
Early riser or night owl? New study may help to explain the difference - KanilStang
https://directorsblog.nih.gov/2020/02/25/early-riser-or-night-owl-new-study-may-help-to-explain-the-difference/
======
dijit
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 down before
I go to bed, valerian root, sleeping pills, codeine, running before sleep..
absolutely positively everything.

Why? because there is a strongly negative view society has on me for waking up
at nearly 9am every day, or staying at work longer into the evenings.

At some point I have to call it quits, it's not working.

(FWIW my brain "wakes up" at night, I get the majority of my best work done
between midnight and 4am, and for 6 years now I have avoided being awake
during that time for any reason.. but recently I let it happen for one night
and the output was insane compared to my daily hours)

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

~~~
arcturus17
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 that the pill will remain the
best treatment for the rest of my life.

I just wanted to say to you:

(1) I feel you, it sucks to feel that you're underperforming b/c your clock is
messed up, and what further sucks more is that people, especially the
internet, will tell you you're doing something wrong, when you're actually a
disciplined guy that has tried everything.

(2) Get pro help if you can. Seeing my GP and my neurologist is the first time
I've been assured that there's a good chance that this is something that's
entirely out of my control, and that _actually feels good_.

(3) "If the mountain will not come to Muhammad, then Muhammad must go to the
mountain" \- if you can't fix it just roll with it, that's what I've done at
times. I've told a few of my bosses I'm a night owl, and they've fully
respected it and given great freedom over my schedule.

You've got plenty of options with your skillset... If you wanted to f __* off
to the beach and code as a freelancer late at night I 'm guessing you could
also go do that!

~~~
Anthony-G
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 advantage as not
all members of the group would be asleep – and consequently vulnerable to
external dangers – at the same time.

~~~
logfromblammo
If we define larks as those whose circadian cycle leads the day-night cycle,
and owls as those whose circadian cycle lags the day-night cycle, it's easy to
hypothesize reasons for lark dominance in the civic schedule.

Hypothetically, say local sunrise is 6 AM, and sunset 6 PM, a lark rises at 5
AM and retires at 9 PM, and an owl rises at 7 AM and retires at 11 PM.

If the lark wishes to be immediately productive on waking, they might generate
noise, vibration, or odors in the owl's sleeping area, or may simply resent
the owl for continuing to sleep while the lark has started working, and thus
may wake the owl intentionally. If they have a task that requires cooperation,
they could either wait 2 hours for the owl to wake, or go rouse them
immediately. At that point, the owl has had 6 hours of sleep, and could
probably function on that amount for that day. The owl, on the other hand, can
work cooperative tasks immediately on waking, as the lark is already awake,
and has no reason to ever awaken the lark prior to the natural conclusion of
their sleep cycle.

The converse act to the lark waking the owl 2 hours early is the owl keeping
the lark up 2 hours late, after which the lark will likely just wake later.
Each has a 2 hour sleep deficit, but the owl would have been re-clocked by
daylight all day, and thus it would be more difficult for them to retire early
after being awakened early (unless the weather was gloomy and overcast). They
would also desire to awaken 2 hours later than usual the next morning. But
there the lark is again, waking the owl up early again. The lark can cause the
owl to be chronically sleep deprived, and the owl cannot effectively
retaliate.

So the owl can, at best, create rules that prohibit larks from disturbing
others' sleep before "a reasonable hour". Commuting, artificial lighting, time
zones, and daylight savings have all combined to make that "reasonable hour"
less reasonable.

Daylight savings is a particularly execrable lark tradition. While the owl is
sleeping, the lark changes all the clocks, and then wakes up the owl, waving
the clock in their face, so the owl does not murder the lark immediately. And
then the larks only relent when the evidence of the sunrise would reveal the
ruse. Only the larks have any real incentive to redefine civil time to get the
owls out of bed earlier. So when someone says, "your body-clock is messed up,"
the best response is, "your civil time is messed up," and then roll over for a
few more zees.

~~~
bradknowles
So, what do you call the creature that rises at 9 AM and retires at 1 AM?

Or 11 AM and 3 AM?

Or sleeps straight through to 6 PM before they rise?

~~~
logfromblammo
Owl. Owl. Nocturnal.

If you keep going, you'll go through nocturnal and wrap back around to lark.

I assume that sleep-wake cycles plot neatly onto a population standard normal
distribution. Everyone on the early-riser half of the bell curve is larkish,
and everyone on the late-riser half of the bell curve is owlish. As with most
things, if you live more than 2 standard deviations from the median, you may
sometimes experience problems arising from your deviation from the norm.

Based on studies of people living in an actual cave with no timepieces or
natural light sources, there may also be a component for the natural duration
of one's cyclical body-clock. I suspect larks cycle faster than the median,
and owls cycle slower, but I'm not aware of any supporting evidence for that.

------
Raphmedia
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.

~~~
archarios
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..

~~~
Raphmedia
Yes, people can adapt to different timezone. However what's interesting is
that night owls will adapt based on their own circadian rhythm. If you are
someone with delayed circadian rhythm, you would end up synchronizing to the
local timezone but still fall asleep after midnight.

~~~
Izkata
So the solution is to own 24 homes and move one timezone over each month?

~~~
Raphmedia
An easier solution would be to colonize different planets and send the folks
with non-24-hour sleep–wake disorder to planets with orbits that corresponds
with their circadian cycle.

~~~
mucahityilmaz
That's what I need actually, a 30-hours-a-day planet. So I can live perfectly
in a routine like 10-12 hours of sleep and 18-20 hours of being awake.

------
bilekas
I am very much a night owl and I have a really hard time getting into a
routine of getting up early in the morning, even if I do manage to get my
hours of sleep.

It took a long time to find a balance of forcing to sleep and forcing to get
up. But now I have to be very concious, if I have a late weekend I am out of
sync for the rest of the week.

People say its a lazy thing, but its really not.

~~~
ZanyProgrammer
Maybe it’s just the small subset of software engineers who frequent HN, but I
swear 99.9% of the people on here are night owls, and they very much let their
opinions be known on every thread about sleep.

~~~
poulsbohemian
Nearly everywhere in US society where productivity comes up, the “early bird”
is held up as the standard of efficiency. Thus, those people who instead
prefer a schedule that doesn’t begin pre-dawn have been chastised in books,
talks, and in media despite there not being any proof that that they are
“lazy” but rather are simply naturally attuned to a different schedule.

~~~
wpietri
Interestingly, this early=virtue thing goes back more than a century. Before
electric light, the common sleeping mode was in two chunks, first and second
sleep. Moralizing busybodies, kin to the anti-alcohol movement, decided that
second sleep was self-indulgent and unnecessary. The history podcast Backstory
had a great set of segments on sleep a while back:
[https://www.backstoryradio.org/shows/on-the-
clock-4/](https://www.backstoryradio.org/shows/on-the-clock-4/)

Even as an early riser, I think the virtue part is horseshit. Not everybody
has to be the same. Indeed, my (entirely unsupported) theory is that sleep
schedule variation is natural and useful. In the wild, it's safer for
everybody if somebody is always awake keeping an eye on things.

~~~
andai
_As the olde englysshe prouerbe sayth in this wyse. Who soo woll ryse erly
shall be holy helthy & zely._

The Book of St. Albans, 1486

------
pengaru
For some reason I don't get creative and productive until the hours I _should_
be sleeping.

Throughout my teens and twenties (I'm in my 40s now) I indulged this tendency
and it served me well, often staying up for multiple days without realizing it
and the productivity was incredible.

Since then I've become more interested in preserving/improving my health and
how such behaviors may be harming it, so I try to keep a regular sleep
schedule and it does seem to be better for my general well-being.

The down side is, I am _never_ anywhere near as productive as I've been in the
"sleep is for the dead" mode of operating. Occasionally I'll revisit that mode
to get something that's been dragging on finished, and it's _always_
incredibly effective.

I wish I understood why long waking hours seem to stimulate my mind and coerce
myself into the deep flow state.

Colleagues have recommended I try Adderall in the past to enter that mode at-
will with a pill, but I've always been averse to becoming dependent on a
pharmaceutical to do something I can already do naturally.

I wonder what's more harmful to self: regular sleep deprivation or consumption
of amphetamines in the daytime?

~~~
techopoly
I can relate to this, and I wonder if it has to do with the unscheduled nature
of staying awake through sleep hours. Our adult lives become so regulated and
scheduled, which is arguably a good thing for health, relationships, and
business. But, for me, during the recent times when I could not sleep at
night, or had an unexpected pocket of time with no obligation -- I was
unbelievably motivated, creative, and productive. Happy, even.

Something about the nature of constantly being "on", whether that means
online, or simply fulfilling some sort of obligation to others or even
yourself, seems to sap away at what really makes us human. Of course, if you
take away those obligations, you're left with nothing. So I imagine there is a
balance to be found. And our society is very bad at finding it.

~~~
snazz
I can relate to this as an early riser too! Getting up at three in the
morning, not being able to fall back to sleep, and then just deciding to start
my day then is weirdly productive and fulfilling, probably because I’m not
expected to be doing something productive at that hour.

------
inertiatic
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.

~~~
schuke
I wonder if the genetical night owl can pull this off too?

~~~
gwbas1c
I was quite the night owl before my first child came. I think the change is
part biology, and part the emotional connection to my children.

There is no job, hobby, or other calling that could turn me into an early
riser like raising children.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
I think we perhaps need some info on the sex of, and level of responsibilities
of, the people claiming to be cured by having children.

[Father's testosterone levels drop considerably starting a little prior to
birth of their children (and when taking on care of young children)
reportedly. Mother's hormonal changes go without saying, I feel.]

Just FWIW none of my well-spaced in age children fixed me. But having a fluid
sleep cycle often meant I wasn't bothered. Sometimes I'm super awake at 4am,
sometimes 6am, sometimes I'm ready to crash by 4pm, sometimes by midnight.

What killed me was having to work a second job during the night-time with our
first kid, not fun.

In short, still broken sleep cycle, almost exactly like my mother has been
through her life AFAICT.

------
sqs
I used to be a night owl but switched to being an early riser in the last 3
months. I didn't intend to switch and am not sure why it happened, but here's
what happened that probably contributed to it:

\- Started working out 1-2 hours per day (trail hiking/running)

\- Stopped reading my iPhone in bed at night, now I just read my backlit
Kindle

\- Company switched to all-remote (used to commute to SF)

\- Had a daughter (~9 months old now, so not coincident with the sleep switch)

\- Almost all of my job responsibilities are management now (previously I was
still doing more IC-like work)

\- Cut down on sugar intake

If you asked me 3 months ago, I would have sworn I'd be a night owl for the
rest of my life. So, this is quite a (pleasant) shock to me. Posting this in
case it's helpful to anyone who's a night owl and thinks it's impossible for
anyone to switch.

~~~
milofeynman
The largest factor was having a kid. It happens to all of us. When you have a
kid, suddenly sleeping in an extra hour isn't an option anymore and your body
adjusts. It's also much easier to fall asleep early after getting up early to
take care of the kid!

~~~
sqs
Yeah. When she was under 6 months, being a night owl was a huge benefit
because it was easy for me to do the overnight wake-ups and feedings. Now she
is (crosses fingers, knocks on wood) usually sleeping pretty well through the
night, so there aren't overnight feedings anymore.

------
follower
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...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circadian_rhythm_sleep_disorder)

* "Night owl" a.k.a. "Delayed sleep phase disorder" (often related to teens & adults) : [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delayed_sleep_phase_disorder](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delayed_sleep_phase_disorder)

* Extremely early riser a.k.a. "Advanced Sleep Phase Disorder" (often related to the older people) : [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_sleep_phase_disorder](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_sleep_phase_disorder)

* Sleep/wake cycle "a day" significantly longer than 24 hours: "Non-24-hour sleep–wake disorder" : [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-24-hour_sleep%E2%80%93wake...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-24-hour_sleep%E2%80%93wake_disorder)

Note that in additional to issues directly connected to sleep disorders, there
are often significant impacts from cultural/societal attitudes to when
individuals sleep that lead to secondary effects (e.g. shame, guilt,
depression)--particularly for people who are unaware that sleep disorders
exist and have not yet been diagnosed.

(Similar dynamics affect people with, for example, executive function-related
disorders such as ADHD/ADD. 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.)

I am not a doctor, nor a sleep specialist but I do believe people (& their
families) who are affected by sleep disorders deserve to be informed and not
subjected to the feeling that their inability to sleep at a societally
mandated time is a character flaw or evidence of them "just not trying hard
enough".

~~~
balfirevic
> 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?

~~~
pergadad
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.

------
BuildTheRobots
I like the fact they present it as an either/or choice.

My natural sleep cycle seems to default to a 28 hour day (eg I go to bed
slightly later every evening then morning) which makes interfacing with
reality pretty difficult. This seems to be something shared with a number of
geeks I know.

~~~
miiiiiike
I haven't run into many people with non-24! If you have non-24 could you
answer a few questions here:
[https://forms.gle/fdQWLAa6kb283SHJA](https://forms.gle/fdQWLAa6kb283SHJA)

I'll share the anonymized results in a week or so. My motivation is more
social than scientific.

~~~
BuildTheRobots
I'm probably not the best person to ask - I've been medicated for 7 years and
have kept the current job for medication -2 months. More than happy to talk
about it off list - {HN-username}@gmail.com :)

I will inform the couple of awful sleepers I know at my hackspace so they can
respond too.

------
dot1x
For those interested, Internal Time [1] does a good job at explaining
chronotypes.

People that say they "changed from night owl to early riser" (or vice-versa)
have never been night owls in the first place, but something else was the
cause (diet, screen time, etc).

Chronotypes are genetics-based so no amount of wishful thinking will make you
a night owl or an early riser (though obviously you can try and force this
with alarm clocks / melatonin... to your own risk).

Another book worth mentioning is Why we sleep by Walker. It has it's flaws but
overall does a good job at explaining the importance of sleep.

[1] [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Internal-Time-Chronotypes-Social-
Yo...](https://www.amazon.co.uk/Internal-Time-Chronotypes-Social-
Youre/dp/0674065859)

~~~
vneur
Some caveats to think about for that particular book in this blog post:
[https://guzey.com/books/why-we-sleep/](https://guzey.com/books/why-we-sleep/)
(I'm not a researcher in the area, so not sure how valid either side of this
is!)

~~~
pknight
An interesting read, but the article comes across as an unhinged attack piece
brimming with silliness. Better to get a take from a proper scientist with
more balanced views.

Point number one of his list of 'egregious' errors is the idea that shorter
sleep does not imply shorter life span, but all of the recently published
meta-analyses make that connection convincingly (for the population sleeping
<6 hrs). Anyone can look up these studies. And Walker does not advise people
to sleep 9+ hrs (which is also thought to be a risk group on a population
level). The author of the piece from the outset is quite evidently arguing in
bad faith.

There is criticism to be had on Walker, he overstimulates his readers with
fear-inducing statements which can definitely backfire.

------
seer
This may be very anecdotal but might help someone in a similar predicament.
After reading Why We Sleep I think I got some explanation what happened to me,
but at least for my case it seems it wasn't really on the money. I _was_ able
to make the switch from night owl to an early bird myself so it's certainly
possible, though requires some effort and dedication.

I naturally woke up at 10 am and didn't really like mornings, and my most
productive periods were definitely 1-2am. Thats when the most exciting coding
solutions seemed to come to me.

Then I started going to early martial arts training. Since I wanted to go
before work, I had to wake up at 7:30. For about 8-9 months it was quite
unpleasant, though the training sessions themselves were fun enough for me to
want to continue.

But then something strange happened. I vividly remember the day I "switched".
It was spring time and we just started getting our training sessions outside.
It was intense enough that the guys decided to go shirtless and take in the
morning sun. And at that exact moment, basking in the sun at 8am, during a
demanding physical exercise I thought to myself - wow! this is so exciting,
fun and natural. It felt a bit like a Chinese kung-fu movie. A very energising
experience.

And from that exact day I start feeling sleepy at 11pm and wake up at 7:30
consistently each day and would feel awesome in the mornings.

This is I know very anecdotal, but at least I know it's possible. And the
recipe seemed to be lots and lots of sun, outdoor activity and a very positive
emotional feedback. This I think might be the biggest reason. Currently the
most positive feedback we usually encounter is in the evening - late night
YouTube / tv / internet / books / friends / family, ... even intercourse.
Quite a lot of the stuff we look forward to happens in the evening. It makes
sense that our bodies adapt to make us most alert when it senses we get the
most bang for the buck. But if you reverse that and attempt to do the stuff
you really like early, your body might adopt, albeit slowly.

~~~
_1100
I’ll add n+1 to this anecdote.

Found a form of exercise I was excited and willing to get up for, now I wake
up around 5:45 every morning trying to drag my “early riser” wife out of bed
to go start the day.

Was a complete night owl before, and my wife was constantly reminding me that
it was late and time to call it a day.

~~~
buzzerbetrayed
Off topic, but if you don’t mind me asking, what exercise could possibly be
exciting at 5:45? I ask because I’ve been trying to find exercise that makes
me excited to get up and do it but I’ve been drawing blanks.

~~~
seer
For me personally it has always be the tribal thing - having a group that all
subject themselves to an early rise helped quite a lot to power through days
that I didn’t feel like it and made the good times a lot more memorable.

Have in mind that 6:00am is some other timezone’s 10am. It is possible to get
accustomed to living in another timezone, so thats what you’ll generally be
doing - getting through the “jet lag”. How do you do it normally? Well just
attempt to get into the habits of the locals and you’ll get there. You just
need to find “locals” in your desired “time zone” so to speak.

------
1e-9
It seems that sleep pattern variation is an evolutionary consequence of the
survival benefit of having someone awake when others are sleeping [1]. A good
combination of night owls, insomniacs, and early risers in camp probably made
it far less likely a sleeper got hauled off by the hyenas. This also seems to
be the reason that anxiety (sense of danger) reduces our sleep. There's a part
of our brain that doesn't differentiate well between today's worries and
predation risk. For this reason, I think that addressing anxiety is often the
best way to improve sleep.

[1]
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4972941](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4972941)

------
saagarjha
There's early risers, night owls, and those who are still awake an hour after
sunrise and should really get off of Hacker News…

~~~
zozbot234
If you're 'still' awake an hour after sunrise, does that mean you're
technically an early riser?

~~~
saagarjha
I guess I haven’t technically risen…

------
jvm_
So my natural rhythm is working 10-2 and then a lull until 4-6, and then a
lull until midnight, I wouldn't get tired until 2am.

Not ideal for a 9-5 job with kids. I'd also need a nap around 5:30-7 or so,
also not wife-compatible to fall asleep at 5:30pm for an hour.

I started using a SAD lamp and it makes a huge difference, 30 minutes in the
morning, I just browse my phone in front of it. It feels like a cup of coffee
and a 30 minute nap.

The biggest is not needing the evening nap followed by actually being tired at
midnight, and the ability to fall sleep between 10pm-midnight if I need to get
up early. It makes a major difference to me, it has about a 2-day effect, I
can skip the 30 minutes for a day or two, but after day 3 my clock resets.

I'd get a 4pm boost at work, I could tell the time by how productive I was
being. Same thing with midnight, I'd sit on the couch from 9-midnight, and
then find myself cleaning up exactly at midnight. With the light, everything
is 2 hours earlier, 2pm work boost, and 10pm boost at home.

I have one of the larger lights, don't want to be accused of shilling.

~~~
dewy
At the risk of you being accused of shilling (a risk I'm happy to take ;) ),
would you mind sharing the model of the lamp you have found to work well?

~~~
jvm_
I picked up this one on craigslist, Northern Light Technology Boxelite, Light
Therapy Box. The effect is enough that I bought a smaller Verilux touch model
for work, but it's a third of the size (but much slimmer so it'll fit on my
desk in the office). Haven't remembered to bring the smaller one to work, but
I'd imagine I'd need more time in front of it.

The big one I have is the 4th one on this page.
[https://nymag.com/strategist/article/best-sad-
lamps.html](https://nymag.com/strategist/article/best-sad-lamps.html)

------
thrower123
I'm a night owl, primarily because it's the easiest way to steal a couple
extra hours to do things I actually enjoy out of the four-hour-life slog.

Trying to take those hours from the morning doesn't really work, because there
is the hard-stop deadline of having to get ready to go to work, and the
chances of somebody else interrupting me and fucking up what I'm trying to do
is almost certain, whereas once the world is asleep, I'm relatively free.

~~~
iamkroot
See, that's exactly how I feel about being up in the early morning! The rest
of the world is still asleep and I get it all to myself.

~~~
SketchySeaBeast
Me too. I'd much rather get to work early and steal an extra hour or two of
very high quality work than try to do that extra effort after a day of
distractions and people.

------
tzs
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 sunrise, this was not intentional.
It just happened.

[1] [https://www.webmd.com/sleep-disorders/features/what-is-
segme...](https://www.webmd.com/sleep-disorders/features/what-is-segmented-
sleep)

~~~
nkrisc
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.

~~~
hanche
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.

~~~
nkrisc
Fair enough. I guess I should add then that this was my experience at 42°N.

------
codr7
I've been up writing code at night since I got my first computer at 8, I'm 42
now, don't remember much about my schedule before then.

Never could concentrate much during daytime, once my surroundings wake up my
productivity goes down the drain.

One thing that works pretty well for me when I'm allowed to set my own
schedule is taking a 2-3h snooze in the afternoon/early evening. Then I can go
on and work until 3-4am and still get up early without feeling like a zombie.

------
hnick
Since there are a lot of people with various experiences here, I thought I'd
ask.

My problems falling asleep are not due to being tired so melatonin and various
things I've tried (like drowsy allergy pills) don't work. My mind is too
active, and it prevents sleep. Even to the point where the 'sleep' part
proceeds, my mind is racing, and I start to dream (hallucinate) while half
awake. Then I will see a spider or something that is not there and snap wide
awake, full of adrenaline. Repeat until about 2 hours have passed and then
maybe I can sleep.

So rather than pills or treatments to induce sleepiness, is there something
that reduces mind chatter? I know some people talk about meditation which is
something I'd like to look into. My mother also has sleep problems and has
been diagnosed with ADD in her 60s (along with my sister in her 30s). So
that's another potential avenue. I use a white noise machine which is required
as a baseline (tiny noises distract and awake me out of all proportion),
rather than a help.

~~~
wayoutthere
I had good experience with the Headspace app for this. This kind of meditation
especially is a learnable skill, so after a few weeks you probably won't need
the app anymore.

~~~
hnick
I keep seeing and ignoring recommendations for Headspace. So I figure it is
time to install it.

Turns out it's already on my phone from before! I guess it's time to give it a
proper try.

------
winrid
I always thought I was a night owl.

Then I realized I just didn't have anything to look forward to in the morning.

So now I work on some interesting problem for 30mins at 7am and waking up
earlier is a lot easier.

~~~
M_V_Nostrand
I can relate to this a lot, I love my current job and arrive at work around
7am at least 1 hour before my nearest colleagues, and just work on fun stuff
and learn new things. I did not think that would have such an impact. I always
thought I was a night owl.

------
hanche
There's quite an interesting array of anecdotes here. Mine is a bit different:
I was always a night owl, staying up late and sleeping late into the day if
left to my own devices.

In the past couple years that has been completely stood on its head. Now, I
regularly collapse into bed around 10 in the evening, and wake up – very
reliably – between 5:30 and 6:30 in the morning. I haven't set an alarm in the
past two years, except once in a while when I have to get up early for
something important. And even then, more often than not, I wake up before the
alarm goes off.

I am not sure what triggered this change. Perhaps it's age related (I am 66
years old). But really, I have no idea. The change is easy to live with,
though, so it doesn't freak me out; but it does make me wonder what happened.

------
bArray
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 sleep ~4 hours a night to keep some osrt of schedule.
As others have mentioned, diet, exercise, etc, etc, no change seems to break
this habit. To the surprise of many, I am also able to remain productive for
all but a few of the last hours - some days I have commit streaks spanning
something like 18 hours.

~~~
zarmin
Out of curiosity, do you have ADHD?

~~~
save_ferris
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

~~~
follower
> [...] 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) are understandable, such decisions are a step beyond where you
currently are.

ADHD/ADD is known as a disorder where (unlike most) _simply having a
diagnosis_ can have a significant positive impact on a person's ability to
deal with it. This is in part because a diagnosis provides a new
lens/perspective through which to view one's life _and_ because the negative
secondary effects (e.g. shame, guilt, depression, interpersonal & employment
difficulties) of living with un-diagnosed ADHD/ADD have so much impact.

My understanding is that a combination of medication & therapy has been shown
to be the most effective tool in helping most people live with the effects of
ADHD/ADD but medication is by no means the only option--and there are some
non-stimulant options also.

But with regard to "stimulants", the word itself & people's understanding of
how they work leads to a lot of moralizing, misinformation & misunderstanding.
To some degree the effect of a "stimulant medication" is similar to that of
water to a house plant: if the plant has insufficient moisture in the
surrounding soil then "stimulating" it with additional water from a watering
can brings it up to a level of moisture required for a fulfilling life--but if
the plant already has sufficient moisture then adding additional water may
cause negative effects. But being "underwatered" is not a positive state of
affairs.

If you would like to read further about ADHD/ADD (particularly the under-
diagnosed "Primary Inattentive" subtype) I recommend considering "Driven to
Distraction (Revised/Second Edition): Recognizing and Coping with Attention
Deficit Disorder" by Edward Hallowell and John Ratey. One of the aspects I
particularly appreciate is how much emphasis they put on the importance of a
precise & accurate diagnosis as a starting point--e.g. they spend a chapter
each on "things that are misdiagnosed as ADHD/ADD but are actually something
else" & "things that are misdiagnosed as _not_ ADHD/ADD but are in fact
ADHD/ADD".

Good luck!

Edit: Oh, yeah, two other things:

* "Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria" is a common but less discussed aspect of ADHD/ADD.

* If comics are more your style, you might find a read of ADHD Alien enlightening: [http://adhd-alien.com/](http://adhd-alien.com/)

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

------
hellofunk
There's a neat chart on this page that shows how various well-known writers
over time balanced sleep with writing, and it widely varies: some worked very
early while others almost never slept or only worked overnight:

[https://www.brainpickings.org/2013/12/16/writers-wakeup-
time...](https://www.brainpickings.org/2013/12/16/writers-wakeup-times-
literary-productivity-visualization/)

There's also this:

[https://www.fastcompany.com/3031754/the-sleep-schedules-
of-2...](https://www.fastcompany.com/3031754/the-sleep-schedules-of-27-of-
historys-greatest-minds)

------
y-c-o-m-b
> Some people are early risers, wide awake at the crack of dawn. Others are
> night owls who can’t seem to get to bed until well after midnight and prefer
> to sleep in

I am neither one of those? I hate waking up early and I dislike going to bed
late. My preferred hours awake are 8:00AM-10PM; I found this to give me the
most optimal amount of physical and mental energy throughout the day. Not sure
why 10 hours of sleep works best for me, but I've experimented with that
number and always come back to it.

Side note: I do have sleep apnea and sleep with a CPAP, but my AHI is below 3
on average (down from 43 before treatment!).

~~~
adrianmonk
There might just be some people who need 10 hours, but I would still look at
sleep quality issues. The CPAP thing sounds like a good step, but there could
be other causes.

Do you wake up feeling well-rested? I know that when I used to always sleep 10
hours/night, I still wanted more sleep when I got up.

Somehow I managed to change that, though, and now I wake up after 6-6.5 hours.
And I feel more well-rested than I did before after 10+ hours. I'm not
completely sure of the reasons, as I wasn't seeking it out, but the timing
correlates well with starting to exercise regularly. Finally getting a
mattress that works for me might also be part of it.

At any rate, the main thing is that it happened. I didn't really know it would
or could, which is why I didn't aim for it, but I'm glad it did. And I'd hope
for the same for anyone else in a similar position. Sleep quantity only goes
so far to make up for quality, and life is too short to be struggling to get
proper rest.

~~~
y-c-o-m-b
> Do you wake up feeling well-rested?

Only after about 10 hours yes. I get by with 8 hours, but feel exhausted by
around 8PM. Anything less than 8 hours makes me feel physically ill,
irritable, and nauseous for most of the day. More than 10 hours makes me very
sleepy. I told my sleep doctor about this, but she just shrugged and suggested
some people need more sleep than others.

------
arcturus17
If left to my own devices I'll tend to go to bed towards 3-4am, plus sometimes
I'll be anxious and gloomy in the mornings and my mood will pick up during the
day, which makes me thing I'm a natural night owl.

However, the most productive times in my life have most definitely been when
waking up and getting to work early. I don't like working at night, just
slacking off.

I've read a lot of articles in this vein, but I never see myself quite
represented.

Anyone else in a similar boat?

~~~
bilekas
I am simular enough in the sense that if I can make it to the office early in
the morning (usually from just not bothering to try sleep anymore) I can get a
lot done because of the solitude, I focus a lot more when left alone with no
distractions, which probably adds to the mental energy at night preventing
sleep.

Of course there is a limit though and tend to eventually crash. Which is not
healthy at all either.

------
geddy
I'm a night owl who's started waking up earlier. I guess that makes me an
early owl? Or a night riser, which makes me sound like a zombie.

I started waking up earlier because I realized I had a much better work day if
I did something I enjoyed before working. I start work at 10am, but I wake up
around 7:30, walk the dog for ~2 miles, then relax and play a game, lift, do
some blogging, read Hackernews etc. It's made my work day far more productive,
I will say that. I also have a little one on the way so starting to acclimate
my body to waking up earlier is better done sooner rather than later.

I recall reading a while back an article that stated people had more
productive and overall positive work days if they did something enjoyable
before starting work. I work from home most of the time and so it became more
important than ever for me to actually _use_ the time I wouldn't be spending
commuting. I definitely recommend it to everyone, particularly those who don't
have a commute to "wind up" and decompress from their work day!

------
durpleDrank
Long story but I recently got very sick. I was told not to eat past 6pm. I
found this really helped me with falling asleep. Turn on some music around 10
and lay in bed. Read a book. I keep some Tums next to my bed (acid reflux also
impacts my "sleepiness"). I guess what I'm trying to say is that changing how
I ate and just chilling in bed under the covers at an earlier time really
helped. I'm still a night owl for sure, but this does combat the ratio of
staying up till 2am to being asleep by 12. If I really tell my mind with my
internal monologue "Look, I know we want to play videogames and do the dishes,
but let's do that in the morning" and also craving breakfast before bed (so
you are excited to wake up early to eat) helps.

------
kbutler
Like others, I was a night owl since my teenage years. I was also pretty sure
my circadian rhythm was about a 28-hour cycle, so I'd go "out-of-phase"
staying up later every day and sometimes skip or drastically shorten a night's
sleep to get back in phase.

However, it's now an effort to stay up past 10-10:30, and I wake up
consistently around 6am.

What changed?

\- 6 days/week with 6am meetings (remote work and timezones) \- bright light
(light box, much brighter than room lighting) and exercise early so I could
function in those meetings \- prioritized consistently going to bed and sleep
early (often harder for me than getting up early) \- and time passed

post hoc, ergo propter hoc, but consistency with those habits made it easier
to function in those mornings, and it got easier as time passed.

------
skizm
I'm an early riser except on days I have work...

~~~
raxxorrax
i woke up this morning with the sundown shining in...

------
softwaredoug
I made a lot of changes to my habits to recreate some of the aspects of a
“boot camp”. It’s helped my sleep a lot, and I end up just waking up at 7
every morning.

Basically the idea is you always wake up at a consistent time and do exercise
immediately. Preferably outside in the sunlight. I’ll run a few miles or on
rainy days use the exercise bike. By 11 that night I’m wiped out and sleep
like a baby. Even if I have one rough night of sleep for whatever reason, I
still try to wake at 7 and do this routine. Over the long haul it’s
dramatically improved my sleep.

Highly recommended if you have sleep issues

------
pathartl
This might get lost in the flood of comments, but I'm still very much a night
owl. However, I don't find it difficult getting to work at 9AM and making it
through the day anymore. Really the largest change for me was just not doing
as much after work.

I used to work on projects where I'd be up anywhere from 1AM - 4AM. I really
hated to do it, but I started a new job with new responsibilities so I had to
be on top of my game during the day. It REALLY makes me yearn for a 32 hour
work week because now I'm missing out on the side stuff I used to do.

------
jb775
I've been a night owl my entire life, have been unsuccessfully trying (or kind
of trying) for years to shift my schedule to wake up earlier. Whenever I tell
myself to go to bed early, I feel like I'm wasting an evening that I will not
get back...I know it isn't really logical, but it's strong enough to derail
the progress I make.

One approach that I've found successful (in bursts) is if I focus on getting
to sleep at a reasonable time on Sunday night. This seems to naturally put me
in a good groove for the rest of the week.

------
WhompingWindows
It sucks that a German industrialist decided we should work 9-10 hours, and
then it further sucks that 7-15, 8-16, or 9-17 are deemed the "respectable"
shifts for work. I get that some companies are flexible on this, but honestly,
I've been held back in life by being a night owl. Classes at 8-10 am were so
much harder to focus in, getting to work early is a burden, and working into
the evening is not an option at many jobs.

It's just straight up better to be a morning person in our civilization.

------
archsurface
I like to leave things at a milestone before going to sleep. I can't leave
things in the middle of nowhere. I'm always late to bed, always late to wake,
always late for work.

------
j7ake
For a theoretical perspective of how much your clock can be "phase shifted" as
a function of the period of your internal clock, check out this nice paper
from scientists in Berlin:

The theory is basically thinking of humans as coupled oscillators that are
entrained by sunlight.

[https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal...](https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0059464)

------
engineerblaze
I recently moved to a new apartment that has a window above my bed, that I
keep open, so that natural light falls on me and gradually wakes me up such
that I am fully awake by 8:30am whereas previously it was pretty dark in my
room at all times and I had trouble getting out of bed at all. My guess is
that the lighting situation before I moved messed up my circadian rhythms and
made more more of a night person, but now that's changing?

------
kentosi
The problem I've always had as a night owl is related to the gym. I would
always get the best workouts in the evening, with the downside being that I
wouldn't be able to sleep that night. Though I was technically exhausted my
mind was still buzzing from the adrenalin.

I've reluctantly forced myself into doing morning workouts now, but if any
other night-owl there has any advice in making evening workouts work, please
share.

------
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.

------
sghiassy
For all of the various current cultural movements of acceptance - accepting
night owls (and not thinking they’re just lazy) - is sorely missing.

------
nkrisc
I've found throughout my life my sleep cycle almost always follows the sun. I
sleep in longer in the winter and wake up early in the summer. If I wake up
with the sun I almost always feel refreshed and ready to go. I'm usually
falling asleep by about 10PM (22:00) though, whatever I'm doing. After that
point, laying down anywhere usually puts me immediately to sleep.

------
sethammons
I've always been a morning person. 5 years old waking up at 5am to watch
Thunder Cats. Highschool, waking up at 4am to finish up any homework and then
get video game time in. I sleep in more now than ever before, typically up
around 5:50 to 6:30. My most productive coding time is 5 or 6am to around
11am. Typically, I'm tired around 8pm, and in bed before 10pm.

------
vordoo
A good read on sleep (not just Early Riser or Night Owl) - Why We Sleep:
Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams / Matthew Walker PhD

------
clSTophEjUdRanu
Anecdote: I was a night owl until I joined the service. Now I'm not in the
service and I'm still not a night owl.

You can be what you want.

------
neilwilson
Early riser here. And of course the day length on earth has moved from 20
hours to 24 hours over multicellular evolutionary time.

------
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?

------
brendanfalk
I studied this at school. On average, men have circadian rhythms longer than
women. And all circadian rhythms are longer when you’re an adolescent.

That’s why there is the classic stereotype of male teens waking up so late.

The only way to reset your circadian rhythm is sunlight as soon as you wake up
in the morning! And melatonin at night

------
danaliv
My maternal grandmother (may she rest in peace) and I shared eerily similar
night owl clocks. Left to our own devices, we'd go to sleep and wake up at
exactly the same hour (roughly 3am-noon), whether we were in the same place or
not. I've long been convinced that it was genetic.

------
ivanhoe
I live by a "night owl" rhythm, but my feeling is that the real reason behind
it is that my sleep cycle has just never been really adjusted to the 24 hours
days. For me a perfect day would be somewhere between 28 and 32 hours, and
then a good 9h sleep.

------
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.

------
dentisto
There's this coming soon with what seems to be pretty good material from
people with solid background in the space of sleep:
[https://bestsleepsummit.com/](https://bestsleepsummit.com/)

------
jtdev
My early riser father in-law likes to give me a hard time about sleeping in
until ~8 a.m. (in a very “Meet the Parents” passive aggressive way) - he then
proceeds to take naps throughout the day... and seems to have zero ability to
focus.

------
hadlock
Once I stopped eating snacks after 7pm, no coffee after 11am, no booze after
8pm had a significant impact on my sleeping patterns. Anyone can stay up until
3am if you feed them soda every 45 minutes after dark.

------
jfengel
How disappointing that the NIH's own blog (with Dr. Collins' own byline,
though I doubt the director actually wrote it) should have such a clickbait
headline.

The observation that genetics leads people to different circadian clocks is
decades old. We already know what enzymes are involved.

What's news is that somebody has worked out some of the structures of the
enzymes in some people with genetic sleep problems. That's one clue in
figuring out how those enzymes actually work and how they evolved.

"Helps" is science writers' crutch for "here's a minor improvement in an
ongoing thing, but we're going to pretend that we just solved it". I expect
that from the clickbait love-science's-butt sites, but not from the NIH
director's blog.

------
inetknght
This blog post discusses circadian rhythms; sleep cycles.

I've noticed that my sleep cycle also differs from 24-hours. It's usually
around 28-32 hours. Having a 9-5 job _really_ kills my productivity.

~~~
follower
As I mentioned to someone else on this thread expressing a similar experience,
if you're not already aware of it you may wish to read about "Non-24-hour
sleep–wake disorder":
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-24-hour_sleep%E2%80%93wake...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-24-hour_sleep%E2%80%93wake_disorder)

------
snarfy
I'm surprised at all the night owls. I thought it would be a more even split.
I'm a morning lark and usually in bed by 10pm and wake around 3am. 5 hours is
enough, right?

------
el_cujo
I've always been skeptical of the early-riser v night-owl dichotomy. When I
was younger and in highschool, I had to be to school early every day, so I was
on the early-riser schedule of sleep at ~10 PM wake at ~6 AM. When I later
went to college, I adjusted to a sleep at ~2 AM wake at ~10 AM schedule.
Anyone who is on one of these schedules is going to naturally have difficulty
if one random day of the week they need to, say, be at work extra early or be
out extra late, that's usually where this kind of thing comes up. I feel like
this has much more to do with whatever routine you're currently in than it
does with any instinctive preference.

~~~
zozbot234
I think _most_ cases are going to be like that, but people with "advanced" or
"delayed" sleep phases are not in the same boat - they will have trouble
adapting to _any_ fixed schedule, and no matter what they choose they will
feel "jet-lagged" after a while as their "natural" sleep phase goes out of
sync with it.

~~~
el_cujo
Yeah I definitely think there are probably some people like this with messed
up cycles that they can't do anything about it. But in general, it does kind
of annoy me when people who are late to stuff in the morning blame it on being
a nite owl, kind of disposing of any responsibility as if they have a real
medical disorder or something when I think for most people it has more to do
with enjoying doing stuff late at night or just getting in a habit of staying
up late from trying to stretch the day before having to go to work.

------
b0n40
hello, i am in the same boat for the last 7 days. ive been a Night Owl, for
the last 10 years. now for the last 7 days... i moved to live outside the
city, but i didnt expect that i have to wake up with the village at 4-5-6am it
is killing me. no sleep for the last 7 days. and even i try to push myself to
go to bed 20pm or max 21pm i just cant sleep well. i used to work 6-12h a day.
now i barely do 3-4h per day. i never thought about early riser or night
owl...

------
itsmhuang
I'm confused, so an early riser is one that operates on a 20-hour cycle? Does
that mean they sleep more than a night owl? I always thought it was the
opposite.

------
rjpn
It is surprising that companies don't let employees work in their most
productive hours. When will this trend start?

------
lokl
#1 sleep aid for me: mitigating dust mite allergens in my bedroom

------
taberiand
Well, it's crunch time so - ¿Por qué no los dos?

------
wmurmann
Open your blinds before you go to sleep. See how much longer you can stay a
night owl.

------
withants
arise with ants

------
adamnemecek
I have a hunch that this difference boils down to how happy one is with his
main a ctivity (school, work etc.).

~~~
mdturnerphys
The linked paper gives evidence that genetic differences resulting in changes
to the CK1 enzyme or the PERIOD protein play a role. Occupation and behavior
may affect sleep but here there are demonstrated factors innate to someone's
DNA.

