Mornings Don't Make You Moral | Hacker News Reader

Mornings Don't Make You Moral

newyorker.com

125 pointsweej48 comments

I've often wondered if the east coast orientation of the United States affects overall sleep patterns in the US. I know it does for me- I live on the west coast and am regularly getting up for 5a conference calls with east coast clients, despite being a profound night owl descended from multiple generations of night owls. While I like my job, the schedule is physically painful for me. I often dream that if the political and financial centers of the US were on the west then east coasters would constantly be working till 7 or 8p at night, with early birds dropping like flies since they won't get back to their house get in bed before 10p.

It really is tough being a night owl. No one makes fun of the person works from 6-3p, but you might get fired in a lot of places you tried to set your working schedule to 11p-8p. And what we do to our middle and high schoolers is just wrong. I remember to catch the bus I had to be outside by 645a, which meant waking up at 615a. Your average teenager's body doesn't want to wake up before 8 or 9a!

BTW- If you're an early bird who thinks all of us night owls are lazy, please read Internal Time (http://www.amazon.com/Internal-Time-Chronotypes-Social-Youre...) and then cut us some slack. If you are night owl you might want to pick it up to make you feel better :)

Yep, here I am at 2am, feeling super guilty about being awake. I can generally stick to a normal pattern of sleep for a week or so, but I eventually have one evening come along where I end up staying up late. I tell myself it's out of necessity for work or other catch-ups, but really it's just a natural inclination.

The worst part about not being a morning person is the loss in communication skills during critical morning meetings, etc. The parts of my brain responsible for solid verbal/written skills are just not up to speed yet. Lots of coffee turns me into a highly alert rambler. It's better than nothing I guess.

> Lots of coffee turns me into a highly alert rambler.

not good for health if done daily.

I literally moved to Europe because of this. Tele-commuting to the East coast, my work day starts around noon and calls don't come in until 3pm.

In many fields it's well known that sleep/wake up time determines when your performances peak.

In top-flight soccer, players adjust their sleep and training schedule so their body peak at afternoon matches in the weekend. And when they have out-of-schedule matches, especially to another city with large time difference, their performances drop.

I also remember reading a book by a successful negotiator, that he tries to schedule the important meetings at 6PM, because morning people are generally not as sharp at that time as they are in the morning, while he is still fully functioning due to his late-rising habits.

The not so exciting conclusion: early-bird performs best in the morning to early afternoon, late-riser performs best in the late afternoon to evening.

90% of Hacker News probably thinks they are night owls. Most (but definitely not all) of you are wrong -- you're just young, over-caffeinated, over-exposed to artificial light and / or adjusting because the fun stuff in life happens in the evenings and at night.

I thought I was a night owl. I got fired once for showing up to start work at closing time after being warned several times.

10 years later, I'm one of those people that wakes up at 5AM so they can go to the gym before work.

What changed? I hit my forties, I cut out caffeine, I stopped using the computer after 9PM, I got married & had kids, and I go out dancing 6 times a year rather than 6 times a week.

Want to know if you're really a night owl without radical experiments like cutting out caffeine? Ask your Mom if you slept in on Saturdays when you were 7 years old.

>What changed? I hit my forties

It's pretty well documented that people in your age group are generally early risers and that people in young adulthood tend to be night owls. Getting older and having your preference change is hardly an indication that you were "never really" a certain way when you were younger.

I'm 20, don't drink caffeine or go out more than once or twice a month. Left to my own devices, in a few weeks I'd be falling asleep around 10AM and waking up at 5PM.

People are different. It doesn't mean they're wrong.

You're 20 years old, and you use computers after 9PM, I presume. Therefore the time shifting you experience is perfectly normal, and is not necessarily because you are a night owl.

You're presuming a bit too much there. I don't understand how you figure my age factors into some sort of false transition period or that my experience is any less real because it happens before an arbitrary age, though.

>I'm 20, don't drink caffeine or go out more than once or twice a month. Left to my own devices, in a few weeks I'd be falling asleep around 10AM and waking up at 5PM.

I'd bet that might not be so without electronics :)

99% of statistics on the Internet are false.

I don't take caffeine in any form, don't do any drugs. Nor sugar. All displays at their lowest level of backlight the whole day. Still, there's no way I could fall asleep before midnight.

Every time I had to wake up before 7-8 it was a physically painful experience.

And yes, I pretty much always slept in on Saturdays, Sundays and every free day I could.

Like others in this thread say -- the "you're just a lazy ass" thinking is really hurtful and ignorant.

I am happy there're still companies with sane approach to office hours.

I've been a morning person and then a night owl, and then a morning person, and then a night owl, all depending on the demands that life, work and family threw at me. I stopped believing in this night/morning person thing. We just adapt to what we choose, or what we have to do. Or we choose not to adapt, and then we say we are the other type. (yes, in my case; yes, anecdotal etc)

What I have read somewhere a long time ago, is that the chronotypes are actually functions of the inner clock in so much as that you either have an inner clock of a 23 hours day or a 25 hours day. (Compare also to leap year etc)

So this then makes you somebody who tends to wake up earlier each day or later, depending on your inner clock.

I found that explanation more convincing. I am with you, we haven't figured it out yet. But I would say, there is something to it.

In college I fell into a 26-ish hour sleep schedule for awhile (which meant skipping some classes when my schedule rotated around to sleeping in the middle of the day). I probably had diagnosable Delayed Sleep Phase Disorder at some points of my life, and used to need 9-10 hours of sleep in High School and College. Never been a morning person. Jet lag to Europe is inevitably completely brutal to my system.

Be happy that you can adapt. It isn't a choice for me. I've struggled with this for 40 years.

Crazy question for the night owls in here:

I frequently find I can concentrate more in a dark environment. Even at 2PM in the afternoon, if I can sneak off to a dark room in the office place I can get more work done. While it is easy to block out noise with headphones in an office environment, replicating a dark work place proves to be hard.

Do any of you prefer to work in the dark? Any tips for those days you need to get stuff done in an office? Perhaps I need an office fort: http://i3.mirror.co.uk/incoming/article4124039.ece/alternate...

I'm a night owl, but I wouldn't say I prefer it just for the lighting. Are you sure you don't prefer the lack of interruption that often accompanies dark, late night work environments? Even with good noise cancelling headphones, there can still be a lot of distraction. Even a coworker walking through your field of vision can take you out of what you're doing.

I've always done my best work starting at maybe 10pm, but I also don't think it's about the lighting. There are some seemingly obvious benefits--the news cycle is much slower, few stores are open, most people are sleeping--so, fewer distractions overall.

But I don't think it's that. That's when I feel like working.

When I wake up at 8am, I feel like reading the internet all day.

I'm really not sure I can quantify or explain it any better.

I also find it easier to concentrate under dim indirect light, supplemented with LED task lighting for reading paper and playing with hardware. If you're stuck in an office, perhaps you can convince management to save energy on lighting and HVAC.

Yes a dark room is always very helpful for my productivity also i tend to switch all my tools to a dark theme so it's easier on the eyes.

Unfortunately so many websites only use bright themes that it's painful and I sometimes end up restyling them with Greasemonkey.

Especially the sites I use the most.

Sure I love to work in the dark (and find myself most productive around 4AM)... but I have to wonder - is it possible that you are mistaking the simple benefits of being alone? Open floor plans and shared workspaces are absolutely poisonous to productivity, literally hundreds of studies have shown it consistently. Everyone is more productive and happier when they have an isolated place where they can simply concentrate without the social centers of their brains constantly running in circles trying to be prepared for the next interruption or to interpret subtle cues from neighbors.

This is a good point, I have had very productive study & coding sessions in university days in brightly lit libraries and secluded corners of buildings.

It's odd, to me at least, that they seem to be assuming that sleeping once a day is biologically sound. I thought it was pretty well accepted that our biology supported the idea of sleeping twice a day (based on hormone level fluctuations throughout the day). The only reason we insist on sleeping only at night even after the advent of electric lighting and such is a sort of blind adherence to tradition combined with casual sadism practiced by everyone who gets to lord power over others (parents, employers, etc).

plus going home take a nap in the mid of day for commuting people is just difficult...

Also is well known that segmented sleep was the norm before electricity.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Segmented_sleep

Someone once posed this question to me: Would you rather not need food or sleep?

I'd definitely say no sleep, especially for learning, exploring and money-making purposes. That being said, if they asked me if I'd only prefer to live the mornings or the nights, I'd choose mornings (let's say, midnight to noon, on repeat), as the mornings are when people tend to be more hopeful in what they can accomplish, when they think more is possible. Plus, coffee time and a quieter environment.

In my case, my learning abilities are enhanced in the morning and fade as the day goes by. I feel like my mind is tired in the evening[1].

If I wake up late, I'm usually on a bad mood. I rarely manage be as productive as when I wake up early. Of course to wake up early, in a good shape, you have to sleep early.

Anyway, that's me. I didn't conduct any study, I'm just stating that what Franklin and Aristotle notice, works for me: I manage to be more up-beat, happy, self-satisfied when I wake up early in the morning.

[1] I often sleep in the evening (~ 1 hour). It's a kind of habit on one hand, but I also feel that I can't work well in the evening if I don't. Passed a point I feel exhausted. However, when I don't sleep in the evening I have a much deeper/better sleep at night.

I'm completely the opposite. When I wake up via alarm clock for work (at about 7:30) I feel irritated and unhappy. My brain is a complete fog and it's difficult to concentrate on anything until about ten or so. Even getting dressed is a chore. My whole morning a struggle to go through the motions and I don't really start firing on all cylinders until after lunch.

When I wake up naturally (on the weekends) it's between 9 and 10. I read a book in bed for about an hour or so, get up, shower and have coffee and feel like I can kick the world's ass by 11. I read, work on math problems or my various projects until about 2-3 am when I fall asleep naturally, unless I have to go to work the next day in which case I try to force myself to fall asleep between midnight and 1.

I'm about like this, but wanted to add that I feel physically ill (nauseous) when I wake up too early.

It can actually be any time of day, I think it's more related to how many hours of sleep I've had.

Sunrise, though, is never a time when I feel good physically. I don't think it's just a pavlovian reaction, either.

Jetlag on the way west is the best. Suddenly I'm actually awake early in the mornings. Too bad it wears off after a few days.

For brain-intensive work you need at least 6 if not 7, optimally 8 hours of sleep per day. What you're describing - sleep from 2:30 to 7:30 - is a 5h sleep schedule. If I do that, after the 3rd day, I'd had troubles concentrating on anything.

When I was in the army, I found myself into a situation where for several reasons I managed to sleep 4 hours in 3 days. In the 3rd day, I had to stay awake until 14:30 (that was the time my service was about to end, which would permit me to sleep for 6 hrs uninterrupted). I remember that from 6:00 to 14:00 I was literally hallucinating. The effect was so strong, that I still remember vividly the dreams I had over that 6 hours. I had to be sitting on various desks to perform some or no (real) work at all. I was literally falling asleep on the chair. My lieutenant was trying to keep awake somehow until 14:00, in order to make me avoid jail-time in case his superiors realize my real condition. I wasn't able to pick up a conversation without falling asleep. Even 2 seconds of closing my eyes, would immediately indulge me into a sort of a dream, involving the people around me.

One of the few things I've learned in the army was that I can be operative for 8-10 hours if I sleep 4 hours per night. Then I need to get some sleep, otherwise I switch in dumb mode. After the 3rd day, I start hallucinating :-)

To be clear: I try to force myself to go to sleep before 1 if I have to go to work the next day. That means lots of laying in bed trying to sleep.

I don't think I have anything like a sleep disorder, if I weren't working an office job I'd have really healthy sleep patterns. But the inflexible rules of American office work means I'm constantly having to fight my circadian rhythm.

If you literally notice that your mind is fading during the day, and that feeling has started in the recent several months, often that is a sign of either vision problems or acute diabetes.

Discovered a couple of links away from TFA: the Automated Morningness-Eveningness Questionnaire, http://www.cet-hosting.com/limesurvey/?sid=61524

Can we call this early bird privilege?

Yes!

There are numerous studies on sleep deprivation and its impact on decision making and critical thinking; however, this is an interesting spin on it. It focuses on individuals' circadian rhythm and theory "proposing what they called the morning morality effect, which posits that people behave better earlier in the day".

I always thought these sayings were more about what people get upto in the evenings - that's usually when parties, drinking, etc. happen. Therefore if you can get up early, you probably haven't been out all night partying, ergo you are more virtuous.

Good point, until I started chatting with old folks early 5am in the morning at IHOP. Now I'm filled with Vietnam era dirty jokes and feeling not-so-virtuous anymore.

I thought I was reading about people making worse decisions immediately before breaks and the end of the day, and people made the best decisions in the time after their breaks.

If you get your ass out of bed before dawn, that shows you have self-discipline, a valued trait. It probably dates back to agrarian communities, where 12-14 hours of solid work per day were common and you couldn't get all of it done unless you got up early. People who got up late were lazy shirkers and could possibly be deadly to the family.

It's a good thing we have electric lighting now, so people can get up at 2pm and still work a 14 hour day.

It's a shame working long hours is both inefficient and socially encouraged.

It's not coincidental that early waking insomnia sets in around middle age, and workplaces where the senior staff are middle age encourage early start times.

Personally, I think we should respect people who get things done rather than concentrating on signalling. I'll still be in work early though because society disagrees.

Self discipline is fixing that tricky system outage that takes out production at midnight and requires great concentration, even though the early waking sysops give up and bow-out of the conference call because they "can't think straight" leaving those late waking engineers to pick up the pieces.

If you "get your ass out of bed" when you are actually rested, that shows that you value the quality of the work you do during the day, a valued trait.

People who get up early are just lazy night-work shirkers who could possibly be deadly to the companies servers.

The tone is that of a judgmental … person but the point is sound. Farming sucks. Otherwise people wouldn't be desperate for jobs in factory sweatshops. They beat the alternative.

>If you get your ass out of bed before dawn, that shows you have self-discipline, a valued trait.

That just tells me you are desperate to please people with meaningless signals rather than showing useful skills.

> Ultimately, the best policy may be to understand and embrace your chronotype.

Way to take a stand on the issue. So, does it matter what time of day I come to the conclusion that I'm a night owl chronotype? I think I'm more likely to lie to myself some mornings.

The idea that people are statically night owls or early birds seems silly. It's just another habit you can hack. The same is true for morality.

So much wut. This must be bait.

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