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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

#231

Post by hanche »

nkrisc wrote: post #124
tzs wrote: post #98

I accidentally shifted from mostly night to mostly day, by starting to sleep with my curtains open. I sleep in a room with a large south facing window right near me, and a good sized east facing window not too far away. I found that this resulted in my naturally waking up refreshed near sunrise. I also found that I started doing segmented sleep [1], as was common in pre-industrial times. As with getting up near sunri…

I was never a night owl but I've found that allowing the sun to naturally wake me leaves me much more rested and refreshed in the morning. Sure there's those "sunrise lamps", but nothing compares to the real thing. Go to bed with your blinds open or get ones that are translucent.

At my latitude, that’s excellent advice – for a few weeks each spring and fall. The rest of the year, the day is either too long or too short.

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

#232

Post by fxtentacle »

My impression is that people who stay up late and sleep late are more productive, while people who get up early are more social and/or do more planning work.

Is anyone aware of scientific research that looked into the possibility of awaking early vs. awaking late being different, but equally useful evolutionary strategies?

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

#233

Post by dota_fanatic »

cj wrote: post #176
dota_fanatic wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only thing I can recommend that's helped me significantly in a rigorous way is tracking HRV overnight (heart rate variability). This is an objective indirect measure of HPA axis activity (parasympathetic vs sympathetic nervous systems). Having that data to form a feedback loop is priceless in helping you determine what things you're doing in the day that is actually having an effect on your stress levels one way…

> Having that data to form a feedback loop is priceless I'm surprised to hear this, although I'm glad it works for you. I wear an Apple Watch Series 3 night and day, which reports HRV. I've found it to be pretty difficult to draw conclusions from since the measurement stays pretty much the same even when significantly changing lifestyle/habits. Over the past year I have went pure vegan (went down 15% body weight), we…

That is interesting. I haven't used any of the Apple watches so I can't speak to the effectiveness of its HRV calculations for me. One of the Oura C-level guys spoke in a podcast that doing those kinds of calculations isn't as reliable because of differences in vascularity / fit on the wrist vs a finger but who knows how true that is. Maybe it's true only for the existing monitoring tech?

I've seen my average vary from 10-50 and HRV max from 50-140 depending on sickness, exercise routine, hydration, drug use, etc. The quality of that average is interesting to observe as well, ie two nights' average of 40 can look very different depending on the peaks and valleys.

It is challenging though to suss out what effects various things have. It requires a whole lot of normality in my lifestyle so as to limit the number of variables as best I can.

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

#234

Post by mindcrime »

antisthenes wrote: post #210
sparkie wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I'm sorry, but people who claim "they've made the switch" just don't get it. You don't really make a switch from being a night owl. I thought I'd made switches multiple times too: * Taking early classes in college * Deliberately cooling myself down and going to bed super early * Getting a puppy that forced me to wake up super early Every single method regressed to night-owl schedule within 2 months. Not to mention my…

I'm sorry, but people who claim "they've made the switch" just don't get it.

Agreed. At 46, and having been a night-owl pretty much my entire life, I'm skeptical that you can just "switch" to another mode. Maybe you can, through very conscious and focused effort, manage to adapt to what appears to be a "morning person" lifestyle; but I suspect that people who do that are ultimately just faking it.

That said, I've never looked at being a night-owl as something that needed to be "fixed" or something that I'd want to change.

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

#235

Post by jedberg »

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…

Do not have a child to solve this issue. It won't work.

My wife and I are both night owls, but having kids just makes it worse. We still go to bed at 2am, but now we have to get up at 7 to get them ready for school. Then every third night or so we crash out around 10:30.

It's a horrible way to live.

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

#236

Post by outworlder »

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…

> EDIT: Based on the comments here, I just need to have a kid.

Don't. If you haven't figured out your sleep issues, having a kid will make them way worse.

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

#237

Post by jodrellblank »

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..

"You could have a proper sleep schedule if you could hold yourself to a proper sleep schedule" doesn't seem to usefully explain or add anything. Surely the people with poor discipline lack exactly that which they need to build discipline?

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

#238

Post by Relys »

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…

Yes, that theory is actually talked about in the book "Why We Sleep" which is mentioned in the comment you are responding too.

"Why We Sleep" and "The Body Keeps the Score" are two of the most helpful books I've ever read (and both found by reading HN book suggestions).

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

#239

Post by jodrellblank »

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.

"Anyone who is cured, was never really ill" seems a position full of problems; is that really what you're saying?

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

#240

Post by pengaru »

nefitty wrote: post #222
pengaru wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, I would stay up for 2-3 days straight and it'd end with just a longish ~12 hour sleep, often leaving me with a sleep cycle randomly out of phase with the rest of the world to boot. The stuff I've read about sleep being when your brain bathes itself in spinal fluid convinced me this was probably not a good long-term strategy for preserving cognitive health.

I’m stuck in a loop like this right now. I’ve been getting an average of less than 3 hours of sleep per night on weekdays for a few months now. On the weekends, when I don’t have strict external obligations, I sleep 8-10 hrs. I’m really scared that I’m going to cause myself to develop early onset Alzheimer’s or something. Even then, that fear looms nowhere as large as the anxiety of going to bed before 1am. Maybe it’…

If it's an existential thing, and, judging from your description, perhaps a hint of paranoia, then I'd be a bit optimistic about overcoming it with either some regular meditation/mindful introspection or maybe therapy.

It'd be nice if we understood the actual causes of things like dementia and alzheimers so we could make better informed decisions regarding behaviors like sleep deprivation. Even if we couldn't cure those conditions, just understanding something like "it's 50% more likely you'll lose your mind if you don't sleep 8 hours most nights" would be super useful.

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