Comment by steve_adams_86 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by steve_adams_86 | Hacker News Reader

I have a very acute sense of gloom and almost anxiety when I wake up late. Or even get out of bed late. For me personally this definitely accumulates into a sort of sense that I’m unhappy, not living well, and need a change. It correlated with more depressed times without questions. But is it the cause or a symptom?

My wife doesn’t really get it, and it bothers her quite a bit frankly. But I’ve come to crave waking up early, and doing so is almost like the first accomplishment of the day. Before cleaning my sleeping area, coffee, anything - I made the effort to respect my time and my day, setting myself up for success. I know I’ll sleep better that night, and give myself proper time to accommodate what I need to do that day. It feels right.

I do wonder sometimes though, where is the head and tail of it? Is it a purely psychological phenomenon or do I actually benefit from waking earlier, regardless of time spent asleep?

Is it a learned thing, or am I actually sensitive to my needs?

Sleep is a hard one to understand. All I know is I need a lot of it.

I hate waking up early, but feel exactly the same way: because waking up early is hard for me, if I do it, I feel like I've already accomplished something.

Conversely, if I wake up late, I feel like a failure.

This is kind of unfortunate, because I can wake up anytime I want and start work, I don't have to start working at any particular time. I also physically feel pretty shitty when I wake up early. But I can't just shake the feeling of being a failure when I wake up late.

I've always thought it to be purely psychological, but maybe that's not the case.

Sometimes waking and pushing myself into the day feels bad, but I rarely feel bad within 15 minutes of the initial dread of getting up. Is that the same for you, or do you mean it stays with you all day?

Maybe like an hour or two. I think I have some circadian rhythm disorder as my sleep schedule drifts later and later until I'm going to bed at 7am or so.

I recently had someone describe this feeling to me as "a deep sense of FOMO (fear of missing out)" and that definitely describes how I felt sometimes when oversleeping. Feels like you're missing out on the golden hour of the day that you'll never get back. It obviously makes no objective sense because late risers are awake roughly the same amount of time, but mornings just feel so much more important than late nights.

When staying up late I was basically just wasting time, but when I get up early it feels like I'm able to get a lot done in that extra time. I don't think that's actually true, I believe I could actually be more productive when often staying up late to grind programming for example, but it feels that way.

For me it's largely true because I have kids. If I wake before them, or even before my wife, that's time when I can focus on getting a single thing done efficiently. Once other people want me to do something, I'm pulled in 4 directions often with equal force.

I think in the past I squandered mornings more often, but now they're kind of like a sanctuary. I might read, lift weights, work on a project around the house - regardless of what I do though, I tend to do it well and with ease. It's often fairly focused and high quality time where I get to be a human being I can recognize and enjoy.

You live in a society that has some really strong stereotypes of early risers and night owls so there is a large amount of learned values involved here. There might be more to it than that for you, but the learned shame part is real and a very consistent part of our culture.

I suspect you’re right.

The only thing I can recall before external influences was waking up early as a child and playing in the grass and woods around my home, feeling like the days lasted forever. I associate waking early with those feelings, too.

Lack of sleep is a good short term treatment for depression. Lack of sleep can also trigger mania in those with a bipolar diagnosis. We also know that those with depression sleep more. So, I wouldn’t be so sure that it’s because you feel guilty about sleeping in. It probably has a deeper basis in biology.

I have seen stats that say mornings are the worst time overall for depression in depressed people. And there is a particular form of depression called diurnal mood variation where people are depressed in the morning then fine later in the day. So I agree it's likely a biological thing first and foremost. When people are depressed they tend to find negative things to focus on, perhaps in an attempt to explain the pain, so I'd think the guilt over oversleeping is more of a side effect.

agree

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