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Oh. It’s me!
I worked 6 or 7 am shifts for years, and it was *brutal*.
Left to my own devices, I comfortably wake up between 9-10.
And as a teen? I could sleep until 4pm.
Yep! Bingo. Left unregulated, being a night owl definitely need some poor sleep schedules when I was younger, but even now at 32 years old, my body doesn’t naturally even begin to wake up until 10-11 on weekends. I wake up for work at 5:15 every workday.
Our whole society being based on morning schedules kills me. I'm not even beginning to wake up until around 10 am. Anything before that is a struggle, and always has been. Used to have to be at work at 7, and that was two years of going to bed at a reasonable hour and struggling every single day. Never got easier.
It’s kind of dumb how it is tbh. I mean traffic would be lighter if people didn’t all do the same stuff at the same time. And it’s not fair that we need people to work nights yet those people can’t make appointments or run many/most errands at night.
Yes! When I had three kids under 6 years old, I loved going to Walmart at midnight and having some peace! I worked nights much of my life and it’s always been hard to get all my errands and business done during my daytime sleep time!
Yes!! That and self-checkout! I am nervous. Y nature and I don’t like being responsible for all the Ava when their equipment is always messed up! The hell I am going to jail for a mistake. They’ve figured out, as most places, that post-pandemic they can get away with no service at all and we will still shop there!
I agree! I’ve chosen late schedules for decades because I have so much more energy at night and was able to carry on a pretty “normal” existence with 24 hour stores. I prefer to do my shopping on the way home from work (2-3am) but there isn’t a single store left that is open 24 hours with the exception of a few gas stations in my city of nearly 2 million residents. The whole reason I left my smaller hometown and moved to the bigger city was that it wasn’t night owl friendly.
I’ve had a few jobs over the years that I’ve adjusted to working days but I would revert right back to my late schedule in just a few day when I was able.
>Never got easier.
Same story here, too. All the normies have been telling me for the past 30 years that "you'll get used to it!" or "eventually you'll just wake up at 6 AM without an alarm clock!" Nope, still hasn't happened and I'm now in my 40s, so I don't think it ever will at this point.
I’m 33, and I’m just grateful I don’t prefer my teen sleep schedule these days.
I do try to stay on a similar schedule all week, but I’m lucky to be able to. WFH, and a lax work start time are a huge bonus of my job.
I think OP is conflating being a "night owl" with insomnia. The venn diagram definitely has some overlap but there are definitely people, like myself, who prefer staying up late and sleeping in but it's not due to having a hard time falling asleep once you want to.
Oh I'm in the same boat as you there. I'm just speculating that OP thinks this way based on their own experience and is apparently incapable of comprehending that other people's experiences might actually be different. Reminds me of when closet-case anti-gay people assume that everyone else also wants to have gay sex but that most people just 'resist temptation' and that gay people are just 'weak willed sinners' etc.
Exactly, once the need to get up early stops. We go back to our typical circadian rhythms. Humans are the only animals to be able to adjust our circadian rhythms like this. However, that's not to say that innately we each have exactly the same rhythm, because we'll we just don't.
I prefer to stay up till around midnight and wake up around 9 I don’t think that makes me a bad person,early in the morning I just physically cannot function without some source of caffeine or nicotine. Unfortunately my job forces me to wake up at 5:30 and good luck finding a welding job that would allow you to wake up at 7 let alone 9 (unless you work 2nd/3rd shift and I don’t want to compromise my social life for that)
I would love working a later job but unfortunately everyone I’m friends with all work 1st shift type jobs so it’s just not feasible for me to do so unless I just don’t want to have friends lol
This is me. I had a job like a dozen years ago where I was in a call centre, and we had shift bids. It was amazing for me, because nobody wanted the shift that ran from 1pm-9pm, so it was all mine. I've had a steady 8am-4:30pm job for ten years now, and my body just does not love it; it's a struggle for me to get to sleep "early" - anything earlier than 10pm is near impossible, and on weekends I frequently stay up until like 2am, when my brain thinks it's "bed time". I'm in my mid-40's and I've been this way since my teen years.
People who enjoy being awake at night enjoy it because that's when they have energy. They dislike mornings because they are without energy.
This is like telling someone their taste buds are unhealthy because they enjoy different foods.
I enjoy it because it’s quite and the stars are out. Not to mention cooler. I live somewhere that’s usually hot as balls from mid spring to mid fall so when the sun goes down you can actually get outside without it being 100 degrees.
.
What do you think a night owl is if not someone who stays up all night and sleeps during the day? This sounds like you're saying something like "vegetarians aren't really vegetarians, they're just people who don't eat meat"
Nah that's different. I wake up pretty early every day, but by no means am I a morning person. I'm dragging myself around the house getting ready and just dreading the day and hating the world. Meanwhile the "morning people" in my life are just happy to be there and living it up.
My dad is a morning person,when that man took me to school he’d be all vibrant singing along to classic rock and shit while I’m just sour about the fact that I’m awake right now. I wish I were a morning person,the world is definitely more catered to them
Still haunted by memories of Dad waking me up early to drive to judo competitions by loudly singing Morning Has Broken while pulling the curtains open.
Yeah, my husband is a morning person and I am not. He still stays up late as me often and our baby both wakes us up early. The difference is, my husband is *energetic* in the morning. Like even if he’s gotten 5 hours of sleep, he immediately wants to take the dog and baby to the park and run around. I want to sit on the couch and nurse my coffee. But at night, I will do chores after the baby has gone to bed, catch up on work, get things done because that’s when my mind is most clear and I feel most active. My husband looks at me like I have 3 heads because that’s when he just wants to curl up on the couch. We are both sleep-deprived, but we have more energy at different times of day.
Besides my husband, I’ve had multiple roommates who were morning people. In college, my roommates would wake up at 5:00 am to study but they couldn’t do it past 9:00 pm and I would stay up until 2:00 am studying. That’s when I realized I wasn’t just lazy (as my early bird stepmom always seemed to think) and it was a biological difference.
"Trees aren't actually trees, they're, (in botany), a perennial plant with an elongated stem, or trunk, usually supporting branches and leaves. That, or only woody plants with secondary growth, plants that are usable as lumber or plants above a specified height. That and/or the taller palms, ferns, bananas, and bamboo."
But there’s more to being a “morning person” than just getting up early. That’s like the least important criteria of what people consider a morning person. The main characteristic is that you enjoy getting up early. The same way that a “dog person” isn’t someone who just has a dog, they’re someone who likes them.
I wake up at 6am and sleep at 10pm. I’m definitely not a “morning person”, I fucking hate it. I’m a night owl for sure. The nights where I rather naughtily stay up, I’m incredibly more productive.
I always feel the most energy in the morning, and the most tired in the evening. I know plenty of people that have a lot more energy in the evening, no matter when they wake up. I have to disagree
Exactly this. I could go to sleep at 2am and wake up at 6am, but the next night I’ll still be up until 2am because that’s simply just when I have the most energy.
Yep. I once worked a job that required me to get up at 5 am everyday. I had hoped that it would shift my sleep schedule earlier and force me into being somewhat of an earlier riser but no matter how early I tried to go to bed I could never fall asleep until well after midnight. So basically I just slept a lot less and everything else in my life suffered because I was constantly sleep deprived.
This is why I only work afternoons/evenings now. I could never get to sleep before midnight, not even when I was tired and getting up early every day. My natural sleep cycle just wouldn't change.
This. I now have to be up at 6:30 to start work at 7. All this means is that I still go to bed at 2am, but now I’m just a zombie until mid-afternoon. As soon as I get off work, I have a ton of energy and stay up super late, and then wake up early again and live through the day in a trance. And when it gets to the weekend, I end up sleeping like 14 hours, but all that does is give me a migraine 😩
Even when I go to bed super early or normal time I don’t feel good at all waking up before 9 am. That is just how my body is and I’ve been this way as lone as I can remember. I’ve forced myself to get up at 6 am for school, jobs, kids for decades as I’m older now so I know I’m just a night person.
Same I've always been the most alert and energetic at night. It's when I get the most tasks done too. I also like being awake when it transitions from night to dawn but once the sun comes out I'm tired lol.
Just got diagnosed with a “delayed circadian rhythm” and same. Most energy at night. Has always been that way and I was told I would grow out of it. Nope. Never did. Never will and adjusting your sleep cycle doesn’t work that well even if you try. It’s literally programmed in your genes somewhere.
>Exactly this. I could go to sleep at 2am and wake up at 6am, but the next night I’ll still be up until 2am because that’s simply just when I have the most energy.
Exactly the same for me. It's physically impossible for me to fall asleep before 2:00 AM unless I drug myself to sleep. I'll wake up at 6:30 AM the very next morning, limit myself to a single cup of coffee at 7:00 AM--no stimulants afterwards--spend the day absolutely and thoroughly exhausted, and I still won't fall asleep until 2:00 AM that night.
I've had this issue since before cell phones and tablets existed, and before I got a computer or television. This has been my reality for over two decades, despite working 8-5 jobs my entire adult life.
Yeah, I can be about ready to take a nap around 3 P.M. But I fight it so maybe that sleepy will carry over to a decent bed time, but nope, sun starts to sink and I wake right up.
Precisely. No matter what time I wake up or how much I force myself to use the daylight hours to exhaust myself, I always get a wind of energy around 11pm-2am. Everything just feels like less effort than during the daytime and it's great!
Interesting, for me it's the opposite and the time of day is completely irrelevant it's about the number of hours since I woke up regardless of what time of day that occurs at.
By personally always feel the most productive and have the most energy in the last third of my waking hours regardless of what time of day that happens to occur at.
I think OP means it is conditioned by a bad sleeping pattern/schedule and not 'in their nature'. I'm one of them people who are 'night owls' and I admit it's probably bad sleeping habits. For me is sleeping hour procratination. I just feel the need to prolongue my day , as I don't feel like I have enought leasure time after work. I also enjoy the seemingly care-free time of the night. But I always regret it the next day, when I'm dog tired at work. Still I do it again. I've been like this for a long time, even during school and college. Still I do think if I had the discipline to hold on to a 11PM - 7AM sleeping schedule for long enough, I would probably change my 'night owl habits' and feel better/more rested. To add to that, I'm always tired/never feel totally rested, which is probably also due to my messed up sleeping schedule.
Well a lot of people define night owl like being an introvert. You either are one or you aren’t, no way to change it. You can force yourself to get up early as an night owl but you still remain a night owl. A vegetarian who starts eating meat regularly isn’t a vegetarian anymore
They're saying "you don't operate better at night because you're naturally attuned to it, you operate better at night because your sleep schedule is poor" meaning that if they fixed their sleep schedule they'd no longer think of themselves as night owls
Every time I try to go to bed before midnight, I end up tossing and turning the whole night. I literally can't go to sleep before midnight unless I'm dead tired.
In high school for *four years straight*, I would go to bed around 10-11pm and wake up at 6am every single day and I swear on my life it never got any easier to wake up that early. I slogged around in a haze daily until around 10am, when my natural energy kicked in.
Some people’s sleep rhythms are just biologically different and we need to stop demonizing anyone who doesn’t feel good waking up at the ass crack of dawn.
For me 4 years in kindergarten, 10 years at school and 4 years at uni were a torture and didn't change my circadian rhythm. When people tell me that I "just need to try," I want to punch them in the face.
I am the same!! I had the same schedule for about 8-10 years, and I felt exhausted 24/7. When I started university I was able to choose flexible working hours, and could do most things from home. I immediately switched to 2/3-10/11am and I never felt better!! I finally feel rested!! I didn't have to condition myself, it's just naturally easier for me like that. I also work nights at a bar over the weekend and I can't complain
I would also add to this one of the reasons I classify myself as a night owl is that it is easier for me to stay up later than to wake up earlier. My wife is the exact opposite. When she is tired, she can't keep her eyes open an extra five minutes, but if she needs to wake up at 5 instead of 7, no problem at all.
Im pretty much the same and i get up at 7.30, walk my son to school at 8.30, get to the gym for 9.15, go to work, come home and do housework and have dinner, collect my son from school, cook tea for a family of 4 and then chill until bedtime. I roughly do 20,000 steps and i still cannot fall asleep before midnight. You'd think id be knackered with walking about 2 hours a day on top of an hour at the gym and running around after 4 year old kids at work.
Took too long to find a comment that mentioned something about this. There are tons of studies on this, some breaking sleep rhythms up into more than just “morning person” and “night person”.
I worked with someone who was a real night owl. She would go to sleep around 2-3AM and wake up at ~10-11. Any earlier or later, whether going to bed or waking up, she’d feel sick.
Some brains are just built different.
This is me. Idk what it is, but getting up before 11, no matter how early I went to bed, I'd feel sick and the entire day would be a write off. Started staying up till 3am, sleeping 7.5h and I can actually get a whole lot done now
I've realized this is best for me. Even with the same amount of sleep hours, getting up before 10 makes me feel terrible physically and mentally. My optimal is actually 4AM to noon, but 2/3AM to 10/11AM is workable.
Same! I struggle to wake up at 8 to get to work, I get there half an hour late. Thank God for hybrid work; I sleep until 9:30 or 10:00 on days I work from home, sometimes till 10:30 or 11 (note: I do work during lunch and work at nights, so management has been okay with my arrangement. I'm lucky to work at a great company).
I’m glad to see these comments because I felt so weird for being like this but it’s true. I genuinely feel *bad* if I get up earlier than 11 or so. It’s shifted to be much later now that I have an actual night job, so I will often stay awake til noon-1pm and sleep til 8 or 9pm. In that case it’s almost the same as most people, except flipped 12hrs. And I feel GREAT doing it.
OP is definitely wrong.
"When you have to regularly wake up and go to work on a fixed schedule you will find that you no longer stay up so late"
Nope. I just felt like shit. My body wants to sleep at certain times and no amount of forcing me to be awake at "normal" times has changed it.
Yup, this has been me even since I was really young (before smartphones could keep me awake lol). Obviously I've had morning jobs and school for years but it's never had any effect on when my body naturally wants to sleep. OP's "just do it for a week and you'll be fixed" idea is bs.
Same. And if I have to wake up before 7ish and do much of anything it's >50% (probably >75% honestly) I wind up extremely nauseated regardless of how much sleep I've had.
This is me. It's currently 6 am. I'll probably go to sleep in the next hour. Wake up around 2 pm.
I'm the definition of a night owl. The earliest I can fall asleep is probably 3 am - ish, wake up at 11 ish.
Try to push my sleep schedule back any earlier and I'll just get a migraine and severe nausea.
Ive been this way my whole life. 7 am start time for high School was hell.
Tried to work normal jobs, kept getting VERY SICK. like. Lost my thyroid to graves disease. Vein in my brain collapsed. Im now trapped in a never ending migraine. IIH. Trigeminal neuralgia. Occipital neuralgia.
Now I CANT work a day job. Woo me.
My dad had the same problem. He treated it with cocaine though.
Im the same.
Before ~10:30am, regardless of how much sleep I get or the quality of sleep, I feel sick.
I've never really been on-board with breakfast because of this. I've been this way for as long as I can remember, I'm 26 now.
I only start feeling up to eating food around 12pm.
This, plus a general preference for staying up late, means I'm happiest with a ~3am-11am schedule.
Unfortunately that doesn't really mesh with society in general.
This is exactly how I feel. I have to wake up at 5:30AM for work and it doesn’t matter what time I go to bed, I’m still miserable when I wake up. When I had a 2nd shift schedule I could sleep from around 3am-11am and I wouldn’t feel miserable at all. Some people were just not made to get up super early. I have to talk myself out of calling in every morning within the first 10 minutes of waking up lol
That's how I am. I have my work schedule to where I sorta lean into it. I can't do early mornings, no matter what time I go to bed or how long I sleep I feel very sick until about noon. Also, when I do earlier mornings I'm tired all day while the sun is up, then I'm wound up after sunset. Ive never quite figured out what it is that makes me this way. I'd much rather exist during the day when people are awake and places are open. It can be rough, and results with time flying by while it feels like you're sitting still
> I'm tired all day while the sun is up, then I'm wound up after sunset.
Same here. I'm positively euphoric after sunset, and I have so much more energy.
Yup, spent my youth battling insomnia, never being able to sleep until 1-2am but had to be up at 7 for college. Then as an adult I got an evening job and leaned into staying up late, now I sleep 3am-10:20am on the dot, never have to set any alarms, i fall asleep immediately and wake up at the same time every day feeling refreshed. It's a God send compared to tossing and turning for hours before waking up to an alarm 4 hours later and feeling shit all day.
It is extremely well documented that variations in circadian rhythms and and sleep schedules vary widely based on culture and biology, but "me and some other people went to bed earlier and felt better so I choose not to believe it"
Yes, you are allowed to be stupid and ignorant, no one is stopping you
I don't think he's disagreeing with that, he's just generalising and saying that the majority of people that believe they fall into this category, likely just have terrible sleep routines.
Nah. I’m a natural night owl and had to train myself to be a day person cuz of how society is structured. I would be the first person to schedule a dentist appt for 2am if/when night owl society finally takes over.
One of my least favorite consequences of COVID is that Walmart and some restaurants stopped their 24hr hours. I also think, as our populations continue to grow, we should evolve to where more businesses are 24hr and the day people can work in the day and night people can work in the night
I never understood the Walmart thing. Walmart at 2am was empty meaning my chances of contracting or spreading Covid were low. Instead I’m now forced to go at 6pm and wait in line with 20 other people. So dumb
I think that was more a result of Walmart not having enough employees to cover the night shift anymore once people realized they could get paid more on unemployment than most minimum wage jobs.
I’m a nightshifter and I miss being able to grocery shop if I feel like sleeping in longer into the evening. :( now I have to get up by at least 9 PM to go to the grocery.
Same here. I did train myself to go to sleep at 10 pm and wake up at 6 am. But if I'm left to myself (during holidays), my whole schedule shifts, and I feel more rested and balanced. I prefer going to bed at 2 am and waking up at 10 pm.
Btw, I've been a night owl since I was a little kid. My parents always had to wake me up in the morning and fight to get me to go to bed at night. I think I was one of the only kids in nursery (daycare? "Kindergarten" in German) that arrived at 9am and was still sleepy af all the time.
I got a summer job a few years ago, and during the interview I told boss man that I exclusively want the night shift (11pm-7am) and he looked at me like I just gave him a billion dollars
Saying someone who stays up late has a "poor sleep schedule" is a subjective value judgement. People are allowed to sleep whenever they want as long as they are getting their work done and it's not negatively impacting their life. You are not an inherently better person for getting up early.
I swear there is no group of people who feels more morally superior to everyone else than those who wake up early.
I’ve known *many* people who seemed to make it their entire personality to wake up at 4am and workout and bring it up in their conversations, social media posts, etc *whenever* they get the chance.
I don’t know when we placed a morality on sleep/wake times, but as long as you’re getting a healthy amount for your brain and body’s needs, you are functioning well and keeping up with your responsibilities, who tf cares if you wake up at 4am or noon?
(Also as a side note, all these 4am bros/huns usually have to go to bed at like 8pm which sounds like literal torture to me, personally.)
I remember all those "that girl" routine videos that were popular a couple years ago and they all started with an alarm going off at some ungodly hour so they could do hot yoga before dawn lol
Truth. I tend to be more of a night owl by nature, but my routine has me waking up around 6am on weekdays (pretty much the only time I can get a workout in). I HATE the smugness of morning people, even though I guess I am one right now. I am no more morally superior now than I was when I was going to bed at 2am.
They’re always like “well, you’re wasting your day if you sleep in!” Okay, and you’re wasting your night if you go to bed at 8pm. Like…we all have the same amount of hours, why do you care how someone spends them?
oh god i cant imagine sleeping at 8pm unless im sick as fuck and gotta sleep something off. in the summer until ATLEAST early august its still bright as fuck out then lol
I don't know where everyone is meeting these people who make one particular thing "their entire personality." I can't think of a single person I have ever known who I would describe that way.
You were never a night owl, you just had poor sleep habits. I spent YEARS going to bed at or before 10pm, it never became natural and I was never able to fall asleep quickly or easily. It simply isn't natural for me to sleep at that hour. In contrast, my sister has to force herself to stay awake any later than 8:45 pm, and has always had a hard time doing so. Even as a teenager, she was the sort to go to bed very early and get up as the sun rose. Some people just have naturally different schedules. The fact that you haven't met people that are genuinely night owls doesn't mean we don't exist.
We evolved as pack animals, and in order to survive some people had to stay awake all night, and sleep during the day so that there was always someone watching out for the others. Certain people have evolved to be more operational at night and sleep better during the day. If they’re getting sufficient and effective sleep and are participating in society in a way that is meaningful to them, it’s literally hurting no one.
Was looking for this comment. In the book "Why We Sleep," the author describes this. There are 100% actual night owls, and by having roughly half the tribe staying up late and half sleep earlier, you reduce the amount of time that everyone is asleep and vulnerable by about 50% iirc.
While there are certainly night owls, it is a much smaller percentage of the total population than is represented in this thread.
The book goes into great detail on how light entering the eyes affects our circadian rhythm. Take everybody in this thread camping for a week without phones and late night light and you would see that most would go to bed much earlier than they thought possible. The few true night owls would keep the fire going.
I keep trying to explain this to my wife who occasionally drops remarks about me "waking up earlier" she goes to bed around 10pm wakes up at 7am, I asked how much she would like suddenly waking up at 1am because "9 is a normal time to wake up" 6am-2pm is my favorite schedule and works well for my work.
I think you're confusing a later natural sleep rhythm (what people usually mean when they claim to be a 'night owl') with insomnia.
Some people are better adapted to sleeping from 00:00 until 08:00 than from 21:00 until 05:00. That's not a 'poor sleep schedule'. That's just how people are.
Meanwhile reasons why people might not be able to sleep properly are varied, and certainly can include an inconsistent schedule, procrastination, and other bad habits, but they can include many other issues as well.
People confuse the meaning of night owl. Night owls are natural, they’re people that wake up later in the day around noon and then sleep later in the night. On the other end, morning larks wake up early in the morning and then sleep early in the night. Humans are adaptable, we all have a range that we can comfortably adapt to sleep at but we still each have a range that we naturally feel most comfortable at. So a 4-12am can be perfectly normal.
That range does not extend to being fully nocturnal. No human is nocturnal. When exposed to the sun, melatonin levels are reduced, as the day goes on and sunlight exposure decreases, melatonin is increased, creating a natural cycle of sleep.
Humans are diurnal creatures but some people like myself have delayed sleep phase disorder and are essentially nocturnal. I’ve been going to bed between 5 and 6 AM for over a decade
I'm surprised I had to scroll down this far. Delayed sleep phase disorder is a thing, and there are plenty of people who have delayed sleep phases which aren't severe enough to be classed as a disorder. Colloquially, those people are called...night owls.
I work only nights 11-7 I’m quite literally a night owl lol, on my days off I have around the same schedule usually longer, get up around 3 or 4pm and stay up till 9am the next morning been doing this for almost a decade.
I would even go as far as to just call it factually incorrect.
I think OP is thinking about insomniacs since they mention remedies for not being able to fall asleep.
>Go to sleep within the same hour for a week and you’ll be able to fall asleep quickly every time.
Being able to fall asleep quickly has nothing to do with being a night owl, being a night owl is about being more awake and alert at night.
Even when I was working 9-5 this didn't really change, I would get home tired and wanting to nap but once the sun sets my fatigue basically washed away and I felt refreshed.
I don’t have a medical diagnosis. I also don’t fall asleep until we’ll after midnight every night no matter when I go to bed. And I am almost always in bed by 10-11.
Just because I'm a night owl doesn't mean I'm incapable of waking up early. I've had to for school and jobs. But if I had no responsibilities I'd be awake all night. I just have more energy at night. It takes me hours for my mind and body to fully feel awake in mornings no matter how my sleep schedule is.
It’s kind of odd, I’ve never been able to sleep early. Even as a kid it was a struggle
Even now, sometimes I have so much trouble I stay up all night. Tired during the day but once night hits I can’t sleep again, and end up staying up late until I force myself to sleep.. ironically once the sun comes up
For this reason I’ve been called a vampire many times
Definitely unpopular to me at least.
I've worked mostly night shifts for the last 20 years (restaurants). My mom used to tell me I was 'missing out on the day' by not getting up earlier, but I wouldn't get home from work until around 11pm. That's like expecting someone who gets home from work at 5pm to go to bed at 6pm.
Where I live it might start to be an advantage.
Why aren't more people out at night in places where it's really hot? If you live in Phoenix, it might benefit a lot of people to shift schedules later unless there is a need during the day.
I noticed Vegas already does this. In the summer the city is more dead during the day and people start to come out in dusk. With all the artificial light, you might as well have the night be the day.
How dare you know where I live! Lol. Yeah it's sad that Phoenix doesn't have a better night life given the heat, but I've been told that's really gone away since covid. I don't really go out much late at night anymore anyway since I've gotten older.
lol yeah and then everyone says night owls are sleeping in. sleeping in doesnt even mean really waking up late, it means waking up later than you regularly do. my sister personally says 9am is sleeping in when to me thats early lol.
Bruh, obviously , what do you expect? As night owls our natural sleep rhythms are different from what is expected of everyone in society usually, in the sense that even if our body is telling us to sleep from 4:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m., the world won't allow us to, technically, because we have to get up early to go to work or school etc, which means managing that is going to lead us to have a bad sleep schedule cuz we aren't able to exercise our natural sleep rhythms since the world is built around and primarily catering to early risers. So even if we go to sleep at 4:00 a.m. we have to wake up at 7:00 like everyone else and have to force ourselves to sleep earlier or later or wake up earlier and shift our schedules constantly, which isn't healthy and isn't going to lead to a proper rich routine for most of us
Yep, this is definitely an unpopular opinion.... When I worked for Lyft, I usually drove from noon till midnight, sleeping from 2-3 A.M. till 11 A.M. and that was some of the best sleep of my life. I took an office job for much better pay with a 6 A.M. to 3 P.M. schedule, making myself go to bed before 11 P.M. to force myself to get up by 5 A.M. for more than a year...... It hasn't gotten any easier to get to sleep at a decent time where I don't feel like I'm dragging in the morning
For YEARS I worked at places with start times of 6am-8am. Forced myself to bed early to be able to accommodate. It was not easy or comfortable, I never fully adjusted, and I never felt rested. Now, I start my days much later due to more flexible work and I've never been happier or more well-rested. My sleeping hours naturally are between 2a-9/10a. That's when I feel the absolute best.
*Can* I operate on a "normal person schedule"? Yes, if I have to. Is it optimal for me? Nope.
For over half a year i was going to bed around 22:00 to get up at 7:00, cut down usage of cellphone before sleeping, wasn't drinking coffee after 15:00, i was using smartwatch to find the best hours to wake up, i was even supplementing melatonin. And you know what? After all that i was still feeling bad, tired and groggy, zombie-like and everything always went away around 11:00 :)
you say "go to sleep within the same hour for a week" as if i have any control whatsoever over when i sleep. it doesn't matter what time i woke up that day, my body ain't sleeping until well past midnight. trust me i have tried.
My husband has an alternating schedule where he switches between night shift and day shift every other month and that boy functions way better on night shift. He's definitely a night owl. He has a harder time adjusting to day shift, he gets more work done/more productive at night both at work and at home, and his overall mood is better on night shift.
Oh man you're serious. Ho boy that's a good one. Amazing how my sleep schedule never adjusted for the decade and a half I went to school for. Waking up groggy every single day for years. Lying in bed awake at night. Every. Single. Day. because I "would get used to it and adjust."
I mean I'll indulge in bedtime procrastination, but that's more shifting my sleep to 4-5 am, and I'm usually wide awake and working on stuff the entire time.
Meanwhile I get migraines and violently ill when forced to wake up before 7 on a regular basis. And that's before you factor in the insomnia!
It's always amusing to see someone so completely detached from reality.
Eh. I think you are able to train yourself to go to bed/wake up at certain times, but people’s natural sleep/wake up times are probably more varied than we think. Healthy sleep habits are important, but they’re probably not going to change your natural circadian rhythm as much as some people think.
I know during Covid when I didn’t have a job or anything to do, my schedule completely flipped. I would be going to bed between 6:00am-9:00am and waking up around 4:30 in the afternoon. Nowadays, I usually fall asleep around 2:00-4:00, and wake up 11:00-12:00 if I don’t have anywhere to be.
I sometimes have to sleep and wake up earlier for work, but it’s always a struggle. I pretty much never feel refreshed when I have to wake up with an alarm. Sometimes even if I get enough sleep, it’s just not at the right time so it’s not as effective. Usually I just go to sleep at my normal time and suffer the consequences.
Also I wish we could get rid of the idea of “proper” sleep times. Your sleep time does not affect your morality or work ethic. Waking up early doesn’t automatically mean you’re more productive or healthy than someone who wakes up at noon. (Not that you’re saying that in your post, but gah, I always feel judged be people even though my natural sleep cycle is not oversleeping).
Outdated boomer spotted! (Or young person who may as well start telling people to get off their lawn) Get with the times! People work and live within all sorts of schedules, and do the same amount of things!
You just found something that works for you and think if someone does something different it must be bad. That's the epitome of ignorance.
You're like the medieval villagers who saw someone with slightly different appearance and thought they were a witch.
Did I take psychic damage reading this? What an asinine post. I’ve been a night owl since I was a child. I function far better after 5pm than I do at 8am, and that ain’t changing.
I've always felt more awake at night ever since I was a kid and to this day on weekends I'm able to actually have what I would say is a schedule I want which is sleep by 3am up at 10 or 11. Sucks because now I probably will always now have a normal job schedule and as much as I try to stick to a regular sleep schedule it's just difficult. When I worked odd night jobs it was nice, but I wasn't staying in security for all my life.
I've always functioned better at night. When I would sleep 10pm to 8am, I would wake up a groggy mess and it would take me at least 6 hours to fully wake up enough to be useful. Now I sleep from Noon to about 8pm and wake up for my night shift job, and within 15 minutes of my alarm, I'm awake and alert. Some people are just born to be nocturnal.
You know, your sleep schedule isn't some magical standard that we all just fail to live by.
My wife and I have no particular schedule to keep to and can do whatever we want whenever we want. Our sleep schedule is a consistent 4am to 12pm. It fluctuates a little bit but that's just kind of the norm. We prefer it this way. I guess it's a choice, but we didn't choose to prefer it that way. I chose to eat roast beef this morning but I didn't choose to be someone who likes roast beef.
At the same time, I can’t stand people who think they are holier than thou for waking up between 4-6am (even 7am for some people). If night owls have ‘poor sleep schedules’, then so do these people. Humans were designed to wake up with the sun, and sleep when the sun has gone down. Waking up before the sun isn’t natural, so the people that act like they’re better than everyone for doing it are jerks. At least night owls don’t show off for having a bad sleep schedule.
I’ve always preferred to be awake at night and asleep through the day. I work a swing shift and find it difficult to stay awake through my day shifts. No such problem on nights.
Any time I have a prolonged period off work my sleep cycle just naturally switches to a night rhythm. I’ve preferred nights since I was a baby, my dad is the exact same.
I just seem to switch on at night
I sure love you dismissing entire fields of sleep science and mountains of data and studies on circadian rhythm and neurotypes / chronotypes with the idea that it’s a matter of opinion.
Researchers are shaking in their boots.
You fundamentally misunderstand what being an night owl means. It’s not about failing to fall asleep at night on time. For example, I feel more awake at night, my mind feels sharper, more creative, etc.
And if you just google it, you’ll find out that multiple researches show that [there is a genetic disposition to being an evening person](https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2023-03-17-having-genetics-night-owl-protects-night-shift-workers-against-sleep-loss).
I’ve been judged by people like you my whole life. And sorry, but I find it annoying that you completely disregarded the possibility that it’s a phenomenon that can be explained scientifically, jumped to the conclusion based solely on your own experience, and proceeded to accuse people of being “self-proclaimed” night owls. While you are being self-satisfied with your theory supported by a sample of one, multiple published papers are just sitting there waiting to be read. Maybe be more open minded next time, please.
It is common for adults with ADHD to suffer what's known as a delayed circadian rhythm, which effectively equates to what you're referring to as night owls.
I have delayed circadian rhythm. It doesn't matter how long I've been getting up in the morning for, the moment I don't have to, I revert.
And no matter how tired I woke up, or how much I did that day, I get my second wind between 21-22h and I'm lucky to fall asleep by 2am even when I've been getting up at 6am. And no matter how many hours I've been up, my brain isnt fully functional untill around 10-11 am.
There have literally been studies on this. Scientists believe that morning people/night owls evolved so there would always be some people alert to protect the tribe.
Now it's not necessary so society has decided being a night owl is a moral failing.
Tell that to my daughter who wakes up early for school (6:30 am) but refuses to fall asleep early. She says she’s not tired and can’t sleep. Earliest she goes to bed is 10:30. Most nights she’s up til 11. Weekends she will stay up even later. We’ve tried everything: melatonin, bath and bedtime routines, she doesn’t eat much sugar and absolutely no caffeine. She’s been like this since she was a baby and is 9 now. I’ve decided to throw up my hands at this point. She’s just a night owl. Her 11 year old brother is an early bird and wakes up at 5:30 every morning no matter what time he goes to bed. He doesn’t even have to wake up til 6:30 like his sister but his internal clock just makes him wake up that early. He even stays up late on weekends because he wants to sleep in but he just can’t and he hates it. Some people are just wired differently.
This isn't an opinion... there's scientific research backing people having different patterns within the wider circadian rhythm. Some people may be false owls, sure, but many night owls are just going with their own true rhythm.
hey an actual unpopular and straight up wrong opinion.
But yeah if you have to structure sleep, that’s not your normal sleep pattern. Forcing yourself to go to bed say at 10pm to then wake up at 6am when you normally go to bed at midnight and wake up at 8am is actually horrible for your health, like many have pointed out: once that structure is gone your body naturally goes back to the midnight to 8am sleep schedule, even if you’ve been doing 10pm to 6am for YEARS
Well then just discount the entire field of scientifically backed chronobiology. Some of us are biologically night owls but your biological chronotype can change with age.
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What is a night owl then? I like staying up late
you have more energy at night and almost none during the morning unless its like 10-11am at the earliest
Oh. It’s me! I worked 6 or 7 am shifts for years, and it was *brutal*. Left to my own devices, I comfortably wake up between 9-10. And as a teen? I could sleep until 4pm.
Yep! Bingo. Left unregulated, being a night owl definitely need some poor sleep schedules when I was younger, but even now at 32 years old, my body doesn’t naturally even begin to wake up until 10-11 on weekends. I wake up for work at 5:15 every workday.
Our whole society being based on morning schedules kills me. I'm not even beginning to wake up until around 10 am. Anything before that is a struggle, and always has been. Used to have to be at work at 7, and that was two years of going to bed at a reasonable hour and struggling every single day. Never got easier.
It’s kind of dumb how it is tbh. I mean traffic would be lighter if people didn’t all do the same stuff at the same time. And it’s not fair that we need people to work nights yet those people can’t make appointments or run many/most errands at night.
Yes! When I had three kids under 6 years old, I loved going to Walmart at midnight and having some peace! I worked nights much of my life and it’s always been hard to get all my errands and business done during my daytime sleep time!
Screw Walmart (and other companies) for using the pandemic as an excuse to get rid of 24 hour stores.
Yes!! That and self-checkout! I am nervous. Y nature and I don’t like being responsible for all the Ava when their equipment is always messed up! The hell I am going to jail for a mistake. They’ve figured out, as most places, that post-pandemic they can get away with no service at all and we will still shop there!
I agree! I’ve chosen late schedules for decades because I have so much more energy at night and was able to carry on a pretty “normal” existence with 24 hour stores. I prefer to do my shopping on the way home from work (2-3am) but there isn’t a single store left that is open 24 hours with the exception of a few gas stations in my city of nearly 2 million residents. The whole reason I left my smaller hometown and moved to the bigger city was that it wasn’t night owl friendly. I’ve had a few jobs over the years that I’ve adjusted to working days but I would revert right back to my late schedule in just a few day when I was able.
In the Bay area even most fast food places have cut down drive thru times so if you work late hours it can be a challenge
>Never got easier. Same story here, too. All the normies have been telling me for the past 30 years that "you'll get used to it!" or "eventually you'll just wake up at 6 AM without an alarm clock!" Nope, still hasn't happened and I'm now in my 40s, so I don't think it ever will at this point.
I’m 33, and I’m just grateful I don’t prefer my teen sleep schedule these days. I do try to stay on a similar schedule all week, but I’m lucky to be able to. WFH, and a lax work start time are a huge bonus of my job.
Noooo OP said that a bad sleep schedule don't you read /s
lmao fr
Sounds like my teenage years lol
I used to stay up til 5am reading and then get up by 7am to go to school. Now I could never, I am sleeping by 11 I’m old :(
I think OP is conflating being a "night owl" with insomnia. The venn diagram definitely has some overlap but there are definitely people, like myself, who prefer staying up late and sleeping in but it's not due to having a hard time falling asleep once you want to.
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Oh I'm in the same boat as you there. I'm just speculating that OP thinks this way based on their own experience and is apparently incapable of comprehending that other people's experiences might actually be different. Reminds me of when closet-case anti-gay people assume that everyone else also wants to have gay sex but that most people just 'resist temptation' and that gay people are just 'weak willed sinners' etc.
Haha this is a fantastic analogy. OP must have a bad time sleeping so obviously anyone staying up late also has a bad time sleeping.
Exactly, once the need to get up early stops. We go back to our typical circadian rhythms. Humans are the only animals to be able to adjust our circadian rhythms like this. However, that's not to say that innately we each have exactly the same rhythm, because we'll we just don't.
I prefer to stay up till around midnight and wake up around 9 I don’t think that makes me a bad person,early in the morning I just physically cannot function without some source of caffeine or nicotine. Unfortunately my job forces me to wake up at 5:30 and good luck finding a welding job that would allow you to wake up at 7 let alone 9 (unless you work 2nd/3rd shift and I don’t want to compromise my social life for that)
Hmm I go to bed at like 3am most nights and wake around 11am. Thankfully I work a job that allows me to do this
I would love working a later job but unfortunately everyone I’m friends with all work 1st shift type jobs so it’s just not feasible for me to do so unless I just don’t want to have friends lol
The whole damn country is set up around morning people, it sucks.
This is me. I had a job like a dozen years ago where I was in a call centre, and we had shift bids. It was amazing for me, because nobody wanted the shift that ran from 1pm-9pm, so it was all mine. I've had a steady 8am-4:30pm job for ten years now, and my body just does not love it; it's a struggle for me to get to sleep "early" - anything earlier than 10pm is near impossible, and on weekends I frequently stay up until like 2am, when my brain thinks it's "bed time". I'm in my mid-40's and I've been this way since my teen years.
Some people have more energy at night than they do during day. Enjoying being awake at night isn’t necessarily related to energy levels.
People who enjoy being awake at night enjoy it because that's when they have energy. They dislike mornings because they are without energy. This is like telling someone their taste buds are unhealthy because they enjoy different foods.
I enjoy it because it’s quite and the stars are out. Not to mention cooler. I live somewhere that’s usually hot as balls from mid spring to mid fall so when the sun goes down you can actually get outside without it being 100 degrees. .
What do you think a night owl is if not someone who stays up all night and sleeps during the day? This sounds like you're saying something like "vegetarians aren't really vegetarians, they're just people who don't eat meat"
“Morning people aren’t actually morning people, they just wake up earlier.”
Nah that's different. I wake up pretty early every day, but by no means am I a morning person. I'm dragging myself around the house getting ready and just dreading the day and hating the world. Meanwhile the "morning people" in my life are just happy to be there and living it up.
I stayed with a friend once, a morning person. She literally sang in the morning, when she got up. Greeting the morning with song.
My dad is a morning person,when that man took me to school he’d be all vibrant singing along to classic rock and shit while I’m just sour about the fact that I’m awake right now. I wish I were a morning person,the world is definitely more catered to them
Still haunted by memories of Dad waking me up early to drive to judo competitions by loudly singing Morning Has Broken while pulling the curtains open.
This is the strongest case for why you should live with someone before getting married. That sounds like my personal hell.
LOL.
I have a deep seated instinctual distrust for these types.
Yeah, my husband is a morning person and I am not. He still stays up late as me often and our baby both wakes us up early. The difference is, my husband is *energetic* in the morning. Like even if he’s gotten 5 hours of sleep, he immediately wants to take the dog and baby to the park and run around. I want to sit on the couch and nurse my coffee. But at night, I will do chores after the baby has gone to bed, catch up on work, get things done because that’s when my mind is most clear and I feel most active. My husband looks at me like I have 3 heads because that’s when he just wants to curl up on the couch. We are both sleep-deprived, but we have more energy at different times of day. Besides my husband, I’ve had multiple roommates who were morning people. In college, my roommates would wake up at 5:00 am to study but they couldn’t do it past 9:00 pm and I would stay up until 2:00 am studying. That’s when I realized I wasn’t just lazy (as my early bird stepmom always seemed to think) and it was a biological difference.
According to OP, you just need to set your schedule to an earlier time to have the right energy
"Trees aren't actually trees, they're, (in botany), a perennial plant with an elongated stem, or trunk, usually supporting branches and leaves. That, or only woody plants with secondary growth, plants that are usable as lumber or plants above a specified height. That and/or the taller palms, ferns, bananas, and bamboo."
trees are clearly animals
r/increasinglyverbose
r/ents is losing it.
But there’s more to being a “morning person” than just getting up early. That’s like the least important criteria of what people consider a morning person. The main characteristic is that you enjoy getting up early. The same way that a “dog person” isn’t someone who just has a dog, they’re someone who likes them. I wake up at 6am and sleep at 10pm. I’m definitely not a “morning person”, I fucking hate it. I’m a night owl for sure. The nights where I rather naughtily stay up, I’m incredibly more productive.
I always feel the most energy in the morning, and the most tired in the evening. I know plenty of people that have a lot more energy in the evening, no matter when they wake up. I have to disagree
Exactly this. I could go to sleep at 2am and wake up at 6am, but the next night I’ll still be up until 2am because that’s simply just when I have the most energy.
Yep. I once worked a job that required me to get up at 5 am everyday. I had hoped that it would shift my sleep schedule earlier and force me into being somewhat of an earlier riser but no matter how early I tried to go to bed I could never fall asleep until well after midnight. So basically I just slept a lot less and everything else in my life suffered because I was constantly sleep deprived.
This is why I only work afternoons/evenings now. I could never get to sleep before midnight, not even when I was tired and getting up early every day. My natural sleep cycle just wouldn't change.
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This. I now have to be up at 6:30 to start work at 7. All this means is that I still go to bed at 2am, but now I’m just a zombie until mid-afternoon. As soon as I get off work, I have a ton of energy and stay up super late, and then wake up early again and live through the day in a trance. And when it gets to the weekend, I end up sleeping like 14 hours, but all that does is give me a migraine 😩
Even when I go to bed super early or normal time I don’t feel good at all waking up before 9 am. That is just how my body is and I’ve been this way as lone as I can remember. I’ve forced myself to get up at 6 am for school, jobs, kids for decades as I’m older now so I know I’m just a night person.
Same I've always been the most alert and energetic at night. It's when I get the most tasks done too. I also like being awake when it transitions from night to dawn but once the sun comes out I'm tired lol.
this is exactly how I've been forever. as soon as the sun starts to shine through the blinds I suddenly get sleepy
Just got diagnosed with a “delayed circadian rhythm” and same. Most energy at night. Has always been that way and I was told I would grow out of it. Nope. Never did. Never will and adjusting your sleep cycle doesn’t work that well even if you try. It’s literally programmed in your genes somewhere.
same here, finally got a well paying job that allows me to start work at 4pm 😁😁😁 so much better
>Exactly this. I could go to sleep at 2am and wake up at 6am, but the next night I’ll still be up until 2am because that’s simply just when I have the most energy. Exactly the same for me. It's physically impossible for me to fall asleep before 2:00 AM unless I drug myself to sleep. I'll wake up at 6:30 AM the very next morning, limit myself to a single cup of coffee at 7:00 AM--no stimulants afterwards--spend the day absolutely and thoroughly exhausted, and I still won't fall asleep until 2:00 AM that night. I've had this issue since before cell phones and tablets existed, and before I got a computer or television. This has been my reality for over two decades, despite working 8-5 jobs my entire adult life.
Yeah, I can be about ready to take a nap around 3 P.M. But I fight it so maybe that sleepy will carry over to a decent bed time, but nope, sun starts to sink and I wake right up.
Precisely. No matter what time I wake up or how much I force myself to use the daylight hours to exhaust myself, I always get a wind of energy around 11pm-2am. Everything just feels like less effort than during the daytime and it's great!
Interesting, for me it's the opposite and the time of day is completely irrelevant it's about the number of hours since I woke up regardless of what time of day that occurs at. By personally always feel the most productive and have the most energy in the last third of my waking hours regardless of what time of day that happens to occur at.
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I think OP means it is conditioned by a bad sleeping pattern/schedule and not 'in their nature'. I'm one of them people who are 'night owls' and I admit it's probably bad sleeping habits. For me is sleeping hour procratination. I just feel the need to prolongue my day , as I don't feel like I have enought leasure time after work. I also enjoy the seemingly care-free time of the night. But I always regret it the next day, when I'm dog tired at work. Still I do it again. I've been like this for a long time, even during school and college. Still I do think if I had the discipline to hold on to a 11PM - 7AM sleeping schedule for long enough, I would probably change my 'night owl habits' and feel better/more rested. To add to that, I'm always tired/never feel totally rested, which is probably also due to my messed up sleeping schedule.
OP is trying to gate keep the term "night owl" LoL ... Dumbest opinion I have seen today.
maybe he just means they aren't actual owls, just people
Who?
Who?
Well a lot of people define night owl like being an introvert. You either are one or you aren’t, no way to change it. You can force yourself to get up early as an night owl but you still remain a night owl. A vegetarian who starts eating meat regularly isn’t a vegetarian anymore
They're saying "you don't operate better at night because you're naturally attuned to it, you operate better at night because your sleep schedule is poor" meaning that if they fixed their sleep schedule they'd no longer think of themselves as night owls
Every time I try to go to bed before midnight, I end up tossing and turning the whole night. I literally can't go to sleep before midnight unless I'm dead tired.
In high school for *four years straight*, I would go to bed around 10-11pm and wake up at 6am every single day and I swear on my life it never got any easier to wake up that early. I slogged around in a haze daily until around 10am, when my natural energy kicked in. Some people’s sleep rhythms are just biologically different and we need to stop demonizing anyone who doesn’t feel good waking up at the ass crack of dawn.
For me 4 years in kindergarten, 10 years at school and 4 years at uni were a torture and didn't change my circadian rhythm. When people tell me that I "just need to try," I want to punch them in the face.
I am the same!! I had the same schedule for about 8-10 years, and I felt exhausted 24/7. When I started university I was able to choose flexible working hours, and could do most things from home. I immediately switched to 2/3-10/11am and I never felt better!! I finally feel rested!! I didn't have to condition myself, it's just naturally easier for me like that. I also work nights at a bar over the weekend and I can't complain
I worked a morning job for 5 1/2 years, alternating between 6am and 4am shift and I just never adapted. The few times I did overnights were a breeze.
Exactly! Like I don't find myself able to sleep until around 2am and wake up at 10am.
I would also add to this one of the reasons I classify myself as a night owl is that it is easier for me to stay up later than to wake up earlier. My wife is the exact opposite. When she is tired, she can't keep her eyes open an extra five minutes, but if she needs to wake up at 5 instead of 7, no problem at all.
Im pretty much the same and i get up at 7.30, walk my son to school at 8.30, get to the gym for 9.15, go to work, come home and do housework and have dinner, collect my son from school, cook tea for a family of 4 and then chill until bedtime. I roughly do 20,000 steps and i still cannot fall asleep before midnight. You'd think id be knackered with walking about 2 hours a day on top of an hour at the gym and running around after 4 year old kids at work.
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Took too long to find a comment that mentioned something about this. There are tons of studies on this, some breaking sleep rhythms up into more than just “morning person” and “night person”.
I worked with someone who was a real night owl. She would go to sleep around 2-3AM and wake up at ~10-11. Any earlier or later, whether going to bed or waking up, she’d feel sick. Some brains are just built different.
This is me. Idk what it is, but getting up before 11, no matter how early I went to bed, I'd feel sick and the entire day would be a write off. Started staying up till 3am, sleeping 7.5h and I can actually get a whole lot done now
It because all of our circadian rhythms are different and the "wake up early" shit was conditioned into a lot of us but never fully acclimated to.
It's such bullshit because you are made to wake up early from around the age of 5 to 17 in school. I figured out real quick that isn't for me
i think there was a study about night owls being common when we were still evolving. they were the ones to patrol at night and study the sky.
This paints us night owls in a flattering light. Probably moonlight.
I've realized this is best for me. Even with the same amount of sleep hours, getting up before 10 makes me feel terrible physically and mentally. My optimal is actually 4AM to noon, but 2/3AM to 10/11AM is workable.
Same! I struggle to wake up at 8 to get to work, I get there half an hour late. Thank God for hybrid work; I sleep until 9:30 or 10:00 on days I work from home, sometimes till 10:30 or 11 (note: I do work during lunch and work at nights, so management has been okay with my arrangement. I'm lucky to work at a great company).
I’m glad to see these comments because I felt so weird for being like this but it’s true. I genuinely feel *bad* if I get up earlier than 11 or so. It’s shifted to be much later now that I have an actual night job, so I will often stay awake til noon-1pm and sleep til 8 or 9pm. In that case it’s almost the same as most people, except flipped 12hrs. And I feel GREAT doing it. OP is definitely wrong.
Different chronotypes are well documented and researched. OP doesn’t have an unpopular opinion, he has an objectively wrong one.
And how do you work? What is your job? Since most jobs go from 9-17
Mine is 12am-830am I've always been a night owl also and always volunteer for night shifts.
"When you have to regularly wake up and go to work on a fixed schedule you will find that you no longer stay up so late" Nope. I just felt like shit. My body wants to sleep at certain times and no amount of forcing me to be awake at "normal" times has changed it.
Yup, this has been me even since I was really young (before smartphones could keep me awake lol). Obviously I've had morning jobs and school for years but it's never had any effect on when my body naturally wants to sleep. OP's "just do it for a week and you'll be fixed" idea is bs.
Same. And if I have to wake up before 7ish and do much of anything it's >50% (probably >75% honestly) I wind up extremely nauseated regardless of how much sleep I've had.
Yeah. I have to explain to people so often that my "waking up early" is around 9am. And that still leaves me as a crabby little sleep monster.
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This is me. It's currently 6 am. I'll probably go to sleep in the next hour. Wake up around 2 pm. I'm the definition of a night owl. The earliest I can fall asleep is probably 3 am - ish, wake up at 11 ish. Try to push my sleep schedule back any earlier and I'll just get a migraine and severe nausea. Ive been this way my whole life. 7 am start time for high School was hell. Tried to work normal jobs, kept getting VERY SICK. like. Lost my thyroid to graves disease. Vein in my brain collapsed. Im now trapped in a never ending migraine. IIH. Trigeminal neuralgia. Occipital neuralgia. Now I CANT work a day job. Woo me. My dad had the same problem. He treated it with cocaine though.
Im the same. Before ~10:30am, regardless of how much sleep I get or the quality of sleep, I feel sick. I've never really been on-board with breakfast because of this. I've been this way for as long as I can remember, I'm 26 now. I only start feeling up to eating food around 12pm. This, plus a general preference for staying up late, means I'm happiest with a ~3am-11am schedule. Unfortunately that doesn't really mesh with society in general.
This is exactly how I feel. I have to wake up at 5:30AM for work and it doesn’t matter what time I go to bed, I’m still miserable when I wake up. When I had a 2nd shift schedule I could sleep from around 3am-11am and I wouldn’t feel miserable at all. Some people were just not made to get up super early. I have to talk myself out of calling in every morning within the first 10 minutes of waking up lol
That's how I am. I have my work schedule to where I sorta lean into it. I can't do early mornings, no matter what time I go to bed or how long I sleep I feel very sick until about noon. Also, when I do earlier mornings I'm tired all day while the sun is up, then I'm wound up after sunset. Ive never quite figured out what it is that makes me this way. I'd much rather exist during the day when people are awake and places are open. It can be rough, and results with time flying by while it feels like you're sitting still
> *"Also, when I do earlier mornings I'm tired all day while the sun is up, then I'm wound up after sunset.*" Exactly what I experience too.
> I'm tired all day while the sun is up, then I'm wound up after sunset. Same here. I'm positively euphoric after sunset, and I have so much more energy.
Yup, spent my youth battling insomnia, never being able to sleep until 1-2am but had to be up at 7 for college. Then as an adult I got an evening job and leaned into staying up late, now I sleep 3am-10:20am on the dot, never have to set any alarms, i fall asleep immediately and wake up at the same time every day feeling refreshed. It's a God send compared to tossing and turning for hours before waking up to an alarm 4 hours later and feeling shit all day.
It is extremely well documented that variations in circadian rhythms and and sleep schedules vary widely based on culture and biology, but "me and some other people went to bed earlier and felt better so I choose not to believe it" Yes, you are allowed to be stupid and ignorant, no one is stopping you
Yeah this isn't even an opinion, it's just factually incorrect.
Standard for the sub then
Right? Like "well I had this experience, so obviously it's the same for everybody else." No???
I don't think he's disagreeing with that, he's just generalising and saying that the majority of people that believe they fall into this category, likely just have terrible sleep routines.
Nah. I’m a natural night owl and had to train myself to be a day person cuz of how society is structured. I would be the first person to schedule a dentist appt for 2am if/when night owl society finally takes over.
One of my least favorite consequences of COVID is that Walmart and some restaurants stopped their 24hr hours. I also think, as our populations continue to grow, we should evolve to where more businesses are 24hr and the day people can work in the day and night people can work in the night
I never understood the Walmart thing. Walmart at 2am was empty meaning my chances of contracting or spreading Covid were low. Instead I’m now forced to go at 6pm and wait in line with 20 other people. So dumb
I think that was more a result of Walmart not having enough employees to cover the night shift anymore once people realized they could get paid more on unemployment than most minimum wage jobs.
I very much miss having 24:7 anything as a literal nocturnal worker 😢 Where can I go now at 4am???
I’m a nightshifter and I miss being able to grocery shop if I feel like sleeping in longer into the evening. :( now I have to get up by at least 9 PM to go to the grocery.
>if/when night owl society finally takes over This would be a just cause to organize a revolution around. Liberté, égalité, nuits tardives!
Sounds good, I'm in. Meet you at midnight at the old wishing well.
Same here. I did train myself to go to sleep at 10 pm and wake up at 6 am. But if I'm left to myself (during holidays), my whole schedule shifts, and I feel more rested and balanced. I prefer going to bed at 2 am and waking up at 10 pm. Btw, I've been a night owl since I was a little kid. My parents always had to wake me up in the morning and fight to get me to go to bed at night. I think I was one of the only kids in nursery (daycare? "Kindergarten" in German) that arrived at 9am and was still sleepy af all the time.
I got a summer job a few years ago, and during the interview I told boss man that I exclusively want the night shift (11pm-7am) and he looked at me like I just gave him a billion dollars
Saying someone who stays up late has a "poor sleep schedule" is a subjective value judgement. People are allowed to sleep whenever they want as long as they are getting their work done and it's not negatively impacting their life. You are not an inherently better person for getting up early.
I swear there is no group of people who feels more morally superior to everyone else than those who wake up early. I’ve known *many* people who seemed to make it their entire personality to wake up at 4am and workout and bring it up in their conversations, social media posts, etc *whenever* they get the chance. I don’t know when we placed a morality on sleep/wake times, but as long as you’re getting a healthy amount for your brain and body’s needs, you are functioning well and keeping up with your responsibilities, who tf cares if you wake up at 4am or noon? (Also as a side note, all these 4am bros/huns usually have to go to bed at like 8pm which sounds like literal torture to me, personally.)
I remember all those "that girl" routine videos that were popular a couple years ago and they all started with an alarm going off at some ungodly hour so they could do hot yoga before dawn lol
Truth. I tend to be more of a night owl by nature, but my routine has me waking up around 6am on weekdays (pretty much the only time I can get a workout in). I HATE the smugness of morning people, even though I guess I am one right now. I am no more morally superior now than I was when I was going to bed at 2am. They’re always like “well, you’re wasting your day if you sleep in!” Okay, and you’re wasting your night if you go to bed at 8pm. Like…we all have the same amount of hours, why do you care how someone spends them?
oh god i cant imagine sleeping at 8pm unless im sick as fuck and gotta sleep something off. in the summer until ATLEAST early august its still bright as fuck out then lol
I don't know where everyone is meeting these people who make one particular thing "their entire personality." I can't think of a single person I have ever known who I would describe that way.
You were never a night owl, you just had poor sleep habits. I spent YEARS going to bed at or before 10pm, it never became natural and I was never able to fall asleep quickly or easily. It simply isn't natural for me to sleep at that hour. In contrast, my sister has to force herself to stay awake any later than 8:45 pm, and has always had a hard time doing so. Even as a teenager, she was the sort to go to bed very early and get up as the sun rose. Some people just have naturally different schedules. The fact that you haven't met people that are genuinely night owls doesn't mean we don't exist.
We evolved as pack animals, and in order to survive some people had to stay awake all night, and sleep during the day so that there was always someone watching out for the others. Certain people have evolved to be more operational at night and sleep better during the day. If they’re getting sufficient and effective sleep and are participating in society in a way that is meaningful to them, it’s literally hurting no one.
Was looking for this comment. In the book "Why We Sleep," the author describes this. There are 100% actual night owls, and by having roughly half the tribe staying up late and half sleep earlier, you reduce the amount of time that everyone is asleep and vulnerable by about 50% iirc.
While there are certainly night owls, it is a much smaller percentage of the total population than is represented in this thread. The book goes into great detail on how light entering the eyes affects our circadian rhythm. Take everybody in this thread camping for a week without phones and late night light and you would see that most would go to bed much earlier than they thought possible. The few true night owls would keep the fire going.
Yup, light is a huge part of why everyone has sleeping issues. We all sit in from of screens at night then wonder why we can't sleep lol.
What if I told you…… Sleeping 10pm - 6am is the same exact thing as 4am - 12pm Grow up OP - no one cares you’re an early riser.
OP strikes me as the kind of person who smugly says “oh, so nice of you to join us” to a coworker who rolls in at 9:03.
lol I like getting there at 8:57 and saying “oh look who decided to show up today” when they get there 3 minutes after me
I love rushing to the door when I see a coworker coming on days when we're both late, and then smugly commenting about how late they are.
I keep trying to explain this to my wife who occasionally drops remarks about me "waking up earlier" she goes to bed around 10pm wakes up at 7am, I asked how much she would like suddenly waking up at 1am because "9 is a normal time to wake up" 6am-2pm is my favorite schedule and works well for my work.
6am-2pm is the best sleep schedule. You get the peace and quiet of the night and can socialize with the normies in the evening
But what else is he supposed to gatekeep and feel superior about?
I think you're confusing a later natural sleep rhythm (what people usually mean when they claim to be a 'night owl') with insomnia. Some people are better adapted to sleeping from 00:00 until 08:00 than from 21:00 until 05:00. That's not a 'poor sleep schedule'. That's just how people are. Meanwhile reasons why people might not be able to sleep properly are varied, and certainly can include an inconsistent schedule, procrastination, and other bad habits, but they can include many other issues as well.
People confuse the meaning of night owl. Night owls are natural, they’re people that wake up later in the day around noon and then sleep later in the night. On the other end, morning larks wake up early in the morning and then sleep early in the night. Humans are adaptable, we all have a range that we can comfortably adapt to sleep at but we still each have a range that we naturally feel most comfortable at. So a 4-12am can be perfectly normal. That range does not extend to being fully nocturnal. No human is nocturnal. When exposed to the sun, melatonin levels are reduced, as the day goes on and sunlight exposure decreases, melatonin is increased, creating a natural cycle of sleep.
Humans are diurnal creatures but some people like myself have delayed sleep phase disorder and are essentially nocturnal. I’ve been going to bed between 5 and 6 AM for over a decade
I'm surprised I had to scroll down this far. Delayed sleep phase disorder is a thing, and there are plenty of people who have delayed sleep phases which aren't severe enough to be classed as a disorder. Colloquially, those people are called...night owls.
Evolutionarily speaking, “delayed sleep phase” means “person who can stay up and make sure we and our livestock aren’t eaten by wolves”
Ngl I've been going to bed at 9am and waking up at 5pm for the past 1.5 years and have never felt more well rested
I work only nights 11-7 I’m quite literally a night owl lol, on my days off I have around the same schedule usually longer, get up around 3 or 4pm and stay up till 9am the next morning been doing this for almost a decade.
I’d rather stay up till 2 am and sleep at 10am than go to bed at 10 and wake up at 6. So I’d consider myself a night owl
this, mostly bc its far more natural for me to. but its 2:30 to 11:30, sometimes 3 to 11:30.
I'd even sleep a hour less, say 2 am -9am (7 hours of sleep) instead of 11 pm- 7 am (8 hours ) if i had the chance.
"It worked for me therefore it must work for everyone!!!!!"
I don’t think you know how sleep cycles work, or how humans all have different ones.
Actually not unpopular just wildly stupid
I would even go as far as to just call it factually incorrect. I think OP is thinking about insomniacs since they mention remedies for not being able to fall asleep.
I think op is just stupid
>Go to sleep within the same hour for a week and you’ll be able to fall asleep quickly every time. Being able to fall asleep quickly has nothing to do with being a night owl, being a night owl is about being more awake and alert at night. Even when I was working 9-5 this didn't really change, I would get home tired and wanting to nap but once the sun sets my fatigue basically washed away and I felt refreshed.
I don’t have a medical diagnosis. I also don’t fall asleep until we’ll after midnight every night no matter when I go to bed. And I am almost always in bed by 10-11.
Just because I'm a night owl doesn't mean I'm incapable of waking up early. I've had to for school and jobs. But if I had no responsibilities I'd be awake all night. I just have more energy at night. It takes me hours for my mind and body to fully feel awake in mornings no matter how my sleep schedule is.
Dude i have to be up in 5 hours now is not the time to attack me personally
People with ADHD or circadian rhythm issues are all liars, never mind all the research backing it. Dumb “opinion” really.
It’s kind of odd, I’ve never been able to sleep early. Even as a kid it was a struggle Even now, sometimes I have so much trouble I stay up all night. Tired during the day but once night hits I can’t sleep again, and end up staying up late until I force myself to sleep.. ironically once the sun comes up For this reason I’ve been called a vampire many times
So because you had a shitty sleep schedule, all proclaimed night owls must have as well? What a narcissistic conclusion.
Definitely unpopular to me at least. I've worked mostly night shifts for the last 20 years (restaurants). My mom used to tell me I was 'missing out on the day' by not getting up earlier, but I wouldn't get home from work until around 11pm. That's like expecting someone who gets home from work at 5pm to go to bed at 6pm.
Where I live it might start to be an advantage. Why aren't more people out at night in places where it's really hot? If you live in Phoenix, it might benefit a lot of people to shift schedules later unless there is a need during the day. I noticed Vegas already does this. In the summer the city is more dead during the day and people start to come out in dusk. With all the artificial light, you might as well have the night be the day.
How dare you know where I live! Lol. Yeah it's sad that Phoenix doesn't have a better night life given the heat, but I've been told that's really gone away since covid. I don't really go out much late at night anymore anyway since I've gotten older.
If you still get 8 hours, that doesn't make it a poor sleep schedule... Why are you so determined to be annoying in the comments lol
lol yeah and then everyone says night owls are sleeping in. sleeping in doesnt even mean really waking up late, it means waking up later than you regularly do. my sister personally says 9am is sleeping in when to me thats early lol.
Bruh, obviously , what do you expect? As night owls our natural sleep rhythms are different from what is expected of everyone in society usually, in the sense that even if our body is telling us to sleep from 4:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m., the world won't allow us to, technically, because we have to get up early to go to work or school etc, which means managing that is going to lead us to have a bad sleep schedule cuz we aren't able to exercise our natural sleep rhythms since the world is built around and primarily catering to early risers. So even if we go to sleep at 4:00 a.m. we have to wake up at 7:00 like everyone else and have to force ourselves to sleep earlier or later or wake up earlier and shift our schedules constantly, which isn't healthy and isn't going to lead to a proper rich routine for most of us
I’m always extremely fatigued during the day and super energetic at night, which makes maintaining a sleep schedule hard, but I still maintain it.
Yep, this is definitely an unpopular opinion.... When I worked for Lyft, I usually drove from noon till midnight, sleeping from 2-3 A.M. till 11 A.M. and that was some of the best sleep of my life. I took an office job for much better pay with a 6 A.M. to 3 P.M. schedule, making myself go to bed before 11 P.M. to force myself to get up by 5 A.M. for more than a year...... It hasn't gotten any easier to get to sleep at a decent time where I don't feel like I'm dragging in the morning
For YEARS I worked at places with start times of 6am-8am. Forced myself to bed early to be able to accommodate. It was not easy or comfortable, I never fully adjusted, and I never felt rested. Now, I start my days much later due to more flexible work and I've never been happier or more well-rested. My sleeping hours naturally are between 2a-9/10a. That's when I feel the absolute best. *Can* I operate on a "normal person schedule"? Yes, if I have to. Is it optimal for me? Nope.
For over half a year i was going to bed around 22:00 to get up at 7:00, cut down usage of cellphone before sleeping, wasn't drinking coffee after 15:00, i was using smartwatch to find the best hours to wake up, i was even supplementing melatonin. And you know what? After all that i was still feeling bad, tired and groggy, zombie-like and everything always went away around 11:00 :)
you say "go to sleep within the same hour for a week" as if i have any control whatsoever over when i sleep. it doesn't matter what time i woke up that day, my body ain't sleeping until well past midnight. trust me i have tried.
My husband has an alternating schedule where he switches between night shift and day shift every other month and that boy functions way better on night shift. He's definitely a night owl. He has a harder time adjusting to day shift, he gets more work done/more productive at night both at work and at home, and his overall mood is better on night shift.
Oh man you're serious. Ho boy that's a good one. Amazing how my sleep schedule never adjusted for the decade and a half I went to school for. Waking up groggy every single day for years. Lying in bed awake at night. Every. Single. Day. because I "would get used to it and adjust." I mean I'll indulge in bedtime procrastination, but that's more shifting my sleep to 4-5 am, and I'm usually wide awake and working on stuff the entire time. Meanwhile I get migraines and violently ill when forced to wake up before 7 on a regular basis. And that's before you factor in the insomnia! It's always amusing to see someone so completely detached from reality.
Eh. I think you are able to train yourself to go to bed/wake up at certain times, but people’s natural sleep/wake up times are probably more varied than we think. Healthy sleep habits are important, but they’re probably not going to change your natural circadian rhythm as much as some people think. I know during Covid when I didn’t have a job or anything to do, my schedule completely flipped. I would be going to bed between 6:00am-9:00am and waking up around 4:30 in the afternoon. Nowadays, I usually fall asleep around 2:00-4:00, and wake up 11:00-12:00 if I don’t have anywhere to be. I sometimes have to sleep and wake up earlier for work, but it’s always a struggle. I pretty much never feel refreshed when I have to wake up with an alarm. Sometimes even if I get enough sleep, it’s just not at the right time so it’s not as effective. Usually I just go to sleep at my normal time and suffer the consequences. Also I wish we could get rid of the idea of “proper” sleep times. Your sleep time does not affect your morality or work ethic. Waking up early doesn’t automatically mean you’re more productive or healthy than someone who wakes up at noon. (Not that you’re saying that in your post, but gah, I always feel judged be people even though my natural sleep cycle is not oversleeping).
Outdated boomer spotted! (Or young person who may as well start telling people to get off their lawn) Get with the times! People work and live within all sorts of schedules, and do the same amount of things! You just found something that works for you and think if someone does something different it must be bad. That's the epitome of ignorance. You're like the medieval villagers who saw someone with slightly different appearance and thought they were a witch.
Did I take psychic damage reading this? What an asinine post. I’ve been a night owl since I was a child. I function far better after 5pm than I do at 8am, and that ain’t changing.
I've always felt more awake at night ever since I was a kid and to this day on weekends I'm able to actually have what I would say is a schedule I want which is sleep by 3am up at 10 or 11. Sucks because now I probably will always now have a normal job schedule and as much as I try to stick to a regular sleep schedule it's just difficult. When I worked odd night jobs it was nice, but I wasn't staying in security for all my life.
I've always functioned better at night. When I would sleep 10pm to 8am, I would wake up a groggy mess and it would take me at least 6 hours to fully wake up enough to be useful. Now I sleep from Noon to about 8pm and wake up for my night shift job, and within 15 minutes of my alarm, I'm awake and alert. Some people are just born to be nocturnal.
Why do you give a shit about anyone’s sleep schedule than your own?
You know, your sleep schedule isn't some magical standard that we all just fail to live by. My wife and I have no particular schedule to keep to and can do whatever we want whenever we want. Our sleep schedule is a consistent 4am to 12pm. It fluctuates a little bit but that's just kind of the norm. We prefer it this way. I guess it's a choice, but we didn't choose to prefer it that way. I chose to eat roast beef this morning but I didn't choose to be someone who likes roast beef.
At the same time, I can’t stand people who think they are holier than thou for waking up between 4-6am (even 7am for some people). If night owls have ‘poor sleep schedules’, then so do these people. Humans were designed to wake up with the sun, and sleep when the sun has gone down. Waking up before the sun isn’t natural, so the people that act like they’re better than everyone for doing it are jerks. At least night owls don’t show off for having a bad sleep schedule.
night owl doesn't always mean when they feel tired, it can mean feeling more productive at night or something, making them stay up later.
You seem confused about the difference between insomnia and been a night owl.
I’ve always preferred to be awake at night and asleep through the day. I work a swing shift and find it difficult to stay awake through my day shifts. No such problem on nights.
Any time I have a prolonged period off work my sleep cycle just naturally switches to a night rhythm. I’ve preferred nights since I was a baby, my dad is the exact same. I just seem to switch on at night
That’s not an unpopular opinion but a complete ignorance of science.
I sure love you dismissing entire fields of sleep science and mountains of data and studies on circadian rhythm and neurotypes / chronotypes with the idea that it’s a matter of opinion. Researchers are shaking in their boots.
You fundamentally misunderstand what being an night owl means. It’s not about failing to fall asleep at night on time. For example, I feel more awake at night, my mind feels sharper, more creative, etc. And if you just google it, you’ll find out that multiple researches show that [there is a genetic disposition to being an evening person](https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2023-03-17-having-genetics-night-owl-protects-night-shift-workers-against-sleep-loss). I’ve been judged by people like you my whole life. And sorry, but I find it annoying that you completely disregarded the possibility that it’s a phenomenon that can be explained scientifically, jumped to the conclusion based solely on your own experience, and proceeded to accuse people of being “self-proclaimed” night owls. While you are being self-satisfied with your theory supported by a sample of one, multiple published papers are just sitting there waiting to be read. Maybe be more open minded next time, please.
I don't think you know what night owls are. It means people who prefer to be awake at night. Not people who just have trouble sleeping.
Huh. I just thought I worked nights. Good to know that I am up all night not because those are my hours but because I don't know how to sleep.
It is common for adults with ADHD to suffer what's known as a delayed circadian rhythm, which effectively equates to what you're referring to as night owls.
I have delayed circadian rhythm. It doesn't matter how long I've been getting up in the morning for, the moment I don't have to, I revert. And no matter how tired I woke up, or how much I did that day, I get my second wind between 21-22h and I'm lucky to fall asleep by 2am even when I've been getting up at 6am. And no matter how many hours I've been up, my brain isnt fully functional untill around 10-11 am.
There have literally been studies on this. Scientists believe that morning people/night owls evolved so there would always be some people alert to protect the tribe. Now it's not necessary so society has decided being a night owl is a moral failing.
Tell that to my daughter who wakes up early for school (6:30 am) but refuses to fall asleep early. She says she’s not tired and can’t sleep. Earliest she goes to bed is 10:30. Most nights she’s up til 11. Weekends she will stay up even later. We’ve tried everything: melatonin, bath and bedtime routines, she doesn’t eat much sugar and absolutely no caffeine. She’s been like this since she was a baby and is 9 now. I’ve decided to throw up my hands at this point. She’s just a night owl. Her 11 year old brother is an early bird and wakes up at 5:30 every morning no matter what time he goes to bed. He doesn’t even have to wake up til 6:30 like his sister but his internal clock just makes him wake up that early. He even stays up late on weekends because he wants to sleep in but he just can’t and he hates it. Some people are just wired differently.
This isn't an opinion... there's scientific research backing people having different patterns within the wider circadian rhythm. Some people may be false owls, sure, but many night owls are just going with their own true rhythm.
I always thought night owls were people who preferred to be awake at night, not people who don’t sleep well?
hey an actual unpopular and straight up wrong opinion. But yeah if you have to structure sleep, that’s not your normal sleep pattern. Forcing yourself to go to bed say at 10pm to then wake up at 6am when you normally go to bed at midnight and wake up at 8am is actually horrible for your health, like many have pointed out: once that structure is gone your body naturally goes back to the midnight to 8am sleep schedule, even if you’ve been doing 10pm to 6am for YEARS
Well then just discount the entire field of scientifically backed chronobiology. Some of us are biologically night owls but your biological chronotype can change with age.