Ask HN: Night owl, health, and career options | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Night owl, health, and career options

14 pointssleepy_throw8 comments

I'm currently reading the book "Why We Sleep".

It lays out a biological truth about sleep cycles that I've experienced for 2-3 decades now: about 30% of humanity are night owls, and we have a hard time adjusting to work hours deemed normal by society.

I'm now in my early 30s and have been noticing the negative effects of constant sleep deprivation over the years. My job starts at 9am and I get up at 8am. Naturally, I'd sleep until 10am. That means I'm jet lagged by 2 hours every single day. I go to bed around midnight, but can rarely fall asleep until 1-2am. I use a medical grade light box in the morning.

The consequences of all the sleep deprivation are pretty dire. I keep getting fatter and feel terrible. It seems to be messing with my digestion. Of course, I'm constantly tired at work and have to make up the sleep debt on the weekend, which leaves me little time to actually enjoy my days off.

I know that it's the sleep because I took a sabbatical and lost a ton of weight - and then gained it all back after going back to work. No changes in diet or workout.

I've asked about starting work later, but the response was complete non-understanding - my manager seemed offended that I'd even ask for that, when everyone else was coming in at the same time as me. I didn't want to start a huge debate so I wouldn't be "that sick guy who wants special treatment". But I guess I do want "special" treatment so that my schedule won't make me sick.

How have other night owls dealt with this? If 30% of us are late risers, there must be huge demand for jobs that start later. I've never even heard of a job that would let me start late enough to wake up at 10am, except maybe a 100% remote job. That would probably severely limit the opportunities and number of jobs available, but I really feel like I can't do this to my body much longer - 20s were fine, 30s don't seem so fine. Maybe I should prioritize health now?

I'm not a night owl in the sense you are, but still find the idea of fixed 9-5-style hours pretty frustrating (in particular, because they make it hard to get much outdoors time in the winter months).

You don't say what field you work in but I'm guessing something technical. Have you looked into freelancing at all? Depending on your location, remote work for someone a few timezones to your west might also be something to look into.

Times zones to the west is going to be difficult. I suppose I could move east to make it happen :)

I've definitely considered freelancing, but it would basically have to be remote freelancing. Not super excited about freelancing per se, but maybe it's a good fit. I am definitely keeping it in mind, thank you.

This is my two cents, I've asked something similar a while ago (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8946451), there's some really good answers there. Unfortunately, I've tried them all but there was always something kicking me back in the "old night owl habits".

To give you an idea, my typical (great) day in the holidays was something like bed around 1am, wake up at 9am/10am. Same as you this was difficult to accomodate when you have to wake up at 6.30am-7am the latest to go to the office.

What drastically changed everything was the discovery that I could wake up at 4am "like a breeze". I've started reading more about sleep cycle (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_cycle) and circadian rythmn (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circadian_clock) and by that I mean trying to take that on account and apply it.

After much experimenting, I've found out I have 3 "wake up slots" where I can wake up with no efforts and feeling refreshed. During the last months they changed a bit but finally stabilized to : between 4.30am-5am, at 6am sharp and between 8-9am. Same with falling asleep, I can fall asleep in 20min or less if I'm in bed around 10pm or around 11pm. Anything after that and I have trouble to fall asleep - the owl is still around! :)

List of benefits is quite long but here's the best 3 for me:

- I'm in an "auto-piloted equilibrium" ; if I go to bed a 10pm I automatically wake up at 6am. If I go to bed at 11pm, I will still wake up at 6am but the evening after I will feel the urge to go to bed at 9.30pm already. I'm just not fighting it and oblige.

- Since my sleeping pattern is balanced, I don't feel worried or gloomy about sleep anymore (the "pff i will wake up late feeling like shit again" thoughts). I know that it will welcome me (which in turn makes it better). Mood improved a LOT.

- I don't need no stinky alarm clock in the morning. I set one up just in case but I haven't heard it for a long time.

Aside of that what helped also was to use a light box in the morning and having something to do right away ; I usually look forward watching a lecture on youtube while having my morning coffee.

Interestingly, it's been a month that I changed jobs for a full remote position. I thought the owl would come back (with a vengeance) but actually it is not the case at all! I've now completely ditched my alarm clock and I'm always up between 6-6.10am and slowly using the previous commute time for other things (sport mostly).

As said above, the owl is still there, I just give it free reigns over the weekend and not the week days =)

That's very interesting, I'd never thought of that. I guess it could make sense, as there is definitely an ultradian rhythm within the circadian rhythm (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultradian_rhythm), and it's about 90-120 minutes long.

I guess it could be that waking at the peak of the ultradian rhythm is better than waking at the nadir, even if the nadir is 45-60 minutes later. Especially if the resulting sleep pressure leads to becoming tired earlier, as seems to have happened to you.

What method did you use to find your optimal waking time? Any sort of sleep measuring tool (phone app, fitbit) or just trial and error? If trial and error, any particular method that worked well?

I wanted to take the measurement approach (with a fitbit) but I quickly discovered that it was mostly metrics difficult to measure (how sluggish did I feel that day? was my weekend spend in bed? ...) so I kept a journal and resorted to trial and error.

Initial plan was to wake up ealier by 30min deltas every other day but well it's not a sleep study: I had a daily job to attend so I was a bit limited there. Also I was on the search for a permanent solution, so I preferred testing a wake up time at least 2 weeks before seeing if it fits or not.

From then on, I knew already that 6.30am was hell and we had 2 weeks where I needed to be early at work so I shifted my wake to 6am. I noticed it was quite a lot easier to get out of bed; mind you not a celebration or anything but noticeably easier.

For the second part, it was more a shot in the dark as I basically took the difference between a good wake up time (8.30am) and a bad one (6.30am) which led me to believe that the next good slot was around 4.30am. Which was verified again over 3 weeks. I tried intermediary times and they all proved to be worse than those "sweet spots".

One thing though I tried to smooth whole wake-up process so I prepare now everything the day before (clothes, mug, laptop, ...), I have this light box in the bathroom that's like a little sun, I bought a "real" coffee machine, ... and I go to bed as soon as I yawn a bit too much (~10pm as said earlier).

Hope it helps!

How do you know how long it takes you to fall asleep ? I try to base my alarm on 1.5 hour sleep cycles (4.5, 6 or 7.5 hours) but sometimes I'm lying awake in bed for two hours, so I don't know how to set the alarm.

fitbit + the last time I check my alarm clock before doozing off. usually both are 10min-ish appart

somehow even if i fall asleep at 11pm, the 6am slot does not move (force of the habit?) - so maybe something to check?

Sleep in particular occurs in cycles between deeper and lighter sleep, with different types of brainwaves at different points. For most people, these cycles last roughly 90 minutes.

If you wake in the middle of a cycle, you’ll feel groggy. Waking at the end of a cycle is easy, and allows you to feel alert even if you haven't had enough sleep yet to feel refreshed.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com