Earlier quoted context omitted.
Just curious - what do your coffee consumption and exercise pattern look like?
I should add that even as a baby, I was awake all night and slept during the day.
I bet your parents loved that :)
How I became a morning person
111–120 of 151 posts
Re: How I became a morning person
#112I alternate between being a morning person and being a night owl. The cycle is a month to several months and usually the appearance of a contracting job is what forces me back into the 'day' rhythm. But my best stuff gets done at night, when it's totally quiet.
Re: How I became a morning person
#113I always roll my eyes a little bit when people say they get extra "free hours" by waking up earlier. In this case it works for the OP, because he has another motive, which is syncing his schedule with his wife so he can spend more time with her. But the extra hours don't come from nowhere... you need to compensate by losing a comparable amount of time at night. My waking hours are usually 10-11am until 2-5am. It's no…
For most people free productive early morning hours mean time when other people are disturbing them, which usually starts happening at 9 AM.
Re: How I became a morning person
#114To him a night owl is up till midnight. To me, midnight is super duper early. I struggle to sleep before 5am. At midnight I wake up and have been known to gut clean the entire house then. Even if i've been awake for over 24 hours i wake up at night. I cycle around my sleeping pattern often, i'll get up at 3am. I'll try and get it slowly to 5am wake up, then 7am - normal time. I can usually keep it there for about a w…
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Re: How I became a morning person
#115Earlier quoted context omitted.
Just curious - what do your coffee consumption and exercise pattern look like?
I should add that even as a baby, I was awake all night and slept during the day.
+1
I'm in my early 40's and have been a NO for as long as I can remember. To at least 5th-6th grade, and my mom (she too is a NO to some extent) tells me even before then I was up later than rest of house. Reading books/mags, a little late TV, etc. Needless to say, school was not easy for me.. ever. Elementary school wasn't so bad as I still got enough sleep, but junior high - HS was basically a half day for me as I was a zombie until lunch. Grades reflected it.
When I saw him say "midnight" and that was his concern, I was like, "Really"? That is like the near end of my prime time most alert. I too have been known to start mopping the house at that time or change the oil on my car, then go to gym after then come home and do some client work, work on my PC, etc. I have always felt most productive when I have my time when house goes to sleep and it is quiet. It is no different than the morning one early risers claim they have. That serenity. Just different time block.
The majority of people have no idea what it is like to be a NO. It is reflected negatively and many many times in my adult life have had to brush off the topic when it comes up in gatherings. Little jabs and stuff like "I have to go to gym at 6am tomorrow, hey you could give me a wake up call". Or stuff like "what do you DO all night"?. I really feel like it is looked upon as just being lazy or associated with deadbeats UNLESS you have a direct NEED to be a NO (your job is overnight shift for example). Even then, you are still considered odd because masses just don't associate success with the NO schedule and it is considered a rut to get out of. I guess it is true to some extent because how many 6-figure+ professions are there that are night-owl's?
I am very lucky to have a wife I have been with a long time and just rolls with it. She has not always been happy with my schedule and wants us more in-line, but overall it works. My son, now five, also makes it tough to continue being a NO. It was perfect first few years as my wife and I had whole day covered without either of us being zombies from lack of sleep, but now I just feel weird coming down at 11am when him and mom been up since 8am.
The best fix I have come across though is to just travel east for like 10 days and get up to that time zone. Then come home. When I go home for summer every year it is two hours later than where I live. Even sleeping in there till 10 is 8am where I live. Doing that for a week plus and when I come home, I can't keep my eyes open past midnight for few days. I could then stick with it but I just start to slowly revert. Or one diet coke too late and I blow past the midnight till 2am once and now am ruined again.
I sometimes do wish I was early person. Just for the conformity of it and the associated praise from others that I see all around me, as if it is something regarded as accomplishment. My wife sometimes gets up at 5:30am to run 6 miles and all of our friends "wow" her and tell her how awesome that is. If I were to tell them right after that I too ran 6 miles but it was at midnight, I just get a laugh like I am goof. Just not the same stigma. Benjamin Franklin's saying "early to bed..." still has powerful influence.
Re: How I became a morning person
#116The author comments, "We enjoy dark chocolate after dinner most nights, but I learned the hard way about its surprising caffeine content." It's worth noting that some people find (fortunately?) that caffeine does not disrupt their sleep. Caffeine's relationship to one's chronotype (and genotype and sleep quality) will hopefully receive more study, since it's becoming clear that not everyone needs to heed the "don't c…
Interesting. My personal experience is that I can usually 'choose' if coffee will make me be more awake or make me sleepy. I just wonder if it affects sleep/REM quality regardless.
Maybe there is a certain amount of the placebo effect for you in there. For me it does not disrupt my sleep, but it certainly makes me more awake.
Re: How I became a morning person
#117I've given up on this. A single late night will derail your schedule for a couple weeks (if you're being honest with yourself about how much sleep you need.)
Yes, you have to be rigorous. Or if you have a late night, compensate with a daytime nap
The best way to 'resync' for me is, is to just to skip the daytime nap and go to bed as usual. This works fairly well, but you are sleepy the whole day of course.
Re: How I became a morning person
#118I always find morning time more productive than late night, but you get the time pressure of having to finish soon (probably for work) compared to working at night where your sleep time is the only thing holding you back.
Re: How I became a morning person
#119Earlier quoted context omitted.
I have a similar sleeping pattern. Over time it tends to shift a couple hours. For instance, I slept from 9am until about 330PM today. By Tuesday it will likely be closer to 11am until 5 or 6pm. It will occasionally adjust itself to something more "normal" but never for more than a week before it starts rolling again. I work remotely and my wife is a bartender, so it's never much of a problem for me. When I interact…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-24-hour_sleep%E2%80%93wake...
That makes it sounds rarer and worse than it is. I think its more a choice than a medical disorder.
Its quite normal. If you work at home and have no family or other obligations that keeps you in sync, you tend to sleep in a bit longer than strictly necessary simply because you can. Naturally you go to bed later also. Now your day has become more than 24 hours. If you are allowed to do this every day, you get very out of sync with the rest of the world and occasionally line up with it again.
Re: How I became a morning person
#120Earlier quoted context omitted.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-24-hour_sleep%E2%80%93wake...
That makes it sounds rarer and worse than it is. I think its more a choice than a medical disorder. Its quite normal. If you work at home and have no family or other obligations that keeps you in sync, you tend to sleep in a bit longer than strictly necessary simply because you can. Naturally you go to bed later also. Now your day has become more than 24 hours. If you are allowed to do this every day, you get very ou…
I assure you, a circadium rhythm disorder is not a choice.
For some staying up late is a choice, it may be environmentally caused but for those with a disorder it's not. It's a problem from birth. I'm speaking more about delayed sleep phase syndrome though, I dont know much about non-24.