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I am a person who has been a night owl all my life. I contribute this to the fact that I am about 99.99999 percent certain I have Delayed Sleep Phase Syndrome which is a circadian rhythm disorder. (No I have never been formally diagnosed - never had a sleep study). But to give you an idea, the day that my mother brought me home from the hospital (after being born), I slept until 10 am the next morning.
Things like school, work, life was pretty much hell for me. I cannot even begin to tell you how many opportunities I lost, how many good things I slept through because my time schedule did not coincide with the rest of the world. Just as an aside, I think that my dad had the same thing.
Now then, three-and-a-half years from now I will be retiring to my homestead and I am really, seriously considering following my "natural" body rhythm instead of fighting the losing battle of living my life like a "regular" person. That would be to sleep all day and do my homesteading chores at night (with the help of lights, of course, so I can see what I am doing). Nothwithstanding that I feel so much better at night, with summers being so hot lately (like this summer), it is infinitely easier for me to work long hours outside when it is 75 degrees than it is when it is 100. Plus, like I mentioned, I just feel SO MUCH BETTER at night than I do during the day.
I am wondering, by posting this, if you know anyone or have ever heard of anyone who keeps a schedule like this? I personally have not, other than people who work 3rd shift somewhere and usually don't like it. Since I have no children, no family (to speak of), and no obligations that would interfere with this lifestyle, I am seriously considering it.
I always seem to be sluggish most of the day but then at 10pm I seem to get a boost of energy. This then makes it hard to go to sleep and hard to get up the next day. I also find that late at night is the best time to think and truly be alone and enjoy free time. Most people are already asleep and it is kind of exhilarating to be the only one awake. Like I am the one enjoying this extra time and all the suckers are asleep. It feels very self indulgent. However then I have to deal with the consequences with waking up the next morning.
I think Seinfeld said it best though:
“I never get enough sleep. I stay up late at night, cause I’m Night Guy. Night Guy wants to stay up late. ‘What about getting up after five hours sleep?’, oh that’s Morning Guy’s problem. That’s not my problem, I’m Night Guy. I stay up as late as I want. So you get up in the morning, you’re exhausted, groggy… oooh I hate that Night Guy! See, Night Guy always screws Morning Guy. There’s nothing Morning Guy can do. The only Morning Guy can do is try and oversleep often enough so that Day Guy looses his job and Night Guy has no money to go out anymore.”
I think their are simply morning people and night people. I've always been a night owl and have avoided morning shift jobs whenever possible. I'm more awake at night and far more active. I always have been, and (I assume) always will be. I don't see that I'm missing that much not being up at the crack of dawn besides perhaps sunrises.
I work rotating shifts at the hospital boiler room. Rotation starts on a Tuesday 11pm-7am 7 days straight, off two days, 3pm-11pm 7 days straight, 2 days off, 7am-3pm 7 days straight, 4 days off (Friday-Monday, our only weekend a month), and rotation repeats. Some tricks that seem to help me include 3 mg melatonin about an hour before bed, set up bedroom for sleep only (no TV nor computer/electronic devices). If there's bright LED digital alarm clocks, switch to either one that dims or red light. Find a hobby to keep your mind and body active during the day and relax and unwind after 6 or 7 pm.save caffiene intake for morning and no caffiene after 1pm.
I also love sleep. My dreams are very detailed, rarely bad, and are like an adventure. I love dreaming.
My suggestion...don't fight it.
Same here, about the dreams. I am convinced the people like us manufacture too much serotonin which is the "dream" chemical and is the main player, I believe, in my circadian rhythm disorder.
I read once where "night people" were very valuable to primitive man as they were the ones that kept a "lookout" for dangerous predators and marauding enemies while the other tribe members slept. The article postulated that they would have been treated like royalty because the very lives of the others depended on them, so they were not required to hunt or gather during the day and were provided for by the others. Nice idea, anyway.
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Originally Posted by 20yrsinBranson
Same here, about the dreams. I am convinced the people like us manufacture too much serotonin which is the "dream" chemical and is the main player, I believe, in my circadian rhythm disorder.
I read once where "night people" were very valuable to primitive man as they were the ones that kept a "lookout" for dangerous predators and marauding enemies while the other tribe members slept. The article postulated that they would have been treated like royalty because the very lives of the others depended on them, so they were not required to hunt or gather during the day and were provided for by the others. Nice idea, anyway.
20yrsinBranson
Interesting theory, I wonder if they developed/naturally had more acute night vision as well?
Sometimes I feel like staying up, other times I like to get up bright and early. I'm not really one or the other...
Very interesting post, especially because I was thinking of posting about my own sleep disorder and asking if anyone else has it. Mine is different from yours, so I'll say more about that in a minute, but my first response to you is: absolutely go on your own schedule once you retire. The only down side to it could be that your schedule with be "off" compared to others', so your social life might suffer, but it sounds like you are not the partier type anyway. :-)
I used to think of myself as a night owl, but I realized that I'm not really -- rather, my internal clock is set for about 26 hours, which means that when I have unstructured time, if I just let my body do its own wake/sleep cycle, I get out of sync with the world pretty quickly, but then I get back "in sync" too, and the cycle continues. Day 1, I might wake up at 10 a.m. Day 2, it's noon (26 hours later instead of 24). Day 3, it's 2 p.m. This goes on throughout the periods of unstructured time. (This is actually a recognized sleep disorder -- non-24-hour sleep-wake syndrome is one term for it -- and apparently about half of blind people have it, presumably because they don't have light "cues." It's apparently extremely rare in sighted people, which I am, although I suspect that it's more common that we think -- most people CAN'T constantly get in and out of sync with the rest of the world because of their jobs, families, etc. I live by myself so I can manage just fine with an odd schedule.)
I teach at a college, which means I work very long hours during our semesters (and our 6-week summer term), but I also have long periods during which I can work completely at home (or can take a break!), e.g. a month during our winter break, about 2 months in the summer after our summer term, a 7-month sabbatical every 7 years, etc. EVERY TIME I am on break, my body clock reverts to its "normal" 26-hour schedule. It even begins to happen during our 1-week spring break, which is hard, because that's not quite enough time to get completely back to "normal" before we go back.
Anyway, your sleep disorder actually sounds easier to live with, because you're not constantly "turning over" -- instead, you just stay on one schedule, albeit a different one than most people's. I don't know about you, but I HATE waking up to an alarm (and I only need one a couple of times a year) -- I always sleep WAY worse when I have to set my alarm than when I don't, so I never set it during our breaks. You could force yourself to get up early and go to bed early every day, but why?
-Karen in lovely New Hampshire
P.S. I've been up since 2:15 a.m. -- yesterday it was 12:30 a.m. -- and will likely be in bed by early evening. By next weekend it will be upside down from this!
I also love sleep. My dreams are very detailed, rarely bad, and are like an adventure. I love dreaming.
In a way, I don't like to sleep. My dreams are very detailed, visually very vivid, something's always going on. I often feel like I haven't gotten a proper rest, but that's a whole other story.
My husband and I both started out as night people.
He wound up in a career that worked out pretty well for him, as a pilot in the overnight freight business. When on duty he'd show up at the hotel, have something like steak and eggs for "dinner", go to bed around 9AM, wake up around 6PM, go down and have "breakfast", then get ready to go to work.
He'd have to adjust a little during the week when he was home.
I had to get up early to get the kids to school, but since I was a stay at home mom I could ease myself into being "active" for the rest of the day.
Since my husband is retired now and and can keep whatever hours he likes and is underfoot all day, and I no longer feel like I get much time to myself anymore, I've tried to adjust my body clock. I go through an evening routine almost religiously, to try and ensure that I'll be asleep by midnight, so I can be up sort of early in the morning.
First I take vitamin D. I keep seeing that many people say it makes them dream more vividly, but in my case, I usually dream less when I have enough D in my system. In the evening, from 8 or 9PM I watch TV or movies from Netflix or other online sources. If I work on anything, I won't fall asleep. Doing laundry is ok though, it's a mindless job. Around 11 I get myself a hot cup of tea and a couple of cookies, settle into bed and watch something that's interesting enough to hold my attention, but not so interesting that I want to stay up and watch all of it. Then I fall asleep.
I still get severe bouts of insomnia though, which messes everything up.
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