First physical evidence of why you're an owl or a lark
newscientist.com
newscientist.com
I actively started changing my habits a few years ago, meaning I changed my diet to high-fibre+high-protein+high-(good)fat+low-carbs, stopped drinking alcohol cold turkey, get up earlier (~5am) before work to work out and go to sleep earlier (~10pm). This has worked wonders for me, I'm always energised and never drowsy during the day, sleep like a rock and needless to say am much healthier overall.
People think of me as a morning person now, which is probably right although it's weird after having lived like an owl for years. I believe for most people this boils down to habit and changing those is hard. An owl-ish life might not be bad for everybody but from my experience it's very taxing on health and social life and the mental state.
In my case having a regular job and kids certainly gave incentive (aka left not many options) to transform into a lark, but most people can probably do it - if they really want to.
I managed to get myself into the lark schedule three or four times for various periods of time (2-3 weeks minimum, about 6-7 months in the longest streak) but it took a lot of energy to keep myself there. I had to get up very early even during weekends, and push myself to go to sleep around 10 PM, because a single hour off my regular sleep hour was enough to kick my schedule into chaos again. I wasn't drowsy during the day, but I wasn't too productive, nor too energetic, either, and overall my productivity plummeted.
I eventually gave it up. It reverted to more normal hours when I moved in with my girlfriend, who wakes up a bit earlier. Nowadays, I can typically wake up around 10:30 AM without an alarm (and would generally fall asleep around 4 AM), which is a lot better than before when, left to my own devices, I'd wake up around noon. During weekdays, I wake up around 08:30 (fortunately, my workplace is quite close to home -- it's a twenty minute walk); I need the alarm clock for that, but except for Fridays, I'm not too exhausted.
http://www.boston.com/news/education/k_12/articles/2010/02/1...
What it certainly does not say is that people who have had an owl pattern long beyond adolescence can be cured by leaving the curtains open.
Most of my mates would be asleep 3 seconds before hitting the pillow; the other self-proclaimed night owls would take 15 minutes to fall asleep. I rarely fell asleep before 3 am.
After about 4 weeks, I exhausted whatever reserves there were, and started falling asleep at every opportunity during the day (good or not, sometimes while standing up, often instead of eating). After another couple of months, I was able to function with a couple of 15 minute power naps.
This lasted for 8 month until I managed to get a different assignment. Food wasn't according to your plan, but otherwise, I was forced into larking for a reasonably long time. My eyesight deteriorated, and health otherwise declined - but I remained owl throughout
In my case I'm quite sure the main driver was not because I forced a different schedule onto myself, but the dietary changes and probably the excercise.
Of course it's very possible that you are just "more of an owl" (by whatever definition) than I was.
The ability to take naps anywhere whenever the occasion rises is a core military skill - soldiers never know when the next sleep opportunity will occur...
I'm not sure it's 'owlishness' or if it's delayed onset sleep disorder, but my body seems to just want more hours in the day. More to be awake for (20 ish) and more to be asleep (10 would be good). If I was left to control my own schedule and didn't have to consider everyone else on the planet I'd probably get up six hours later every day...
I've tried making myself go to bed, and sometimes to sleep with chemical help, It doesn't seem to work for more than a few days. I don't seem to have a reset button I can find.
Getting up at 5am regularly isn't really a choice I can see making, however motivated, because 5am would come and my only thought would be how quickly I could go back to sleep, shortly followed by seething, loathing hatred for whatever had woken me. Similarly going to bed at 10 results in me laying there for several hours awake.
I envy people who regularly get tired in the evening rather than waking up and wanting to do stuff when the rest of the world shuts down.
Here's some more from my personal experience (not saying it would work for any of you, and it appears you've already tried a few times):
fwiw, I rarely am tired in the evenings, I just decide that it's reasonable to go to bed now. Similar about food, I do it more to keep my machine working, not because I'm hungry. Sometimes I pull a late-nighter because I'm sucked into something, but getting up the next morning is harder (the "blerch" [1] is louder) so that sucks.
Every time my alarm goes off in the mornings (fun fact: the alarm sound is "Gonna Fly Now" from Rocky :-) there's a few minutes where my inner "blerch" tries to convince me to stay in bed. Every time. I force myself to walk the stairs and down a glass of tomato juice, and in almost an instant, am up and running.
I don't think that it being really easy is the point here. And part of me always wants to stay up long and nerd around. For me, taking control, getting over that hump is never easy and takes a good bit of discipline, for the lack of a better word. I did find that getting up in the mornings and stopping to code/paint/play games a bit earlier before getting tired gets easier with time.
[1] where I got that "blerch" word from: http://theoatmeal.com/comics/running
The only thing that I have found really works is about an hour of exercise, preferably cycling. That was a lot easier when I lived in a warm country.
Also I guess I'm not convinced why I should have discipline... it just seems to work for other people!
You get really weird days when 10am has become 'staying up late' somehow...
If you want my advice (feel free to ignore me, I'm just a random guy on the internet):
If you aren't happy with how it's going for you (big if), identify the variables you can change, and experiment with them. What worked for me doesn't have to work for you, but I wouldn't count on "them" adding hours to the day anytime soon :-) Diet and exercise had a strong effect on my energy levels and sleep patterns, beyond that I'd just be guessing. The topic turns into biochemistry very fast, and I'm not very good at that. But at the end of the day, you're a machine, and that machine can be hacked. How, is up for you to find out.
My old business partner used to pull it off quite effectively. His girlfriend was an early to bed, early to rise type and seemed to require more sleep than him. They'd go to bed around 9 or 10.
She'd sleep through to 6. He'd sleep through to about 4, get up and screw around on the computer for a couple of hours, go back to bed, and then get up again at 8.
Got to go to bed at the same time as his girlfriend, got an extra couple hours of productive time in the night, got up at his regular time. It was, to me, a pretty ingenious solution within his constraints.
Unfortunately I'm the "if I'm up, I'm up" type. Takes me a bit of work to get conscious but once I do I won't sleep again until my bed time.
I go through phases of being happy with it and not, guess we'll see if/when I get annoyed enough to have another go at 'fixing' it.
Good luck :-)
However, like you, I just decided to actively change that. I set an alarm to go to bed. Always in bed before 1am, preferably midnight. And it was a miserable month or so getting used to that. But now it's great and I'm actually still in shock that it's worked so well. Mornings are productive again! In a way I never thought they could be. And I've had a healthy amount of weight loss as a side benefit too. It's like what all those sleep researchers were saying was actually true :) [i.e. practice good sleep hygiene and the rest will fall into place]
> An owl-ish life might not be bad for everybody but from my experience it's very taxing on health and social life and the mental state.
And definitely agreed with this, at least for me. But I felt like it was the only way I could be productive and do my best work at the time, but now I know this isn't the case anymore.
I see that with myself, I live the owl life because
1. I love to be in bed. It actually do not matter when. 2. I hate going to bed when there is work the next day or it is a we day and I lose some of the so precious free time.
So that starts a vicious circle where I go to bed late, wake up late when I can, or be miserable when I can't. I don't know if I'm a owl or lark, the "owl" pattern in my life is artificially created.
Entirely possible :) I find the possibility intriguing, because when I was living the "owl" life you'd never have been able to persuade me that I wasn't actually an owl, especially because I'd tried and failed so many times to get change my sleep patterns before it finally clicked. It does make me wonder how many other people out there are like me in that regard.
For me, personally, it really highlighted how little you know about your own body compared to what you think you know, which is completely contrary to what I would've expected and very interesting to me.
I'm also fortunate in that I have some brain MRIs of mine and in my opinion there is no marked reduction in white matter anywhere. I do not have the feeling that I'm suffering from permanent jet lag, though I must admit that I seldomly experience jet lag at all (which I guess could mean I have it all the time without noticing it somehow).
And here comes the most poignant bit of the article:
"It's interesting that there are individual differences, but we need
to understand what is causing them and find ways of creating environments
in which those differences can be attenuated," says Dirk-Jan Djik
That's not what the article is suggesting, and attenuating differences to figure out the differences makes absolutely no sense, not even semantically. The attenuation of differences in this context means that the intent is to standardize the populace, nothing more, nothing less.
> Furthermore, can we figure out the attributes that larks have, that on the whole seem to make them healthier than owls.
And I'm pretty sure I said I don't believe certain points the article claims at face value. I don't think you can call this incredulity "missing the point". This assertion that larks are healthier than owls, which seems to be at the bottom of all this, should at least have more empirical data behind it (preferably gathered by people with less bias).
> Then, maybe we can adjust the lifestyles of the unhealthy larks to have them lead a healthier life.
Now you're just contradicting your own comment. Did you maybe mean to say "owls" there?
2. I'm unsure how this scientific research shows bias. Small sample size, perhaps, but not much in the way of bias. You on the other hand are taking a scientific study as a personal assault on your lifestyle. The article doesn't even claim that the changes in white matter have adverse health effects.
here is an excerpt: It's also not clear whether the structural changes have any implications for people's health.
3. Yes, I did mean to type owls there.
> "Rosenberg suggests that people's work schedules should change to fit in with their natural sleep patterns"
I realize there's some of what you're talking about going on here (e.g. the very next phrase mentioning that there's an 'easier way'), but I think there's far less intent than you're implying.
The attenuation of differences in this context means that the intent is to standardize the populace, nothing more, nothing less.
It sounds to me like you came to this article with the feeling that owls are mistreated relative to larks and you're layering that previous sentiment over the article so that it says things to you that it doesn't literally say.
Are you arguing that your physiology represents the whole of humanity? This may have enormous implications for cancer research and neuroscience if so - you should get in touch with your local research university.
You may disagree with his beliefs, but to claim that an expert in the field is ignorant, just because his statements don't accord with your own experience, is ridiculous.
With any research, findings apply to the majority of the population studied - if, for example, 1 in 10,000 people experience something different than the majority, that 1 person's anecdote does not mean that the research was incorrect.
In this case, it it appears from the results that the potential benefits of specialized treatment for those affected by sleep phase disorders outweighs the potential to offend or affront those people whose physiologies do not match the results of this study.
Ignoring my possible work relations, what difference does it make if I respond to emails at 3pm, have breakfast at 5, work until 10, eat again, work until 2am, relax until the sun comes up, and sleep to do it again.
Again, society doesn't work this way and many times there are adjustments to account for this (early meetings, spending time with friends and family, etc.), but is early intrinsically better?
I end my work day around 4PM. The sun is already down, and it's dark.
Being an early riser don't really help me get sunlight.
That's my work schedule. I'm naturally a night owl. I prefer to work all night, but I can't.
However, I'm also one of the few who doesn't care that we don't see the sun for month during winter. So being a night owl really helps me from getting "SAD".
FYI, during winter: Sunrise: 7:34 AM Sunset: 4:22 PM
Working all early morning and all late noon? Meh.
Where I live there is not much sunlight except for a few months in a year. So I get up at 10:40, hopefully get to work at noon, go to sleep at 2AM. And don't feel so well.
The study just says that there were white matter “differences in the frontal and temporal lobes, cingulate gyrus and corpus callosum” of the night owl participants compared to the rest of the study participants.
The first author suggests this might be a result of night owls suffering from “permanent jet lag” — i.e. that the cause goes exactly the opposite way the title suggests. Of course, the study doesn't say that, it's just an educated guess.
Oftentimes, it feels like the worst kind of torture. I am living in two worlds and in one, I am barely better than an observer of my subconscious mind acting out routine. My ex-roommate had this to say after he'd lived with me a year:
"Tif, you wax and you wane..."
This was a years ago. I think about it once a month or so - he was of course referring to my self as alert and present as well as, alternately, a vapid automaton driven by the eerily invisible clockwork of the subconscious.
Now if you'll excuse me, I have to get my coffee of the stove...
1. Inexpensive Uvex amber googles from Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Uvex-S0360X-Ultra-spec-SCT-Orange-Anti... Wear them at least an hour or two before bedtime.
2. I replaced most of the white compact fluorescent lights with amber compact fluorescent lights https://www.lowbluelights.com/index.asp
3. And I use a sunrise simulator alarm clock. http://www.amazon.com/Philips-HF3520-Wake-Up-Colored-Simulat...
No will power needed beyond the habit to wear the googles and change the lighting. Usually in bed by 10PM.
Result: no insomnia. Have been able to consistently maintain an early schedule. This would have been inconceivable earlier. I have become the person you've never met.
I'm a night owl, always have been, even after I had kids. Go to bed at 1am-2am and wake up 7:30-8:30 depending on schedule. Weekends all bets are off. Works well for me, but that's the thing: I don't think we're all that similar. Different patterns for different people.