sensitive and still maintain a neural connection to the brain. People who are legally blind say a really bad case of cataract sill have light vision and usually can identify shapes and see a very very blurry and narrow image of their environment but those are not clinically blind.
Camillo 12y ago
> My preference for the night, I expect, has mostly to do with it being the time that I have the most peace of mind. There is something about daylight that makes me anxious. I can't really explain why. This is what I expected, actually. At night you know that nothing is going to happen, nobody is going to call, and nobody is waiting for you to do anything, because they are sleeping. I wonder if this connection between anxiety and sleep patterns has been explored; not the usual "anxiety keeps you up at night", where you're lying in bed worrying, but "anxiety makes you want to stay up at night", where you're staying up and finally relaxing.

dionidium 12y ago

I have at various times in my life enjoyed an unrestricted schedule and each time reverted to a just-before-dawn bedtime. This preference is an enormous factor in my daily life, since, obviously, such an arrangement is impossible in most careers. So I'm never, ever tired when I should be, frequently sleepy when it's inconvenient, and always, always, always, fighting against my body's inclinations.