Your sleep schedule: waking up in the mornings

[YogSosoth]

I've never been much of a morning person when I was still a kid in school. I think that the combination of the relatively short days (oh how I long for 8-3pm schedules again) and youthful energy fooled my body into late nights and exhausted mornings. When I reached college and basically got to dictate my own schedule, I picked late morning/afternoon classes so I could stay up until 1am and sleep until 10am. I thought it was torture to be forced to get up anytime before 9am.

Until I got a job, that was never a problem. However, once with a job, I had to adhere to the standard worker drone schedules of early mornings that didn't mesh well with my lifestyle up until that point. It took years of training my body to do that, and only until after I graduated that I was able to fully embrace being an early riser.

However, I still have friends who lead almost dual lives: waking early on weekdays and sleeping until 9 or 10 on weekends. I don't know how they do that.

So my question is: if you wake up early routinely for your job, do you still wake up early during weekends? And I'm talking about waking up, not getting up. Or, if you're like my friend, you are forced to wake up early on weekdays but somehow your body just knows it's a weekend and you sleep in.

My body cannot sleep past 7am. Unless I run a marathon or something the night before, I can go to bed from 10pm to 1am and like clockwork, I will naturally wake up before 6:30am. Are you that type of person too? Or am I the weird one and everybody else can sleep in late when they want to?

[WordMan]

My body cannot sleep past 7am. Unless I run a marathon or something the night before, I can go to bed from 10pm to 1am and like clockwork, I will naturally wake up before 6:30am. Are you that type of person too? Or am I the weird one and everybody else can sleep in late when they want to?

Same. I set my alarm the night before. I think it has actually gone off twice in the past 10 years. ;)

Doesn't matter anyway - if I don't get up automatically, my cats jump on me at the exact same time every morning.

[elbows]

I used to work nights, and I loved to sleep late. I was a very good sleeper.

But I spent a few years getting up everyday for 8 am, 7 days a week. It was challenging to sleep later but I could still do it when the opportunity presented itself.

But as I've gotten older, though I no longer need to be up at any specified time, as a rule, I now wake up early every morning. Like 6 am early, sometimes earlier.

I used to try and force myself back to sleep, but all that would happen is I would end up either with a stiff neck or a headache, or both.

I am not fond of it, one little bit. My husband can still sleep till noon, no worries. Not me. And, of course, I now have difficulty staying up past midnight, understandably. If I'm busy and moving around, or out it's not too bad, I can make it to 2am or later. But if I'm just quietly reading or watching a movie I'm a goner by midnight.

I feel your pain, I miss lazing around and sleeping late.

[ReticulatingSplines]

That's pretty nice, I envy you. After a week of waking up for work, if I shut off my alarm on Saturday, I'd wake naturally at about 11:30. But I sleep really late at night too, so I'm pretty sure I'm steadily accumulating sleep debt during the week. Maybe you're just getting sufficient sleep.

[UncleRojelio]

My eyes snap open at 05:30 if it is a workday. For some unknown reason I can sleep late on weekends and holidays. Maybe it just requires more years of training. I've been working the same schedule for 30 years.

[overlyverbose]

My kids wake me up somewhere between 5 and 6 a.m. every blasted morning. Both like to snuggle with mommy, so I'm generally locked under a pile of children (well, assuming that two make a pile) until about 6:30. If it's a Sunday, my husband will take them both out of the bedroom so I can sleep in. Every other day I generally get up first. My husband is terrible about waking up in the morning and we take turns on weekends so each of us gets to sleep in once a week.

Even on days when I'm supposed to be sleeping in, I usually only doze until 7:30 or so after everyone has left the room. Sometimes I hide in the bed and read until 9-ish, though.

[Ellen Cherry]

Don't forget too that age affects sleep. Younger people are naturally more night-owls; us old fogies wake up with the chickens. For me at least this morning it was an extremely loud cardinal right outside my window at 5:45. WHOOOOOITTT-cheer-cheer-cheer-cheer. Loud.

[Asimovian]

I've always been a morning person. I don't bother with an alarm because I'm always very early to work. I typically wake up between 6am and 7am on weekdays.

I can usually get back to sleep on a weekend, but it's rare for me to remain in bed beyond 8:30 or so even then. I get restless.

I tend to fall asleep between 10pm and 11pm, if that matters.

[tdn]

I go through phases. I just went through one where I'd sleep until 9 or 9:30 on weekends.

These days I'm up at 6 or 6:30. I've been known to take naps at 8.

[tdn]

Don't forget too that age affects sleep. Younger people are naturally more night-owls; us old fogies wake up with the chickens. For me at least this morning it was an extremely loud cardinal right outside my window at 5:45. WHOOOOOITTT-cheer-cheer-cheer-cheer. Loud.

I'm both a night owl and a morning person. Hence all the naps on weekends.

[Kiros]

Up at 6:30 or so on weekdays, usually 8 or 8:30 on weekends. Such is the way of the working life. Frankly it makes me miserable and if I could change one thing about my life right now, it would be to change the working world to have a sleep schedule that worked better for me.

My natural sleep schedule is something like 2-10 am, and I gravitate towards that whenever I have more than a couple of days off in a row.

[Kalypso]

If left to my own devices for a week I end up going to bed about 1 or 2am and wake about 10am, so that must be what my natural clock does. I have to set an alarm to get up at 7 for workdays, and I never wake before it goes off. I go to bed between 12 and 1am. I'm always quite groggy on work mornings, but at night I wake up and am not sleepy until very late.

[BigT]

My problem with oversleeping is not that I will automatically wake up, but that I will often feel like I've been run over by a truck, due to allergies. And, even outside of alergy season, it will just make me more tired.

[elfkin477]

Don't forget too that age affects sleep. Younger people are naturally more night-owls; us old fogies wake up with the chickens. For me at least this morning it was an extremely loud cardinal right outside my window at 5:45. WHOOOOOITTT-cheer-cheer-cheer-cheer. Loud."Define younger." I'm 34 and I still go to bed very late on Friday and Saturday nights, and wake up very late on Saturday and Sunday. I find that as long as I'm out of bed by 11 on Sunday morning, I can get enough sleep that night to get up properly Monday.

[YogSosoth]

That reminds me, whenever we have Daylight Savings Time changes, it usually takes me about 2 weeks to convert my body to the new schedule, never more than a month. When I was younger and woke up at 9 or 10am, it would take me forever, usually more than a month, before I got used to getting up earlier or later. I used to hate DST but now I just roll with it.

[Manda JO]

It's not so much that I can't sleep in on Saturday as it is that I can't stay awake on Friday night. I get up by 5 most days during the school year, and by 9 I am ready to at least go lie down and read. Unless there is something really exciting going on Friday night (which is rare), I am still going to be yawning and looking for my bed by ten. So by Saturday at six, I've had more than enough sleep and can wake up.

If I were one of these people that can work all day and then go out until the wee hours of Friday night, I imagine I'd sleep in more easily. But I am not!

[Sierra Indigo]

Naturally I'm a night person. Up all night, sleep until noon.

However, if I have to work on a day-based schedule, I start early. This has the interesting effect of having me up at 0500 on work days, but up UNTIL 0500 on weekends and when I'm on leave. The day before I go back to work is always fun.

[chizzuk]

I'm still in grad school, but last semester I had to get up at 7:30 during the week. I did not wake up at this time on weekends; I slept straight through until noon or 1pm.

My schedule right now has me getting up around 9:30. On weekends, I'm still sleeping until noon or 1pm. My natural sleep schedule seems to be about 4:30am-12:30pm.

I used to try to go to bed "earlier" during the week (like 1am) but wasn't able to consistently do so. Even if I'm totally exhausted, I'm generally lying awake until at least 2:30. So I just gave up. I try to manage about 5 hours/night during the week and then just sleep more on weekends. I literally cannot remember the last time I went to bed before midnight. If I do, it's a guarantee that I'm sick.

[Nzinga, Seated]

I have always been a night owl. I hate mornings with a passion. The first 10 minutes of each morning, from opening my eyes untill getting into the shower is sheer torture. The kind of torture that makes me contemplate quitting my job, abandoning my family and living on the street just so I can enjoy sweet, sweet sleep.

I was this way as a kid also. Hated getting up for school. I WILL get up on time, though. I am never late for work. And I also WILL stay up way too late every night.

On Fridays and Saturdays, I am up until after 3 a.m. at least. If I got to NYC for the weekend, then I'm up till about 8:00 am before I go back to sleep. I will then sleep until about 3:00 pm.

It is common for me to sleep at least till 11:00 a.m. on weekends and maybe till 2 or 3. My daughter has been getting her own morning cereal since she could toddle.

I wish I could take a pill every morning that made me instantly 'awake'. I would pay big money for that pill.

[papergirl]

I set my alarm for 3:40 every morning and am out the door at 4:00. I get home about 6:30, get the kids up, and get one out the door at 7:00, then I catnap until the second one leaves at 8:00. Then I catnap some more (usually til 8:25) until I have to leave at 8:40 for the second job.
On the rare occasion that I don't have to get up, I usually wake about 4:00 and read for a while, then back to sleep until...forever. When I take a no-deadline nap, I sleep hard and long.
I've been doing this so long that I have a hard time sleeping more than 5 hours...my back starts to hurt and I get really restless. I'm also very good at the internal alarm for naps up to about an hour--I can remind myself, "Gotta be up in 45 minutes" and I'll be wide awake in 43. It's actually kind of weird.

[Khadaji]

I wake up every day between 5 and 5:30. I have worked with the Brits for the past 2 1/2 years and they are 5 hours ahead of my time zone, so my 5 is their 10. I also work from home, so one day seems pretty much like another, so I'm up at the same time every day.

I miss the days when I could stay up late and sleep late!

[kenobi 65]

If left to my own devices for a week I end up going to bed about 1 or 2am and wake about 10am, so that must be what my natural clock does.

That describes me perfectly, as well.

I have to wake up around 7am to get to my job on time. On the weekends, if I don't have anything for which I need to get up early, I'll easily sleep until 10, even 11. The only time in my adult life in which that wasn't the case was the six months or so when I had an ulcer; my stomach would wake me up by 7:30 or 8, demanding food. Once the ulcer healed, I was able to sleep late once more. :)

[BetsQ]

I work in the office three days a week and at home two days. My alarm goes off at 6:30 on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays and at 7:30 on Wednesdays and Fridays. No alarm on Saturdays and Sundays. I usually haul myself out of bed around 8:30 on Saturday. Sunday ranges between 8:30 and 10:00, depending on whether I can persuade the family to leave me alone.

Left to my own devices, I'm happiest sleeping 1:00am to 9:00am.

[Kaio]

If left to my own devices, my natural sleeping schedule seems to be about 3am to noon. Following a "normal" schedule requires an alarm clock. I would not get up in time for work/school/whatever otherwise; I wouldn't even notice the time has come and gone.

Anything earlier than 7 or 8am is painful. I can do 6am consistently for a while, but good lord it sucks. I usually aim for midnight to 8am, unless I have to get to an office instead of working from home. I'll still sleep in when I can.

[rhubarbarin]

I have no natural sleep pattern. It can be inconvenient in it's own way, since I have a hard time waking up and will oversleep 100% of the time if I don't have something to jar me awake at the right time - and oversleeping makes me feel ill. But the advantage of not having a 'schedule' is that I adapt effortlessly to any changes in my normal routine (which is bed around midnight when my boyfriend turns in, up between 6 and 8 so I can go to work or get some things done before I go to work). I'm out like a light 5-10 minutes after I lie down and I sleep very soundly. Once I get out of bed, I always feel alert and ready to go - at 5am or 12pm, after 4 hours of sleep or 7. The only exception is if I get more than 8 hours of sleep - then I feel like hell.

I really hope I get a 'wake-up time' when I get older. It seems a lot of people do with age. It would be awesome to just find myself wide-awake at 6:30 in the morning! I'd have to make sure to go to bed earlier.

My boyfriend is a schedule person, and his schedule isn't in time with America's. He spent his early life feeling groggy, nauseated and otherwise awful for hours if he had to get up before 9-10am (which he had to be for school of course). As soon as he graduated high school he swore he'd never get up early again, and he's managed to avoid ever holding a job that starts before 12pm. :D He is tired at the same time every night, and wakes up naturally at the same time each day. Doesn't matter if he had to stay up til 4am the night before and is exhausted - 9-10am is his wake-up time no matter what.

[Hilarity N. Suze]

I will wake up at 6-6:30 a.m. However, if I don't have to get up, it's very easy for me to go back to sleep. Actually even if I do have to get up, it's still very easy for me to go back to sleep.

However, I have found that if I have to be up early, say for a job that starts at 8:30 or 9, I need to set the alarm for some time before 7, because for some reason I just cannot get up between 7 and 9 a.m. Earlier doesn't make me happy but I can do it.

[jabiru]

Don't forget too that age affects sleep. Younger people are naturally more night-owls; us old fogies wake up with the chickens. For me at least this morning it was an extremely loud cardinal right outside my window at 5:45. WHOOOOOITTT-cheer-cheer-cheer-cheer. Loud.

I must be getting younger. I find I'm getting to be more and more of a night owl as I age. I usually get to bed by about 1:30 - 2:00. Midnight is an early night for me. At this rate, I'll be partying 24/7 by the time I'm 70.

[pullin]

I don't use an alarm clock, and my job has no pre-defined start time (they don't really care when I arrive, as long as I cover all my responsibilities). I'm 55 and usually wake up between 4:30 and 5:30 am every day including weekends.

[gallows fodder]

I wake up with the dawn whether I want to or not -- I'm a light sleeper and (stupidly!) have sheer curtains, and the light just wakes me up.

I've actually been having problems sleeping for months now because of this and my natural inclination as a night owl -- I wake up around 5:30, stay in bed trying to sleep until 6:30, drag myself out of bed to go to work and feel exhausted all day...until around 5 pm. Then I have plenty of energy, and I'm wide awake until around 11-11:30. I sleep around 6 hours a night, which isn't nearly enough for me. ( Back when I was in grad school, I slept from 1 or 2 am to 9 or 10 am, and loved it.)

Then comes the weekend, when I so look forward to sleeping in, and...nope, I wake around 5:30 and can't fall back to sleep. I sleep fitfully throughout the night, too. It's really taking a toll on me.

Coincidentally, last night I made a promise to myself to go looking for opaque curtains after work this evening. So this thread just confirmed my need for them -- thanks!

[Ellen Cherry]

"Define younger." I'm 34

Oh you're young! *wistfully remembers 34*

[MsWhatsit]

I have always been a night owl. I hate mornings with a passion. The first 10 minutes of each morning, from opening my eyes untill getting into the shower is sheer torture. The kind of torture that makes me contemplate quitting my job, abandoning my family and living on the street just so I can enjoy sweet, sweet sleep.

I was this way as a kid also. Hated getting up for school. I WILL get up on time, though. I am never late for work. And I also WILL stay up way too late every night.

On Fridays and Saturdays, I am up until after 3 a.m. at least. If I got to NYC for the weekend, then I'm up till about 8:00 am before I go back to sleep. I will then sleep until about 3:00 pm.

It is common for me to sleep at least till 11:00 a.m. on weekends and maybe till 2 or 3. My daughter has been getting her own morning cereal since she could toddle.

I wish I could take a pill every morning that made me instantly 'awake'. I would pay big money for that pill.

I could have written this to the word. (Except the NYC part.) The day my kids were old enough to get their own breakfast in the mornings was a great, great day for me. My preferred schedule, absent any other commitments, is stay up until 3-4 am, and then sleep until around noon or so.

[EmAnJ]

I was a night owl as a teenager and young adult, but once I started working full time, I switched to a wake up time of between 5:00 and 6:00 am. For most of my early 20's, I would still stay up late on the weekend and sleep late. Around 26 or 27, I started waking up earlier on the weekend, and now it's to the point that I'm going to bed around 10:30 or 11 pm and am up by around 7:00 or 7:30 on the weekend too. I feel like I've wasted a good portion of my day if I don't get up early on the weekend. I like to get stuff done and then have the rest of the day to relax.

Those of you that stay up well past midnight - what do you do? Watch TV? Read? I do a lot of outdoor activities (cycle, run, work on the yard, walk the dogs, etc.) so need daylight to do them and couldn't really imagine altering my schedule so I get less daylight hours.

[MsWhatsit]

Those of you that stay up well past midnight - what do you do? Watch TV? Read? I do a lot of outdoor activities (cycle, run, work on the yard, walk the dogs, etc.) so need daylight to do them and couldn't really imagine altering my schedule so I get less daylight hours.

Read, write, surf the Internet, play computer games, watch TV, do the grocery shopping, bake stuff, chat with friends online. Whatever, really. If I'm out socializing, I'm probably not even home until after midnight.

[PaulParkhead]

Those of you that stay up well past midnight - what do you do? Watch TV? Read? I do a lot of outdoor activities (cycle, run, work on the yard, walk the dogs, etc.) so need daylight to do them and couldn't really imagine altering my schedule so I get less daylight hours.

For me, I like the peace of the night - no phone calls and the only noises from outside are the mating calls of passing drunks. So I work on various daft hobbies, spend time on the internet, read books, enjoy the silence and use it to think about stuff.

My natural routine would be to sleep past noon and go to bed at 4 or 5 am. I work shifts, so some mornings I'm up at 7am, some at 9am, and on my 3 days off I don't care what time I get up. It's rarely before 1pm.

[Asimovian]

For me, I like the peace of the night - no phone calls and the only noises from outside are the mating calls of passing drunks. So I work on various daft hobbies, spend time on the internet, read books, enjoy the silence and use it to think about stuff.If I attempted to work after midnight, I'm pretty sure the results would seem daft, too. ;)

[Sierra Indigo]

Those of you that stay up well past midnight - what do you do? Watch TV? Read? I do a lot of outdoor activities (cycle, run, work on the yard, walk the dogs, etc.) so need daylight to do them and couldn't really imagine altering my schedule so I get less daylight hours.

I don't need daylight to walk my dog. He loves night walks, things smell different, other animals are out. He loves it. He often gets walked after dark, by me or the ex.

But like others, I spend a lot of time online. I play my computer games. I find I feel more creative in the early hours of the morning, so when I'm writing a lot of that gets done between midnight and dawn. Sometimes I read, sometimes I watch TV. Given I'm in Australia, my early morning hours are often peak time for my international friends to be online, so I'll surf the net or chat or catch up on my forums.

[PaulParkhead]

If I attempted to work after midnight, I'm pretty sure the results would seem daft, too. ;)

Heh. The results are fine, in that they work as intended. It's just that the intentions are daft.

Although I appear to be unable to operate a soldering iron if it's light outside. I should probably work on that.

[Electric Warrior]

I'm a 20 year old college student, so my advice should be taken with a grain of salt, but generally I find what helps me to maintain the sleeping schedule I want is controlling light carefully. If my room is dark, then my brain is okay with sleeping. I've had as much as a 3.5 hour difference between weekday and weekend wakeup times.

However it is also the case that I usually don't get a lot of sleep between Sunday and Monday. This does serve to get me properly tired for an early bedtime on Monday, but it can make Mondays stressful.

[Khendrask]

Goodness Yog... You would hate my schedule.

Lessee - Monday, I set alarm to 12:30 AM (middle of Sunday night), so I can get to work by 2 AM. Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, the alarm is set to 3 AM so I can get in by 4:30. Friday is a free day, and I generally plan to do things early, but often end up sleeping till 9 or 10. Saturday, I have to get up at 7:30 AM, then I pretty much party all Saturday, stay up late, sleep in on Sunday till 10 AM or so, then party the rest of Sunday till I try to go to sleep sometime between 6 PM and the time I have to wake up the next Monday.

Oh, yah, I'm a wreck, but /shrug...

[YogSosoth]

Goodness Yog... You would hate my schedule.

Lessee - Monday, I set alarm to 12:30 AM (middle of Sunday night), so I can get to work by 2 AM. Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, the alarm is set to 3 AM so I can get in by 4:30. Friday is a free day, and I generally plan to do things early, but often end up sleeping till 9 or 10. Saturday, I have to get up at 7:30 AM, then I pretty much party all Saturday, stay up late, sleep in on Sunday till 10 AM or so, then party the rest of Sunday till I try to go to sleep sometime between 6 PM and the time I have to wake up the next Monday.

Oh, yah, I'm a wreck, but /shrug...

Yeah, no kidding. You and I are not compatible at all. I suspect my sleep schedule would be totally off kilter if I hung around you

[Dallas Jones]

Sleep schedule? Try mine.

I start the work week at 11pm Tuesday night and get off at 9am. I stay up after I get off work until about 1 or 2 in the afternoon, eat breakfast and go to bed. Get back up at 8:30 in the evening and get ready to go to work again.

I do that for three nights and get off at 9am Friday and have until 8am Saturday to go back to work for my 4th and final 10 hour day. Since I don't want to waste Friday by sleeping all day, I force myself to lay down and close my eyes for 1 hour when I get home, just to make a transition from one day to the next. The short nap division between days is really important, I would be a wreck if I just tried to stay up, even though I really don't sleep.

Then I get up and am now a day shift type person and keep going as far into the day as I can, usually about 8pm and I am done.

I get a good night's sleep, get up and go to work during the day Saturday, and when I get off Saturday afternoon I'm off until 11pm Tuesday night.

It is not hard for me to stay awake all night at all or to transition back to a day/night sleep schedule. The key for me was learning that I needed to sleep all in one block of time. I first tried coming home and going directly to sleep for a few hours and then trying to take another nap before I went to work that night. Doesn't work. Once I have had a little sleep, even an hour or 2 I have difficulty going back for a nap.

And I do not drink coffee, I think it tastes like burnt dirt. But I do drink a pop or maybe two during the night. And I actually love this 4 day schedule and enjoy the time off it allows.

[Bosstone]

I've been at my job for 7 years. For the majority of the time I've had to be at work by 5 or 6 am. It's only in the past year that I shifted my schedule so I could be at work any time between 8 and 8:30 am.

You'd think after all that time I'd be hardwired to wake up in the early morning, by 5:30 at the latest. Nope. Every night is a struggle to consciously remember to go to bed by 11, every morning is a struggle to obey the alarm clock, and every Friday night I'm out cold from midnight to 10 am. If I have even just a three-day weekend, by the third day I'm already back to a 2 am - 10 am sleep schedule.

I'd probably be a lot happier if I had an evening job, but I really don't have any desire to join the job hunters right now.

[Swords to Plowshares]

Lately I have been going to bed at 2:15, settin my alarm for 10:15, and waking up around 10. Yay college!

[bump]

My eyes snap open at 05:30 if it is a workday. For some unknown reason I can sleep late on weekends and holidays. Maybe it just requires more years of training. I've been working the same schedule for 30 years.

Nah, that's the way I do it too, but I've only been at this particular schedule for about 2 years.

I just tend to wake up a few minutes before my alarm, regardless of when that is, and if I don't set it, I don't wake up. It's kind of weird, but it seems to work.