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Comment by vanderZwan | Hacker News Reader

> I'm naturally a night owl.

Many people are unnatural night owls, thanks to blue light sources in the evening - perhaps that applies to you too. Have you tried f.lux?

http://getflux.com/

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Blue light may be interrupting sleep patterns, but I assume people who call themselves night owls share with me a certain feeling of mental haze during daylight hours, regardless of sleep schedule. I'm also about 5% weaker at lifting maximal weights until late afternoon. For what it's worth, I don't consume caffeine (allergic) and I do use f.lux.

I used to call myself a owl too. Often I would be in a haze until late afternoon, then work right up until I went to sleep. Running a business with employees meant I had to shift to mornings (though no longer), but now I'm definitely a lark. My schedule is almost reversed: I work an hour after I get up, and then chill out a couple of hours before bed.

Overall, on this schedule I feel much more rested.

For what it's worth, in my opinion the haze = noise. During the day every damned thing is causing too much noise, even if you block it out with music & headphones it's still noise/distraction. So when you get to the evening and definitely past midnight the ambient noise drops considerably, everything is quiet and there's far less to subconsciously distract you.

it may be sensory overload, variant by person. for me, it's definitely light. i feel fried and cranky within minutes of being in bright sunlight.

i use a program similar to flux and, while it's shifted going to sleep a couple of hours earlier, i still have as much difficulty getting to work by 9. maybe i'm still working through decades of deprivation.

Wrong URL, try: https://justgetflux.com/

For the Linux users among us, there's redshift, which does about the same thing.

And there's Lux for Android, as well.

Shit, you're right and I can't edit it any more.

Night-owl here, and that's not the problem. I will keep myself awake until 3AM whether I'm on my computer or not. I'll often read until 3AM because that's when my body seems to want to go to sleep.

edit: and I don't drink caffeine after 5.

I'm not denying the existence of night-owls of course, it's just that these situations are hard to judge until you've checked all possible causes.

5pm is pretty late to stop caffeine. Try stopping it at 2 or 3.

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