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What’s the rush? The power of a slow morning

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Re: What’s the rush? The power of a slow morning

#131

Post by extragood »

neivin wrote: post #125
Tiktaalik wrote: post #95

Yeah this is a core reason why a long driving commute is an absolute deal breaker for me and probably why I'll never end up working for a big corp in SF. In Vancouver I can wake up at 7am, go to the gym in my building or the nearby community centre, read, do some shores, have a lazy breakfast and still walk or take a short bike ride into work at 10am. I can't imagine throwing all that free time away just to sit in tr…

I live in SF and your Vancouver day is the same as my day here. I wake up at 7am, do my daily stretching routine, bike/ride the bus to work at around 7:30. I'm at work around 8:00 - 8:15. I have breakfast and work for 3ish hours. I go to the gym two blocks from my office building at lunch, shower, and then go on with the rest of my day.

Me too. The solution is to live close to work/easy transportation..

Re: What’s the rush? The power of a slow morning

#132

Post by JauntyHatAngle »

telchar wrote: post #114
war1025 wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I switched to a futon-style very firm mattress several years ago. Now any time we go out of town my back feels miserable in the morning. I honestly don't know why people subject themselves to the torture that is the modern box-spring mattress. I think people would have much less back issues if they spent the two weeks it takes to sleep on a firm surface. Its all about learning to actually distribute your weight acros…

That's great if you sleep on your back but side-sleepers aren't going to be happy on a hard mattress, the shoulder becomes a single point of contact with the bed. I'm not convinced that people accustomed to sleeping in one orientation can easily change to the other. Although I would be curious if anyone has anecdotes about that.

I've always been a side sleeper. (6"2, 175 pound, early 30s male).

Due to a random medical issue (which has since become much more manageable), I got bad chest pain from sleeping on my side.

Despite this, I absolutely couldn't get a good nights sleep on my back, despite months of having to to. I end up being awake until I fall asleep from exhaustion and then waking up again after a few hours. It caused a lot of other problems as I was only getting between 3-6 hours sleep for weeks.

Months later when my condition improved, I went back to side sleeping, and even when it was still causing me pain, I slept much, much better.

Just an anecdote and I'm sure people are unique for things like sleep, but my own personal experience is that it isn't easy to switch.

That said, I actually like a hard mattress despite being a side sleeper.

Re: What’s the rush? The power of a slow morning

#133

Post by lostdog »

asynchrony wrote: post #43

I was a lifelong night owl. Six months ago I decided to start going to the gym and meditating every morning in an effort to completely reprogram my habits. Now I look forward to the mornings and find myself going to bed as soon as I feel like I can sleep. I'm convinced that our behaviors are mostly determined by our habits, and we can freely change our habits with sufficient commitment.

I did the same thing and it didn't work for me. Curious how some people are different.

Re: What’s the rush? The power of a slow morning

#134

Post by tachyonbeam »

parliament32 wrote: post #127
dbingham wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I could never do this. Because even with really good sleep hygene and good early bedtime habits, the earliest I ever wake up is 6:30 am. And those are rare days. More often bedtime will slip to 10 pm or later and I will awake naturally between 8:30 am and 9:30 am. I'm just not a morning person, no matter what I do. And I'm a 9 hour+ sleeper, so I need those sleep hours.

> I’ve always figured out that there 24 hours a day. You sleep six hours and have 18 hours left. Now, I know there are some of you out there that say well, wait a minute Arnold, I sleep eight hours or nine hours. Well, then, just sleep faster, I would recommend. - Arnold Schwarzenegger

AFAIK it's pretty well established in the literature that some people naturally just need less sleep. We're not all made the same, we have different genes. There's this saying that humans have 99% identical DNA. What this fails to convey is that you and me probably have different versions of the majority of our individual genes (even though they might differ by just a single letter of DNA). In other words, genetic variation in the human population is huge, and it does have a measurable impact on sleep, stamina, personality, etc.

I don't want to sound like a biological determinist, but It's not all about willing yourself to do amazing things, there is some amount of biological reality we have to deal with as well. Consider that now olympic sprint runner prospects get tested to know if they have fast twitch muscle fibers [0], and if they don't, they basically can't compete, they're considered not worth training. For some reason, people like to imagine that things like sleep and motivation are different, they forget that the brain is a physical organ.

[0] https://www.irishtimes.com/news/science/what-makes-the-perfe...

Re: What’s the rush? The power of a slow morning

#135

Post by damontal »

emiranda wrote: post #25

I've been waking up at 5am for the past 5 months so I can head to the gym (my first telecom meeting starts at 7am). Because no one is ever going to bother me between 5am and 7am, I've been able to consistently got to the gym at least 3x per week (trying to bump it up to 5x per week for the new year). I started doing this because it was very difficult for me to consistently go to the gym after work. Things come up, I…

Whenever I wake up at 5 am and work out I wind up hitting a brick wall at about 10 am and have to take much more caffeine than usual to keep going.

Re: What’s the rush? The power of a slow morning

#136

Post by tachyonbeam »

throwanem wrote: post #10
vollmond wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For me at least (speaking hypothetically, since I haven't tried this), that seems like it would fly in the face of "get your work done so you can play without it hanging over your head." And it means that (if I have a fairly hard work start time) I am watching the clock the whole time I'm using discretionary time, whereas doing it after work means I can just go until I'm tired, without really worrying about the clock…

The work will be there either way. So I can choose to work first and come home worn out from that and then try to do things I care about, or instead to do things I care about first, that don't wear me out, and carry a sense of satisfaction and accomplishment with me to work. And, I mean, I'm not trying to finish a story before work - not from scratch, certainly. My current story is around 20k words right now, and it'…

I'd like to put my hobbies and fun things first, but, I'm a little afraid that my performance at work would suffer, because I'd have less energy when showing up to work, especially at the end of the day. I already often find it hard to remain productive after 3-4PM. I'm worried that if I got up earlier and worked on hobbies before going to work, I'd have even less productive energy to dedicate to my job, and my performance would slide a bit.

Re: What’s the rush? The power of a slow morning

#138

Post by flukus »

travisjungroth wrote: post #3
throwanem wrote: post #2

I can recommend the practice; for the last few years, I've gone to bed around 10pm every night, and gotten up at five before heading to work around nine. (Adjust to taste depending on your sleep needs; the important point is to give yourself a few hours to yourself in the morning.) In practice, this means moving discretionary time from last thing in the day to first thing, and I think there's great value in that. Aft…

I've heard repeatedly if you have some side project you really care about, do it before work, not after.

The most productive I've ever been on side projects was when I had an hour long commute via public transport. It was a solid hour with few options for other activities and very little distractions. The ride home was a second hour but I was usually burnt out by then.

Re: What’s the rush? The power of a slow morning

#139

Post by JeanMarcS »

telchar wrote: post #114
war1025 wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I switched to a futon-style very firm mattress several years ago. Now any time we go out of town my back feels miserable in the morning. I honestly don't know why people subject themselves to the torture that is the modern box-spring mattress. I think people would have much less back issues if they spent the two weeks it takes to sleep on a firm surface. Its all about learning to actually distribute your weight acros…

That's great if you sleep on your back but side-sleepers aren't going to be happy on a hard mattress, the shoulder becomes a single point of contact with the bed. I'm not convinced that people accustomed to sleeping in one orientation can easily change to the other. Although I would be curious if anyone has anecdotes about that.

Well I’m a near 50 overweight guy (yeah, I know...) and sleeping on the side (if I sleep on my back I snore like hell).

If I sleep on a too firm mattress, I confirm my shoulder starts to hurt during the night. When I’m sleeping, I can rest for several hours, even the whole night, without moving or changing side.

But on firm mattress I wake up several time during the night to change side.

About the orientation, it’s really strange, and I cannot explain why, but it depends. And I mean the side is VERY important, as I can’t fall asleep if I’m on the « wrong » side.

But it’s not always the same side. And sometimes it lasts for weeks or even month. And one day I switch for no reason I can find, because it’s impossible to fall asleep on the side I’ve spent weeks sleeping on.

Strange.

Re: What’s the rush? The power of a slow morning

#140

Post by jen729w »

lostdog wrote: post #130
jen729w wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay so hear me out here. You can change. It’s not hard. I am the owliest of owls. All my life, I’ve been up till 2am and struggled to get out of bed, snooze the alarm, last minute, dash through the shower, hurry to work, no time to think, sit down guiltily at 9:01am. I hated that morning rush but whatever, “that’s just who I am”. Now, I’m 42, so maybe age makes this easier. But my girlfriend is an early riser, and s…

Like a lot of well-meaning advice, this did not work for me. Getting up at 5am or 6am for a few weeks just means I feel tired all the time for a few weeks, and it just takes me a couple days to (gratefully) revert back to the night-owl schedule my body wants to keep. The scientific evidence keeps showing that there are many people who are more alert at night, but of course morning people and morning converts seem to…

No, I get it. It took me 40 years and like I say, maybe getting older itself has something to do with it. Also I 100% would not have done it without my partner, I needed someone to drag me along.

I do agree that the prevailing "earlier === better" mindset is harmful and should go away.

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