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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

#321

Post by bigbaguette »

Non24Throw wrote: post #318
bigbaguette wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same when I go camping in a natural reserve, without electricity: daylight is the sleep governor and it's incredibly effective and effortless, without even a sensation of jetlag. But it's not the place for cerebral activity, where things works best after hours. I guess in the end it's a matter of performing well under distractions or not. I often found that the reason for late night performance was due to the lack of…

I had a similar outlook, I thought I could only code productively during hours where other people weren’t working and I knew I wouldn’t be bothered. But I started exercising during the pilgrim days, mornings, and the habit stuck but now I do evenings. I feel most productive now between 8am-noon, even with people around. There was a job change too though, so can’t guarantee it was the exercise that changed things. Exe…

Thanks for the recommendation. One thing for sure is that exercise if a massive factor considering the time we spend sitting still in front of screens. Our bodies aren't meant for that.

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

#322

Post by forgotmypw16 »

jachee wrote: post #319
forgotmypw16 wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no better time to write or code than late at night, in my opinion. I don't stay up until morning every night, but some. I have switched away from routinized, schedule-based sleeping, and towards going to sleep when I am tired, waking up when I'm ready, and listening to my body for what it wants. When it's cold, gray, rainy, short days, I sleep more on average. When the weather is warm and sunny, I sleep much…

How do you manage to afford such privileged luxury?

A talent for minimalism and camping experience.

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

#323

Post by nitrogen »

follower wrote: post #134
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…

If you haven't already, I strongly recommend consulting a competent sleep specialist. > FWIW my brain "wakes up" at night This suggests to me that researching Delayed Sleep Phase Syndrome might be helpful.

Some people have reported that taking 0.3mg melatonin five hours before desired bed time was helpful. Sort of imperfectly turned me from a 6AM-1PM sleep schedule to a 1AM-9AM, sometimes better, and when I stopped after a few months it was easier to stay closer to diurnal. But blue light filters (f.lux etc.), dimmable lights, and timed lighting were also necessary, and nothing is 100% sufficient.

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

#324

Post by IG_Semmelweiss »

Non24Throw wrote: post #96
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…

What you’re describing sounds similar to me years ago Then one day I moved to a house that had no internet, and we would have to wait a month to have satellite put in, and we had no smartphones After 20+ years of just thinking I had a sleeping disorder, losing internet access and living like a pilgrim caused my sleep schedule to naturally coincide with the setting and rising of the sun Without any deliberate effort f…

Agreed.

I did an accidental retreat by attempting to climb the Cotopaxi volcano, in Ecuador.

Lodged at "Secret Garden". They have tons of daily hikes and mountaneering trails that are bound to leave you ready to crash by 8pm. We are not big hikers, in fact we hike at most 3 times per year - but we found that the combination of peer pressure, adventure/adrenaline plus the need to do something kept us going on daily treks.

1-2 weeks of that and you could be forming a positive routine. At least you will be rested.

PD met an SRE from Netflix there. The successfully summitted the Cotopaxi. We did not try due to difficulty.

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

#325

Post by IG_Semmelweiss »

Non24Throw wrote: post #96
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…

What you’re describing sounds similar to me years ago Then one day I moved to a house that had no internet, and we would have to wait a month to have satellite put in, and we had no smartphones After 20+ years of just thinking I had a sleeping disorder, losing internet access and living like a pilgrim caused my sleep schedule to naturally coincide with the setting and rising of the sun Without any deliberate effort f…

Agreed.

I did an accidental retreat by attempting to climb the Cotopaxi volcano, in Ecuador.

Lodged at "Secret Garden". They have tons of daily hikes and mountaneering trails that are bound to leave you ready to crash by 8pm. We are not big hikers, in fact we hike at most 3 times per year - but we found that the combination of peer pressure, adventure/adrenaline plus the need to do something kept us going on daily treks.

1-2 weeks of that and you could be forming a positive routine. At least you will be rested.

PD met an SRE from Netflix there. He successfully summitted the Cotopaxi. We did not try due to difficulty.

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

#326

Post by nikofeyn »

avenger123 wrote: post #123
wpietri wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 don't have an elaborate setup as yours but I have found the most dramatic improvement by getting one of these: https://www.philips.ca/c-p/HF3670_60/smartsleep-connected-sl... It's a sunrise and sunset alarm clock. I wake up at 5:15 AM on a daily basis and 20 minutes before, the light starts with increasing brightness. At 5:08 AM, I have selected ocean waves for the sound and at 5:15 the loud alarm comes on. It's be…

my girlfriend got one of those, and i absolutely hate it. it wakes me up with light in a way that makes me feel bad. it honestly puts me in a bad mood immediately.

one thing i have noticed being a night owl is that even during periods where i am sleeping "normally" (i.e., early) and waking up moderately early is that i still hate the mornings. i could be making this up, but it feels quite inherent to me that i do not like the climate and sunlight in the morning. the climate transitions that happen at night and also the light at twilight have always been extremely calming to me.

when i was younger, i would play basketball during the evenings and into the night. during the summer, i would also get up early and workout and practice, and it was always a complete slug, despite being well rested. the air and light just feels different for me in the mornings. also, when i wake up and immediately shower, like for a workday, it feels worse than when i sleep in on the weekends, am awake for an hour or two, and then shower.

i have no idea if that's really what's going on, but that's what it feels like to me.

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

#327

Post by kharak »

mFixman wrote: post #162
Arcsech wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

I need to rest an hour after work. Maybe one and half. Afterwards, energy is back. At least if I'm overall well rested. But even tired, a spark of energy in the late afternoon is garantied.

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

#328

Post by hetman »

I'm rather surprised to see this statement: "...our planet has operated on a 24-hour clock for the entire span of evolutionary time".

My understanding is that during the Cambrian, the day was less than 23 hours long. At the emergence of the first eukaryotes it was 21 hours. Much shorter still when life first appeared.

That makes the uniformity of this protein across the major branches of life quite fascinating.

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

#329

Post by inertiatic »

mmcgaha wrote: post #54
inertiatic wrote: post #21

I've been a night owl all my life. Now I wake up by 7 before my alarm even rings. All it took was getting into the habit of trying to get a little person to sleep by 10 in the evening and falling asleep with them. I'm still at my most productive at the end of the working day however and early morning is still not great.

Although I wake up for work every day and live the early bird schedule, I am a night owl. Every so often my body will reject the schedule and I wake up between midnight and 1:00AM. Of course I am sleepy by sunrise but I have to push through the day to get back on schedule.

Yeah sure, this happens to me as well. I just woke up at 3:30 today, squeezed a few oranges and played the guitar for an hour like it was the middle of the day. And if for some reason I'm home alone for more than a couple of few days I'll revert to my schedule of sleeping early in the morning.

But my point still stands, I can adhere to my new schedule pretty effortlessly when the situation is right. Which makes me personally question how much of being a night person is nurture.

Most of the night persons I've encountered have a pretty consistent schedule of staying up at night, which isn't what should be happening if they fit the profile of the kind of person that the linked study examines. A person like that should have, when situations allow, no schedule because they function on a non-24-hour cycle.

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

#330

Post by pergadad »

balfirevic wrote: post #192
follower wrote: post #126

To interject some science into the anecdotes, if the timing of your sleep impacts your daily life (i.e. you may have a "sleep disorder") the following may be of interest: * General category of "Circadian rhythm sleep disorders": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circadian_rhythm_sleep_disorde... * "Night owl" a.k.a. "Delayed sleep phase disorder" (often related to teens & adults) : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delayed_s…

> Additionally, interactions between sleep disorders & ADHD/ADD mean that aids such as supplementary Melatonin need to be taken at different times and/or e.g. smaller doses. Do you have more information or links about the interaction between ADHD and sleep phase disorders (specifically non 24-hour sleep-wake disorder), as it relates to melatonin?

I doubt the guy citing random Wikipedia articles is an expert on the issue, but there are some references at the bottom of the Wikipedia page.
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