Interesting. I’m also a night owl who struggled waking up like an early bird. Was the transition and efforts worth it? Recently I tried to find a better schedule other than spending another X years fighting my biological clock
Most of Europe doesn't wake up that early. Only the US is obsessed with 4AM hustle culture. Stop that!
I tried to change my sleep for 10 years and for the last 2 I have been embracing the night owl rhythm. And yes I have kids and an amazing partner.
Above low intensity and I am impaired for the rest of the day - struggling with low energy, cognitively dulled and desperate for a nap. This applies even though it's not from sacrificing sleep at 05:00 like some folk do but a leisurely 08:30 or later.
My evening workout schedule (for decades) lets me push to total exhaustion and pass out immediately after eating. One of it's prime benefits was totally solving insomnia/sleep-procrastination of a night owl with an involuntarily regular sleep schedule. I am always spent after exercise not energised.
I can only go for a run first thing in the morning. Although, that's more about the empty stomach (and outdoor temperatures in summer). If I got sugar in my blood, food in my stomach, I kinda "crash" very soon and tend to get heart burn. The empty stomach also makes me feel lighter and the slight hunger feels in tune with the overall experience, if that makes sense. Running in the morning doesn't leave me tired, if I've reached the "maintenance level" (got no specific exercise goal, tho). Aerobic exercise has the benefit of giving me overall higher "energy" by making everything slightly less exhausting. And the peaceful calm of an early morning run in the green (city park) is a blissful, almost spiritual experience radiating into the day. That said, running in the evening can be fun, too, because I feel supernaturally fast. I do that too sometimes, if I feel very, very stressed/anxious and need an outlet.
On the other hand, doing strength training blood sugar is an asset, but pushing limits leaves me exhausted and tired no matter what. I presume, it's natural to feel tired, if the body has tissue damage to repair from exercise. The difference is, running can be done effectively (as far as health maintenance is concerned) without excessive tissue damage and inherently pushing limits as much.
Here in Sweden, it's a morning culture. Blue collar workers often start work at 7, daycare is open from 6 in the morning for parents with early jobs, dinner is at 18 or even 17 for people. At 22, most places are closed including supermarkets and restaurant kitchens. Lunch for the vast majority of working people is at noon.
That is totally different to a country like Spain, where you see families - with kids! - start dinner at 21 or later. In Sweden people would say it's strange not to have your kids in bed by then. Lunch is at 14, cities are full of life until midnight every day.
A large part of that is probably due to daylight hours. A big chunk of Sweden is dark by 16 for the winter half of the year. During November-January there's minimal light and it's gone by 15.
I can say in Germany "9to..." is also applying to cafes, supermarkets, ... pretty much nothing is open before 8 in the morning (with the exception of stuff in train stations), even some supermarkets only open at 9. So there certainly is no "culture" earlier than that. School often starts at 8, so parents frequently start the day at 6 or earlier. Same if you got an hour commuting time etc.. I don't know anybody who would wake up at 4 by choice, tho.
You will not just sleep better, you will have no issues sleeping at night and getting up in the morning. Downside is that you will definitely be awake once the sun rises (sucks in summer if you live far from the equator) and if you shut the blinds and have no automatic opener you are very likely to oversleep. Tuning your body to the solar day has pros and cons.
You are assuming every brain is wired like yours. It has been proven multiple times that we all have different hormonal levels during the day based on the light patterns. Some people only produce melatonin several hours after it's getting dark.
Your assumption of a world where we all behave the same regarding sleep is one of the reason why the US became such a bad 6AM hustle culture.
And the reason why people struggle with melatonin cycles is because it is almost impossible to escape artificial light. A single bright light exposure at night can acutely alter your hormonal levels. I'm not saying that what I have done is easy or even possible for everyone.
Essentially some people will naturally delay sleep multiple hours after the last light. It is believed it might be an evolutionary mechanism to not have every single person asleep at the same time.
And I don't care where hustle culture started. It is more alive than ever in America.
Of course, do your own research, consult your own doctor, not a doctor. And as you say: it's not for everyone. But not enough people mention it.
Let me it at least kick it off by looking for a study myself [1, 2, 3] (I just used Google Scholar).
Four things I've noticed:
1. For the studies saying it only works for 6 weeks, not if you only take it three to four times per week (three is better). You can literally feel the habituation go up and down when you play with the dose. I become really sensitive to it within days.
2. First time I took it, it gave me a sedated feel for like 14 hours. So the first few times, you need to desensitize a bit to it actually (don't drive a car the first few times).
3. For me, when paired with 0.3 mg melatonin 2 hours before bed, it stacks.
4. When I'm super stressed, it doesn't work. I need to be and feel normal.
Again: not a doctor, not medical advice. My advice is to discuss this with your doctor and see if they know anything about it. If they don't, well then, I guess my doctor friend knows something that other doctors don't.
[1] https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Ahsan-Aziz-Sarkar/publi...
[2] https://academic.oup.com/ageing/article/54/3/afaf050/8093583
[3] https://bjgp.org/content/bjgp/early/2025/01/15/BJGP.2024.017...
I had chronic insomnia for >25 years (my entire life) making it extremely difficult to hold down a job or generally interact with society. I've since been on Mirtazipine for about 15 years and the difference is unbelievable.
In the UK it's only dispensed in 15, 30 or 45mg. I was started on 15mg but that left me extremely groggy for most of the next day. My doctor convinced me to move up to 30mg and I'm able to mostly sleep and actually function the next day.
It's not all roses and there's a handful of side effects. Personally I had about 6 months of metallic taste in my mouth and it absolutely buggered my sex drive. A few friends jokingly call it "mirfatapine" as it can make them binge-eat and put on weight, but personally I find the good absolutely outweighs the bad and it's literally life changing.
I know if I forget to take it, because I suddenly realise it's 4am and I'm still wide awake and gibbering. If I'm working festivals then I can _choose_ not to take it and go back to my old routine working 52-hour shifts before falling asleep.
Whilst I'm not overly thrilled at taking psychoactive drugs nightly, it's been the only thing I've ever found (and I spent a lot of my childhood trying anything and everything the doctors recommended and self-medicating in various forms) that actually makes it possible to sleep nightly, and therefore function long term when I'm forced to wake up for work. If you're desperate and out of options it's absolutely worth trying, but do be aware it takes months to become effective.
> Interesting you're the first person to mention this.
I'm also surprised it's not mentioned more. Maybe because it's regulated as a drug? I mean I'm also making a ton of necessary disclaimers.
> I had chronic insomnia for >25 years (my entire life) making it extremely difficult to hold down a job or generally interact with society. I've since been on Mirtazipine for about 15 years and the difference is unbelievable.
Same, entire life, my life was falling apart. Suicide would be realistic within 5 to 10 years. Now it's not. Suicide by insomnia is a dark thing but when I'm on r/insomnia I can relate. The agony is too much and when the insomnia hits hardest there's no willpower to stop anything, it's just pure suffering and torture. I wasn't there yet thankfully but insomnia is fucking dark and it is sad to see that there's not much more of a focus on it. It's damn debilitating. Moreover, like you probably did, I saw it as normal. Because Dutch doctors went with the "ah you're fine" strategy. Dutch doctors are quite stiff in that sense (if you're almost dying... sure then they'll help you. Or if there's something clearly wrong with you like a broken arm). It differs from US healthcare by quite a lot.
> In the UK it's only dispensed in 15, 30 or 45mg. I was started on 15mg but that left me extremely groggy for most of the next day. My doctor convinced me to move up to 30mg and I'm able to mostly sleep and actually function the next day.
I have a 15 mg that you can snap in 2 because it has a ridge in the middle (or however you call that).
> It's not all roses and there's a handful of side effects. Personally I had about 6 months of metallic taste in my mouth and it absolutely buggered my sex drive. A few friends jokingly call it "mirfatapine" as it can make them binge-eat and put on weight, but personally I find the good absolutely outweighs the bad and it's literally life changing.
No bad side effects at 7.5 mg here, thank god.
> I know if I forget to take it, because I suddenly realise it's 4am and I'm still wide awake and gibbering.
Same
> If I'm working festivals then I can _choose_ not to take it and go back to my old routine working 52-hour shifts before falling asleep.
Yea, the routine changes I can make are a super power. I can only be awake for 12 hours today and I need to sleep? No problem!
Stay awake for 20? Sure I'll just not use the drug.
It's insane. I am now almost the opposite, I have sleeping super powers.
> Whilst I'm not overly thrilled at taking psychoactive drugs nightly
I agree not thrilled either.
> that actually makes it possible to sleep nightly, and therefore function long term when I'm forced to wake up for work. If you're desperate and out of options it's absolutely worth trying, but do be aware it takes months to become effective.
For me it worked the first time taking it. We're all different that way.
What nudges me towards sleep (but is not enough):
1. 0.3 mg melatonin two hours before bedtime (a higher dose doesn't do much more for me)
2. L-theanine (makes me a bit more chill, literally a chill pill haha)
3. Apigenin (still under research if it's placebo or not)
4. Magnesium (sometimes; I think it's because I sometimes have a deficit, usually related to light restless leg syndrome. It always helps when I have restless leg syndrome)
5. Vipassana meditation (25% chance of knocking me out cold unmedicated, so pretty cool but also... not enough)
6. Cuddling with my wife before bed (also like a 10 to 25% effect, I need a higher sample size to do this unmedicated but don't want to risk my sleep rhythm nowadays)
7. Sleep restriction (apply strategically because 6 hours of sleep is not fun, especially not if you've had insomnia for decades - I have little reserves, even if I sleep well for weeks nowadays - insomnia fucked me up hard)
8. General CBT-I stuff and general sleep hygiene
9. I have a Spotify playlist that is my type of winddown music (very chill lofi, very chill chillstep, or slow Hawaiian guitar music)
10. Night walks. And they may actually be the key to fix my insomnia unmedicated but I'd need to experiment a lot. My insomnia is related to feeling "false energy". Aka I sleep 2 to 4 hours and I wake up and I feel like I'm immediately ready, immediately energetic. Wanna go for a 5 mile run? Sure! Sounds fun! And it usually keeps up x2 the ours I sleep (so 4 hours of sleep means 8 hours of feeling awake - and shit - but also awake; afterwards I completely crash). What a night walk can do is that sometimes I've noticed after 30 minutes I feel the "false" part of the "false energy" vibe and I notice I actually feel dead tired. Once that feeling comes over me like a blanket. I can go right back to sleep and fall asleep. The annoying thing is the feeling has to come.
11. Cuddling a pillow, even when I sleep next to my wife. It helps.
12. Temperature control. I don't notice temperature that well but when I self-reflected deeply I noticed higher temperatures keep me awake, and sometimes that was the actual issue.
13. Mosquito control (lights out, phone light on, small vacuum ready, easiest way to get rid of them)
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Funnily enough I don't notice much of an effect that when I have blue light at night that it is harder for me to sleep. It probably has a mild adverse effect but nothing major.
All of these 13 things are not enough. I still miss 3 days per week on average by doing all of this. And sometimes I also get in a horrible loop if this happens from Sunday to Monday as I am prone of "if you feel super tired it can be even harder to fall asleep". I've lost a job from that effect. Losing that job is what made me determined to wage an internal war on it and let everyone know I was doing it. That's how I know to solve really difficult things: fix the problem or die trying. I was that desperate, which is my my doctor friend intervened after seeing me a year of doing that (knowing I was doing this for 3 years already).
Nowadays though it is:
1. Mirtazapine 7.5 mg (one hour before bed)
2. Melatonin 0.3 mg (two hours before bed)
I carry it in my pockets so I always have it so I can take it. It's a bit odd to have my sleep meds by day, but I've missed timings because I was too focused on something and wouldn't go upstairs or still at a friend's place just about to leave.
3. Mosquito and temperature control
These 3 things don't nudge me to sleep. They make me sleep.
For fellow insomniacs, we're all different but I hope there are one or two things that you haven't tried yet. I doubt it, but one can hope that they can help alleviate some insomnia of other people, haha.
Disclaimer: I'm not a doctor etc. I'm a former lifetime insomniac. And my friend quite literally saved me. For now at least he did. Who knows how long Mirtazapine is going to work, but I'm happy to see BuildTheRobots is on it for 15 years and still going strong. I know that anti-histamine medication are able to be taken for a lifetime. So that's a promising sign.
I have taken 20mg, but if I don't end up sleeping made me feel really off/groggy. But that I think more so cause I didn't sleep.
I can take 10mg, get waken up in a couple hours by the kids or pets and feel fully awake and well rested.
Unlike here where my kids need to wake up at 6AM. Absolutely ridiculous
I am in Germany, and school starts at 8 in Berlin, 8:05 in Wiesbaden, 7:45 in some small cities in Baden-Württemberg... And those are only the ones that I, personally, experienced. I'm sure Poland and Spain have different times, not lastly owing to timezones etc.
Please don't treat all of Europe as one single country with one set of customs.
The 5 countries around where I grew up have starting times between 8:30AM and 9AM. Overall Europe is simply nor as much as a morning culture as the US. Probably because life is more communal and cities have things to do in the evening (in the US, my theory is that car culture killed all energy in the evenings).
It is not totally doable. It just makes fitting into the economic world slightly less shitty.
I yearn for retirement not so I can stop working, but so I can finally get a full “night” worth of sleep and wake up with a clear mind for the first time since my 20s when I worked a night shift. It’s been decades of being rather miserable.
Not everyone is built for the current world, and the gatekeepers all apparently seem to be morning people who despise night folks.
Waking up is the easy part. Having your brain engage to full power is the hard bit. I will get 8-9 hours of sleep and still spend the whole day groggy until the evening, and then my mental energy and motivation really kicks in around 9pm or so. But then it’s time to wind down.
Vacations for me are just taking a week off so I can go back to my natural sleeping patterns and do personal projects at 4am.
But, yeah, generally this is true and is something that I miss from my FTE days. (I'm in tech sales now, and our hours are whatever fits into our customers' calendars...sometimes that means I start at 11, other times I'm going to be on an 08:00 zoom and like it!)
When I had a job I rarely had to interact with others, it was pretty easy. I could wake up early on the one day a week or less I needed to do some silly meeting, handle it, and go pass out for a couple hours and come back refreshed.
When it's your daily routine, it's effectively impossible. I can try to sleep in on the weekends, but that's really about it to catch up on decent sleep.
The days I can sleep in until 10-11am I am markedly more productive and just generally happy. But those are very rare now. Just the hours from 6am when my wife wakes up and gets out of bed until 9-10am are crazy in terms of how much better sleep I get overall. The previous 5-6 hours almost are immaterial. I could go to bed at 4am those nights and not notice a difference between going to bed at 11pm.
My mood is better, my routine matches the “world” better, and I would say I’m mentally sharper on those days too. YMMV
Recently, I started using an app to track my caffeine consumption during a day (there are a bunch of those in the stores), and even though I haven't stopped drinking coffee and not planning to, I'm trying to stay within a reasonable limit and switch to decaf if I'm close to it.
You are rarity/have sheltered kid well. ( Have met some families where kids never had fast food, sweets, like rod and todd Flanders in the Simpsons lol)
I'm on West coast, kids in elementary school, and half the bday parties in the lower grades families serving mini cans of coke for the kids (and juice with just as much sugar, pick your poison).
Goto any fast food joint/mcd and see 5yr olds with a soda.
I have traveled throughout Canada to east coast and kids love soda pop/coke too.
Not all kids like soda, many do. Not all parents allow their kids to regularly have side, but may give as a special treat.
More and more kids are drinking coffee due to Starbucks type drinks, but that's mostly just sugar.
My background is that as the poster above, I have always been a night owl, with the ability to function and wake up earlier if I need to.
For years I have tried to change it because of beliefs like yours that it was "worth it". Whenever I tried to change it I would feel unergetic, crappy and unmotivated. I would stumble on words and have terrible sleep. Yes, I tried to stop caffeine, use candle light only, ton of supplements. Nothing worked.
Since then I have accepted I'm a night owl, and I should embrace it. I have never felt better since the day I have decided to stop fighting it.
The 6AM hustle seems amazing in theory but at the end of the day we all only got 24 hours.