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Comment by macNchz | Hacker News Reader

The author's experience is very similar to my own–my parents called me 'the sleepless wonder' when I was a kid, and by high school getting out of bed for morning classes was excruciating. In college I mostly chose classes that started later in the day and wound up doing much better academically.

Since college I've made a point of taking jobs that offer flexible hours, which thankfully seems to be increasingly common. I have no interest in going back to having that conflicted feeling around midnight, knowing that if I stay up much later the morning will be torture, but feeling wide awake, productive and creative.

In recent years I've found myself tending to wake up earlier in the morning, but regardless of when I wake up my brain is still fuzzy until 10 or 11am. It turns out that this makes the mornings an ideal time for me to get some exercise, which I've discovered to be a great way to start the day.

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> by high school getting out of bed for morning classes was excruciating. In college I mostly chose classes that started later in the day and wound up doing much better academically.

I spent high school thinking I was exceptionally prone to getting songs stuck in my head. It turns out that I just get them stuck in my head when I'm extremely tired, and that state was so continuous that I never noticed there were times it wasn't true.

That's a relatively harmless example, but I do seriously wonder how I spent ~8 months/year for 4 years getting 2-6 hours of sleep per night. Getting that amount of sleep distorts everything from my personality to my ability to drive safely, and it's more than a bit alarming to me how little attention we pay to what it means to have teens spend most of their developing years shockingly sleep-deprived.

I lived on 4hrs/night when I was 15-16. I had so many wonderfully interesting things to do, discover and work on. I don't recall ever feeling tired at that age, and I wish I could go back to that level of drive and energy.

Interesting that you wrote this. I find the more sleep deprived I become, the more intense are my earwigs (and also, the worse they become in terms of what I'd rather not hear).

I also am stuck with keeping an 8a to 6p schedule in a city with bad traffic. Because of the detriment to my motor functions, I sold my motorcycle as it didn't felt safe to ride anymore.

No matter how little sleep I've had, by five or six in the evening, I usually feel fine, and full of energy and things I'd like to do, read, think about.

I once read that DSPS only affects 1-2% of the population, which makes me discouraged that it will ever be something that people recognize as a reality for some. Everyone seems to get too little sleep, so it's not really a point of sympathy that I don't either. Doesn't matter than <4 hours is a lot different than <7

Pretty sure they're called "earworms". Earwigs are the insect with a pincer on their behind.

1) I was much like you. My performance in college suffered as I couldn't rouse in the morning. I recently discovered I actually did have a medical problem affecting sleep quality (partially obstructed airway from childhood injury). Can't help but wonder how things would be different if I'd figured it out sooner.

2) Had a kid, and sleeping in late is simply no longer an option. Which makes me think that despite how I covet late nights and sleeping in, it really was never the natural order of things, at least for adults.

My problem was two fold:

* My eyesight was a bit poor, got glasses for the first time * Snored a lot, got a mouth guard as a sleeping aide

On top of that going through a period with vitamine suppliment really boosted me. My take from is if you don't wake up when the sunrise (if you went to bed in ok fashion) and feel somewhat rested, start to look at your sleeping behaviour/daily stress.

Right? I was going to say, all this shifting schedule stuff is great, but kids don't care about your schedule.

> it really was never the natural order of things, at least for adults.

Incorrect. We survived a million years of nocturnal predators while possessing neither claws nor fangs nor, for most of it, fur.

How did we do that? The night owls guarded the early risers in their sleep, and we took turns, one person staying up extra late and one getting up extra early.

> In college I mostly chose classes that started later in the day and wound up doing much better academically.

Those are the only days of my life I can remember not feeling jet lagged. I should follow your lead and get jobs with flexible hours.

Similar here. I tell my boss I can show up any time he wants but I won’t do anything good before 10:15 and I’m leaving after eight hours.

And my best work is from about 1:15 to 3:30 (4:30 on a great day). So if you really want a bad employee, make me show up early and then schedule meetings all afternoon.

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