Can a night-owl become a morning person?

[Manduck]

I think my natural day is 26 hours long too, because during periods of unemployment or vacations, if I don’t set the alarm, I will wake up 2 hours later than the day before. The only way I can operate on a 24 hour schedule is to sleep less (rather than be awake less). I catch up on weekends.

[JimB]

I’ve only seen this type of switch come with age. You can try to 'fake it 'til you make it," but I wouldn’t bet on any drastic changes without a big 'ol helping of time.

[GomiBoy]

@Roland Orzabal

My own pet theory, based on my own experience working every shift under the sun (and otherwise) and my observations of others adjusting to same, is that a good number of people who believe themselves to be “night owls” are actually “people whose natural day is longer than 24 hours”.

By that, I mean that their tendency to stay up late is less to do with enjoying being awake at night, and more to do with the fact that their bodies naturally require a longer period of being awake, followed by a longer period of sleep (hence the reason these are often the same people who need a solid eight hours or more to feel even remotely functional). Because the average person A) begins work in the morning, and B) goes to work immediately after waking up, the “extra” time that the body needs to get tired occurs in the evenings…and so we end up with a collection of “night people” who can never seem to get enough sleep before the alarm goes off exactly 24 hours after it did yesterday.

This, combined with a half-joking resentment of sleep in general, is why I have trained myself to function at near-full capacity on 4-6 hours per night. It’s not ideal, but what can I do? During a brief period of extended vacation (read: time between jobs), I slept whenever I felt like I should…and, to my surprise, I slept wonderfully and regularly given a 30-hour “day”.

Don’t know if this applies to you, but I thought I’d share…at the very least, it’s something to consider. Good luck finding a solution!

ETA: I once tried to convince my former employer, a 24-hour operations center, to allow me to work a staggered schedule where each workday began two hours later than the previous day did, resetting on the weekends. They didn’t go for it, but it was worth a shot.

That sounds EXACTLY like me. If I have a 2-week vacation with no schedule of events (I’ve not been unemployed for more than 1 week in my entire adult life, strangely), I’ll stay awake for 30 hours +, then sleep for 10 or 12; it gets a bit weird after 2 or 3 rounds of this (sleeping in the middle of the day and such) but it’s the only time I feel truly well rested!

[puppygod]

I had to change my sleeping patterns, but only half succeed. By design I was a night-owl. Very night-owl - if I had no obligations and could do by my biological clock I would go to sleep around 3,4 AM or even later and sleep until well after midday.

But first school and later work made me to wake up earlier and earlier. Now I have my biological clock pretty much broken down. I can get up at, say 6 AM without relatively little trouble, but almost can’t go to sleep before midnight. I sleep not enough, drink too much coffee and generally have fun at nights and days.

Also, side effect is that jet-lags are breeze.

On the other hand, I tend to forget about going to sleep on weekends and holidays until rising sun reminds me that I should, and then I sleep too long during day and feel not well and it kinda sucks.

I discovered that optimal cycle for me would be to sleep from 2-3 AM to 6-7 AM and then after work, at 6-7 PM sleep for an hour. I’m well rested then and could go on that cycle as long as I want. But often I can’t take that extra hour of sleep afternoon, so it’s still only theory. Coffee helps.

[Anne_Neville]

@Roland Orzabal

My own pet theory, based on my own experience working every shift under the sun (and otherwise) and my observations of others adjusting to same, is that a good number of people who believe themselves to be “night owls” are actually “people whose natural day is longer than 24 hours”.

And therefore we are the natural choice when it comes to picking out people to go to Mars and start a colony there (a day on Mars is 24 hours 37 minutes).

[Wee_Bairn]

Since taking my first ever day job ten years ago I have learned to adapt to waking at seven to go to work, but will never like doing so, ever.

[zweisamkeit]

I like that theory about cycles being longer than a day; it makes a lot of sense. In fact, I’ve said to my friends that I wish there were more hours in a day because 24 never seems “right”. I can adapt to any schedule but I won’t be actually happy about it.

A big issue for me is that if I could work my ideal schedule, no one else (boyfriend, friends, family) does or wants to, so I’d hardly get to see them. So I get up at 5:45 every workday after falling asleep at around midnight and waking up many times during the night. I can be drop dead tired at 5pm but I can’t go to bed then. Hence my sleep, already bad anyway, just keeps getting worse. I’m averaging 4-5 hours a night.