
Mornings Don't Make You Moral - weej
http://www.newyorker.com/science/maria-konnikova/moral-mornings
======
topkai22
I've often wondered if the east coast orientation of the United States affects
overall sleep patterns in the US. I know it does for me- I live on the west
coast and am regularly getting up for 5a conference calls with east coast
clients, despite being a profound night owl descended from multiple
generations of night owls. While I like my job, the schedule is physically
painful for me. I often dream that if the political and financial centers of
the US were on the west then east coasters would constantly be working till 7
or 8p at night, with early birds dropping like flies since they won't get back
to their house get in bed before 10p.

It really is tough being a night owl. No one makes fun of the person works
from 6-3p, but you might get fired in a lot of places you tried to set your
working schedule to 11p-8p. And what we do to our middle and high schoolers is
just wrong. I remember to catch the bus I had to be outside by 645a, which
meant waking up at 615a. Your average teenager's body doesn't want to wake up
before 8 or 9a!

BTW- If you're an early bird who thinks all of us night owls are lazy, please
read Internal Time ([http://www.amazon.com/Internal-Time-Chronotypes-Social-
Youre...](http://www.amazon.com/Internal-Time-Chronotypes-Social-
Youre/dp/0674065859)) and then cut us some slack. If you are night owl you
might want to pick it up to make you feel better :)

~~~
jdonaldson
Yep, here I am at 2am, feeling super guilty about being awake. I can generally
stick to a normal pattern of sleep for a week or so, but I eventually have one
evening come along where I end up staying up late. I tell myself it's out of
necessity for work or other catch-ups, but really it's just a natural
inclination.

The worst part about not being a morning person is the loss in communication
skills during critical morning meetings, etc. The parts of my brain
responsible for solid verbal/written skills are just not up to speed yet. Lots
of coffee turns me into a highly alert rambler. It's better than nothing I
guess.

~~~
dayone
> Lots of coffee turns me into a highly alert rambler.

not good for health if done daily.

------
analyst74
In many fields it's well known that sleep/wake up time determines when your
performances peak.

In top-flight soccer, players adjust their sleep and training schedule so
their body peak at afternoon matches in the weekend. And when they have out-
of-schedule matches, especially to another city with large time difference,
their performances drop.

I also remember reading a book by a successful negotiator, that he tries to
schedule the important meetings at 6PM, because morning people are generally
not as sharp at that time as they are in the morning, while he is still fully
functioning due to his late-rising habits.

The not so exciting conclusion: early-bird performs best in the morning to
early afternoon, late-riser performs best in the late afternoon to evening.

------
bryanlarsen
90% of Hacker News probably thinks they are night owls. Most (but definitely
not all) of you are wrong -- you're just young, over-caffeinated, over-exposed
to artificial light and / or adjusting because the fun stuff in life happens
in the evenings and at night.

I thought I was a night owl. I got fired once for showing up to start work at
closing time after being warned several times.

10 years later, I'm one of those people that wakes up at 5AM so they can go to
the gym before work.

What changed? I hit my forties, I cut out caffeine, I stopped using the
computer after 9PM, I got married & had kids, and I go out dancing 6 times a
year rather than 6 times a week.

Want to know if you're really a night owl without radical experiments like
cutting out caffeine? Ask your Mom if you slept in on Saturdays when you were
7 years old.

~~~
gharial
>What changed? I hit my forties

It's pretty well documented that people in your age group are generally early
risers and that people in young adulthood tend to be night owls. Getting older
and having your preference change is hardly an indication that you were "never
really" a certain way when you were younger.

I'm 20, don't drink caffeine or go out more than once or twice a month. Left
to my own devices, in a few weeks I'd be falling asleep around 10AM and waking
up at 5PM.

People are different. It doesn't mean they're wrong.

~~~
bryanlarsen
You're 20 years old, and you use computers after 9PM, I presume. Therefore the
time shifting you experience is perfectly normal, and is not necessarily
because you are a night owl.

~~~
gharial
You're presuming a bit too much there. I don't understand how you figure my
age factors into some sort of false transition period or that my experience is
any less real because it happens before an arbitrary age, though.

------
sanoli
I've been a morning person and then a night owl, and then a morning person,
and then a night owl, all depending on the demands that life, work and family
threw at me. I stopped believing in this night/morning person thing. We just
adapt to what we choose, or what we have to do. Or we choose not to adapt, and
then we say we are the other type. (yes, in my case; yes, anecdotal etc)

~~~
Supraperplex
What I have read somewhere a long time ago, is that the chronotypes are
actually functions of the inner clock in so much as that you either have an
inner clock of a 23 hours day or a 25 hours day. (Compare also to leap year
etc)

So this then makes you somebody who tends to wake up earlier each day or
later, depending on your inner clock.

I found that explanation more convincing. I am with you, we haven't figured it
out yet. But I would say, there is something to it.

------
Zombieball
Crazy question for the night owls in here:

I frequently find I can concentrate more in a dark environment. Even at 2PM in
the afternoon, if I can sneak off to a dark room in the office place I can get
more work done. While it is easy to block out noise with headphones in an
office environment, replicating a dark work place proves to be hard.

Do any of you prefer to work in the dark? Any tips for those days you need to
get stuff done in an office? Perhaps I need an office fort:
[http://i3.mirror.co.uk/incoming/article4124039.ece/alternate...](http://i3.mirror.co.uk/incoming/article4124039.ece/alternates/s615b/Man-
builds-fort-at-desk.png)

~~~
otakucode
Sure I love to work in the dark (and find myself most productive around
4AM)... but I have to wonder - is it possible that you are mistaking the
simple benefits of being alone? Open floor plans and shared workspaces are
absolutely poisonous to productivity, literally hundreds of studies have shown
it consistently. Everyone is more productive and happier when they have an
isolated place where they can simply concentrate without the social centers of
their brains constantly running in circles trying to be prepared for the next
interruption or to interpret subtle cues from neighbors.

~~~
Zombieball
This is a good point, I have had very productive study & coding sessions in
university days in brightly lit libraries and secluded corners of buildings.

------
otakucode
It's odd, to me at least, that they seem to be assuming that sleeping once a
day is biologically sound. I thought it was pretty well accepted that our
biology supported the idea of sleeping twice a day (based on hormone level
fluctuations throughout the day). The only reason we insist on sleeping only
at night even after the advent of electric lighting and such is a sort of
blind adherence to tradition combined with casual sadism practiced by everyone
who gets to lord power over others (parents, employers, etc).

~~~
jfroma
Also is well known that segmented sleep was the norm before electricity.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Segmented_sleep](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Segmented_sleep)

------
personlurking
Someone once posed this question to me: Would you rather not need food or
sleep?

I'd definitely say no sleep, especially for learning, exploring and money-
making purposes. That being said, if they asked me if I'd only prefer to live
the mornings or the nights, I'd choose mornings (let's say, midnight to noon,
on repeat), as the mornings are when people tend to be more hopeful in what
they can accomplish, when they think more is possible. Plus, coffee time and a
quieter environment.

------
atmosx
In my case, my learning abilities are enhanced in the morning and fade as the
day goes by. I feel like _my mind is tired_ in the evening[1].

If I wake up late, I'm usually on a bad mood. I rarely manage be as productive
as when I wake up early. Of course to wake up early, in a good shape, you have
to sleep early.

Anyway, that's me. I didn't conduct any study, I'm just stating that what
Franklin and Aristotle notice, works for me: I manage to be more up-beat,
happy, self-satisfied when I wake up early in the morning.

[1] I often sleep in the evening (~ 1 hour). It's a kind of habit on one hand,
but I also feel that I can't work well in the evening if I don't. Passed a
point I feel exhausted. However, when I don't sleep in the evening I have a
much deeper/better sleep at night.

~~~
jordanb
I'm completely the opposite. When I wake up via alarm clock for work (at about
7:30) I feel irritated and unhappy. My brain is a complete fog and it's
difficult to concentrate on anything until about ten or so. Even getting
dressed is a chore. My whole morning a struggle to go through the motions and
I don't really start firing on all cylinders until after lunch.

When I wake up naturally (on the weekends) it's between 9 and 10. I read a
book in bed for about an hour or so, get up, shower and have coffee and feel
like I can kick the world's ass by 11. I read, work on math problems or my
various projects until about 2-3 am when I fall asleep naturally, unless I
have to go to work the next day in which case I try to force myself to fall
asleep between midnight and 1.

~~~
atmosx
For brain-intensive work you need at least 6 if not 7, optimally 8 hours of
sleep per day. What you're describing - sleep from 2:30 to 7:30 - is a 5h
sleep schedule. If I do that, after the 3rd day, I'd had troubles
concentrating on anything.

When I was in the army, I found myself into a situation where for several
reasons I managed to sleep 4 hours in 3 days. In the 3rd day, I had to stay
awake until 14:30 (that was the time my service was about to end, which would
permit me to sleep for 6 hrs uninterrupted). I remember that from 6:00 to
14:00 I was literally hallucinating. The effect was so strong, that I still
remember vividly the dreams I had over that 6 hours. I had to be sitting on
various desks to perform some or no (real) work at all. I was literally
falling asleep on the chair. My lieutenant was trying to keep awake somehow
until 14:00, in order to make me avoid _jail-time_ in case his superiors
realize my real condition. I wasn't able to pick up a conversation without
falling asleep. Even 2 seconds of closing my eyes, would immediately indulge
me into a sort of a dream, involving the people around me.

One of the few things I've learned in the army was that I can be operative for
8-10 hours if I sleep 4 hours per night. Then I need to get some sleep,
otherwise I switch in dumb mode. After the 3rd day, I start hallucinating :-)

~~~
jordanb
To be clear: I try to force myself to go to sleep before 1 if I have to go to
work the next day. That means lots of laying in bed trying to sleep.

I don't think I have anything like a sleep disorder, if I weren't working an
office job I'd have really healthy sleep patterns. But the inflexible rules of
American office work means I'm constantly having to fight my circadian rhythm.

------
alexatkeplar
Discovered a couple of links away from TFA: the Automated Morningness-
Eveningness Questionnaire, [http://www.cet-
hosting.com/limesurvey/?sid=61524](http://www.cet-
hosting.com/limesurvey/?sid=61524)

------
ende
Can we call this early bird privilege?

~~~
topkai22
Yes!

------
weej
There are numerous studies on sleep deprivation and its impact on decision
making and critical thinking; however, this is an interesting spin on it. It
focuses on individuals' circadian rhythm and theory "proposing what they
called the morning morality effect, which posits that people behave better
earlier in the day".

------
adwf
I always thought these sayings were more about what people get upto in the
evenings - that's usually when parties, drinking, etc. happen. Therefore if
you can get up early, you probably haven't been out all night partying, ergo
you are more virtuous.

~~~
dferlemann
Good point, until I started chatting with old folks early 5am in the morning
at IHOP. Now I'm filled with Vietnam era dirty jokes and feeling not-so-
virtuous anymore.

------
emergentcypher
I thought I was reading about people making worse decisions immediately before
breaks and the end of the day, and people made the best decisions in the time
after their breaks.

------
bitwize
If you get your ass out of bed before dawn, that shows you have self-
discipline, a valued trait. It probably dates back to agrarian communities,
where 12-14 hours of solid work per day were common and you couldn't get all
of it done unless you got up early. People who got up late were lazy shirkers
and could possibly be deadly to the family.

~~~
shubb
It's a good thing we have electric lighting now, so people can get up at 2pm
and still work a 14 hour day.

It's a shame working long hours is both inefficient and socially encouraged.

It's not coincidental that early waking insomnia sets in around middle age,
and workplaces where the senior staff are middle age encourage early start
times.

Personally, I think we should respect people who get things done rather than
concentrating on signalling. I'll still be in work early though because
society disagrees.

------
0xdeadbeefbabe
> Ultimately, the best policy may be to understand and embrace your
> chronotype.

Way to take a stand on the issue. So, does it matter what time of day I come
to the conclusion that I'm a night owl chronotype? I think I'm more likely to
lie to myself some mornings.

The idea that people are statically night owls or early birds seems silly.
It's just another habit you can hack. The same is true for morality.

~~~
youdumson
So much wut. This must be bait.

