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Comment by wpietri | Hacker News Reader

Yeah, I'm suspicious of putting people into big buckets based on an easily observable characteristic. I think it erases useful complexity.

Personally, I shifted from being a night owl to an early riser years ago. I think it had a lot to do with a complex series of changes I made in my life. Trying to force it by just changing my wake time wouldn't have done anything good, but improving other things eventually resulted in a mode of life I like more that happens to be early rising.

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I shifted to being an early riser around 30. All it really took was for me to move into a place with unobstructed east-facing windows. Within a matter of months I was waking up at sunrise and bedtime had shifted from 2am to 10pm without any effort on my part.

Honestly, the only difference in my day to day has been when I do stuff. I'm still sleeping the exact same amount. I'm not more/less rested or alert during the day. I just do the same stuff in the morning that I'd have done in the evening previously.

The only benefit is that I no longer use an alarm. Work has flex hours and I don't have to be in until 10am, so I just wake up whenever I wake up and don't worry about it because there's plenty of time.

Is that complex series something you'd care to elaborate on? I'm sure I'm not alone in trying to understand what really makes us sleep the way we do, and every data point helps!

It was a bunch of stuff. One strand was about me recognizing that my baseline level of stress and anxiety was too high and working to lower that. Another was about improving sleep quality, so I was sharper during the day. A third was recognizing that I was an irresponsible electric light user; I automated my home lights to follow a consistent day-night cycle. [1] And a fourth was around physical exercise; over a few years I went from the stereotypical hates-exercise guy to somebody who regularly runs races.

And possibly related, of course, was that I got older during this period.

[1] https://github.com/wpietri/sunrise

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