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Early riser or night owl? New study may help to explain the difference

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Re: Early riser or night owl? New study may help to explain the difference

#161

Post by zarmin »

archarios wrote: post #157
Raphmedia wrote: post #84

If you were able to "no longer be a night owl" after changing diet, through exercise or by other changes in your behavior, you were in fact never an actual night owl but simply someone with bad sleeping habits. You read the same thing whenever there's a discussion on clinical depression. People push their anecdotes about mindset changes but fail to acknowledge they were never clinically depressed in the first place.

I have a very hard time believing that this stuff has to do with anything other than having the discipline to have a proper sleep schedule. It's possible to adjust your sleep schedule. People do it all the time when they change timezones. I didn't read the article, I'll go read it and update if I change my mind..

Just to present another perspective: https://abc3340.com/news/local/adhd-and-your-circadian-rhyth...

Re: Early riser or night owl? New study may help to explain the difference

#162

Post by mFixman »

Arcsech wrote: post #143
mFixman wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had the exact opposite experience as you. I was a night owl my entire life until my last few years of college, when it got difficult. Then I was able to transition to being an early riser in a couple of weeks, and I carry that experience many years later. Waking up early does have a practical advantage: your free time is before you go to work, so then you have energy to do important things.

> Waking up early does have a practical advantage: your free time is before you go to work, so then you have energy to do important things. This doesn't make any sense to me. I have zero energy or drive in the morning, it's a struggle to do anything. My brain turns on at about 11am - I can be active before that, but serious creative work or figuring out something that requires mental effort is going to be much less e…

Doesn't work tire you down?

I'm not able to do anything productive after leaving my office.

Re: Early riser or night owl? New study may help to explain the difference

#163

Post by irrational »

I am the classic Night Owl. Left to my own devices I would stay up till 3-4am every night and sleep until noon. Unfortunately I have to be up at 5am Monday-Friday :-(

Fortunately I'm so exhausted from getting up at 5am that my body starts shutting down around 8pm.

Re: Early riser or night owl? New study may help to explain the difference

#164

Post by sparkie »

wpietri wrote: post #95
dijit wrote: post #39

I've been a night owl my whole life, with the exception of that period during secondary school where I was so depressed in the evenings I went to bed early and as a consequence woke up super early. I have followed every advice, meditation (1yr), excercise (3*1.5hrs per week for 18 months), staving off screens after 18:00 (8mo), no caffiene, no sugar, no food of any kind, I also tried: too much food, cooling my body d…

I made the switch. Not intentionally; it just kind of happened. I think there were a lot of things that made it work, like taking up running (in the mornings), avoiding stimulants, and good sleep hygiene. But the one that finally made the difference surprised me: it's that I'm not a responsible lightswitch user. I built an automated lighting system such that dawn in my house comes at 6 am and gets gradually brighter.…

I made the switch unintentionally too. I ended up with a job in logistics which required me in work at 0630, with a 30 min commute. Started going to bed earlier to try and maintain 6-8 hours sleep. Was working 13 hour days and pretty tired by the end of the day anyway.

I'm pretty sure the biggest change which made me an early riser was my diet though. I stopped drinking sugary drinks and cut out carbs almost entirely after midday. Diet is mostly meat, some dairy (but lactose intolerant). I only drink water or zero-sugar drinks after midday too. I drink Coffee as soon as I wake and only up to midday.

I no longer work the same job, but I still wake up around 0430 every day and do a couple of hours programming before I go to the gym for an hour, then have breakfast at 0800.

Also stopped watching TV before sleeping. When I do watch TV in bed I feel like shit in the morning. Now I turn off the screens around 2000 and am in bed by around 2200. I rarely watch any TV anyway, but still spend a large part of the day at the computer screen.

Re: Early riser or night owl? New study may help to explain the difference

#165

Post by [deleted] »

fluuuhi wrote: post #113
arcturus17 wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've done everything too, and the only thing that works for me is sleeping pills. I think it's a very unpopular view nowadays (esp. after Why We Sleep), but a small dose of a benzodiazepine changes my life completely. I'm in the midst of a full diagnostic course including cerebral scans, a sleep study and blood analysis, but my neurologist told me there's a good chance that nothing actionable will be revealed and tha…

I have thought about Benzos but to be honest, all the stories of addiction and old people becoming hazi/stupid (temporarily) frightens me. I try to sleep through weed (indica). I'm not to happy about it but that works more or less.

[deleted]

Re: Early riser or night owl? New study may help to explain the difference

#166

Post by bArray »

zarmin wrote: post #117
bArray wrote: post #114

Huh, I always woundered why I live a 28-30 hour day. My sleep schedule continuously drifts as a result - luckily I live a lifestyle where it's possible to get away with this. I did used to do a 9-to-5, but what ended up happening was that I slept less and struggled to keep in control over the weekends. Luckily the people I live with would wake me up (just by carrying out their own routines). These days I typically sl…

Out of curiosity, do you have ADHD?

I'm unsure, I certainly show the symptoms, but never got myself diagnosed as I was investigating the possibility of a military career. Thinking about it, quite a few of my family members also have ADHD.

Re: Early riser or night owl? New study may help to explain the difference

#167

Post by save_ferris »

follower wrote: post #153
save_ferris wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve struggled the exact same as the poster above, and I’ve been reading up on ADHD. It seems to fit so many issues I have, but I really don’t want to take stimulants, which seem to be the drug of choice for ADHD

> [...] I’ve been reading up on ADHD. It seems to fit so many issues I have [...] If you're feeling like that I strongly recommend that you consider consulting a competent medical professional with experience diagnosing ADHD/ADD and undergo an evaluation. While your concerns around pharmaceutical-based approaches to assisting people to live with the affects of executive function related disorders (such as ADHD/ADD) a…

Thank you so much for this, I really appreciate it.

Re: Early riser or night owl? New study may help to explain the difference

#168

Post by wahern »

Anthony-G wrote: post #128
arcturus17 wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've done everything too, and the only thing that works for me is sleeping pills. I think it's a very unpopular view nowadays (esp. after Why We Sleep), but a small dose of a benzodiazepine changes my life completely. I'm in the midst of a full diagnostic course including cerebral scans, a sleep study and blood analysis, but my neurologist told me there's a good chance that nothing actionable will be revealed and tha…

I’ve upvoted your comment but I would disagree with saying “ your clock is messed up ”. The OP’s clock is fine and acting as it it’s ‘programmed’ to. What’s messed up is the way society places a higher value on the circadian rhythms of early-risers over those of night owls. I recall hearing a theory that having individuals with differing circadian rhythms within the same social group provided an evolutionary advantag…

Group selection of any kind isn't an empirically supported evolutionary mechanism. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Group_selection, especially the Criticism section.

Re: Early riser or night owl? New study may help to explain the difference

#169

Post by gyrgtyn »

fluuuhi wrote: post #113
arcturus17 wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've done everything too, and the only thing that works for me is sleeping pills. I think it's a very unpopular view nowadays (esp. after Why We Sleep), but a small dose of a benzodiazepine changes my life completely. I'm in the midst of a full diagnostic course including cerebral scans, a sleep study and blood analysis, but my neurologist told me there's a good chance that nothing actionable will be revealed and tha…

I have thought about Benzos but to be honest, all the stories of addiction and old people becoming hazi/stupid (temporarily) frightens me. I try to sleep through weed (indica). I'm not to happy about it but that works more or less.

from that why we sleep podcast, weed sleep is pretty bad sleep. the withdrawals (not being able to sleep) are pretty bad too. not that i don't use it too. they said cbd might be better, but i haven't bothered.

Re: Early riser or night owl? New study may help to explain the difference

#170

Post by whywhywhywhy »

dijit wrote: post #39

I've been a night owl my whole life, with the exception of that period during secondary school where I was so depressed in the evenings I went to bed early and as a consequence woke up super early. I have followed every advice, meditation (1yr), excercise (3*1.5hrs per week for 18 months), staving off screens after 18:00 (8mo), no caffiene, no sugar, no food of any kind, I also tried: too much food, cooling my body d…

Had very similar experience myself, even had trouble sleeping as a kid still remember just laying there for hours and hours trying to sleep. Same as you describe, my brains very active in the night and I get great creative output in the early hours. Caused a lot of problems, almost got me fired on occasion and at times I have to do things that seem ridiculous just to fit into others schedules, if there is an important meeting, train or flight I have to catch 8 or 9 am I often just stay up all night just to make sure I get to it then sneak a nap in the afternoon or as soon as I get home. Went through a few weeks of all nighters after a warning at work about turning up late, my output was pretty shocking that week but hey at least I got in on time for the watch checker PM to be happy, that's all that matters right...

Just seemed absolutely effortless for everyone else to be sleep at a sensible time and turn up to work on time and here I am setting 30 (Not exaggerating) full volume alarms on my iPhone and a backup physical alarm elsewhere in the room and still sleeping through it all on occasion.

Really just thought I wasn't trying hard enough or maybe I should just get better at forcing myself to sleep until I came across Delayed Sleep Phase Disorder [1][2] which seems to describe it.

Honestly my only real solution has been finding a job where they're not fussed if you show up between 15-45 minutes late almost every day and my job starts at 10. Think if I were in a normal company it would really just be starting an egg timer until I happen to show up late too many times in a row to raise a red flag.

Advice intended to help normal people wont work if the system you're trying to affect isn't actually normal. That's the most frustrating part of all this and why people just think you're not trying hard enough or you're just a bit of a screw up who hasn't got their stuff together.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delayed_sleep_phase_disorder [2] https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2018/2/27/17058530/sl...

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