I’ve heard the research about teens but evidently our school district (Fairfax County VA) has not - my middle-schooler rides the same bus as the high-schoolers (same school) and he has to be out the door at 6:30.
I find that if I get up even an hour earlier on a work day (was typically getting up around 6:30-6:45) I was completely trashed the rest of the day. And if I missed my “down time” on the weekends, I’d be practically staggering by Monday. I guess my most restful sleep must be that last hour or so during the night, and the early wakeup ruined that.
Now that my son is getting out the door that early, I lose that sleep every single school day. My clock has yet to “reset”. With predictable results.
I used to stay up as late as possible in middle school, high school, and college. And I slept during school at least once a day, every day (that’s 11 years of school!!) College I think I slept once per CLASS. I distinctly remember that Media Law was the ONLY class I never snoozed in. That and band, of course.
When I had summer jobs and had to wake up at a “normal” time (to get in by 8 or 9) I did it because I was getting paid. I used to fall asleep at my desk during my summer internship in college.
Waking up early…before 10…is pretty much a novelty for me. I can do it if I need to but I will never enjoy it. I spend the day thinking about how long the day is.
Now, I have my own business and I decided to make my own hours. Meaning I go to bed at 2 AM and I wake up at 10 AM - without an alarm - literally, when I am done sleeping. I work until 6 or later, then.
Getting in to work at 9 AM makes the day seem like it’s never going to end, quite frankly.
My school district switched to a later start for the school day because of the current research (from 7:30am to 8am). Doesn’t matter a bit to me…I’m a morning person. I’m awake at 5, up by 5:15 or so, and out the door by 6:15. If I don’t see the sun rise, the day isn’t complete.
My daughter was lucky enough to go to a high school in a district that figured out that the teenagers have more trouble waking up early, and didn’t have to be to school until 8:30 am. That was a real blessing for all of us.
I’m a total night person, too. I tried for many years to adapt to an earlier schedule, and with kids who were on an earlier schedule I was often forced to be on one myself. But now that they’re all grown and gone, I’m self-employed and work at home and can set my own hours, and it’s a rare day when I get up before 8 am. I feel much more rested as a result. Getting up early results in me being tired all the time, as so many others here have said.
Of course, I’m married to a guy who is one of those rare people who needs at most 4-5 hours of sleep, so I frequently both go to bed earlier and sleep later than he does. He figured out real fast when we were first married and I nearly died of shock that he wanted me to get up at 6 am on a Sunday to go sightseeing that our internal clocks are different.
I’m another who feels nauseated if I don’t get enough sleep.
I’m better at getting up than I used to be, but it’s still a struggle. I get about 8.5 hours of sleep a night and that helps.
Er… You “have your own business”, wake up at 10am, and only work until “6 or later”?
I hope this doesn’t come across as too snarky (I have to admit it is definitely at least a little snarky, and is about to get even snarkier), but what does this business consist of? Most everyone I know who runs their own business work longer hours than I do… And I’m in the office from 8am to 6pm, and sometimes longer.
Granted, you said “or later”, but the idea that a 6pm cutoff represents a normal working day for you when you aren’t starting it until 10:30am at the earliest (and that’s if you “work from home” as a consultant of some kind) rather surprises me. (And if it really is a viable career option, even intrigues me.)
I strongly have the feeling that at least some of these “I just can’t function in the morning” comments are based on a couple of days of bad experiences (prompted by circumstances unwillingly thrust upon them) followed by a quick and grateful retreat into the comfortable.
This thread seems mostly populated by people who are essentially claiming that being physically unable to function earlier than 9am is not equivalent to being lazy. I can buy into that on a case-by-case basis, but I have to say the burden of proof is on the individual.
Because let’s face it, the percentage of people in the population who give up attempts at new habits after a couple of days, or who don’t feel it’s worth trying to do so in the first place, is far greater than the percentage of people who are actually “wired differently”, such as the people who react differently to sleeping the same number of hours depending on when those hours are, as opposed to those who are staying up until midnight to watch Aqua Teen Hunger Force and then complain they can’t get up at 7:00am on a regular basis.
I too used to firmly be a “night person”… Then when I made conscious decisions in my life that required me to shift my schedule, I did so and got used to it, because what I got out of making those changes was worth more to me than staying up late and sleeping in. It took me maybe a week or two to adjust mentally and physically, but I got over it.
Of course if you just like living a lifestyle of “late to bed, late to rise” and have no real reason to change that, then more power to you, Carpe Meridianum. But saying you’re somehow limited by physiology sounds more like irresponsibility than making a conscious choice.
There, I’ve said it. Now let me go put on that beekeeper outfit.
And again, the idea that if you aren’t a morning person you are lazy or irresponsible or lesser comes into play.
I’ve had my job since 1997. It’s still a struggle. Do not suggest to my face that I’m irresponsible.
I am not making any ad hominem suggestions about anybody, least of all you.
I am simply observing that the majority of people who make statements such as “I am not a morning person” are more often than not making a statement about how they choose to live their lives, and not giving any additional credence to the widespread idea that this is physiologically determined – i.e., “that’s just the way I am”, versus “that’s just the way I want to live my life”.
What annoys me is the number of people I firmly judge to be in the latter category who play up the physiology angle to account for the negative effects from not getting enough sleep. For example, the Aqua Teen Hunger Force reference was not just a snide pop culture reference: I have a specific person in mind who is able to talk about this show in great detail with co-workers, is definitely staying up quite late to watch it (isn’t using a TiVo or something), and yet is one of those people who frequently say (almost with pride), “I’m useless before I have three cups of coffee, don’t talk to me about anything important until 10:30”.
So, is it that he’s “a night owl”, or that he’s got his priorities in his life set where watching a favorite TV show at midnight comes ahead of getting to bed in time to get 8 hours of sleep while still making it in to work by 8:30am, or getting a different job that starts at 10:30 so he’s actually contributing for the entire time period he’s being paid to do so, or getting a freaking TiVo and watching the previous night’s show after dinner? Has he tried doing any of this, or just continued to live his college life schedule after school?
I’m sure there are people (and you may be among them, jsgoddess) who do have physiological issues with getting to sleep at night, or need more sleep than others, etc. And I am of course exempting people who simply have things in their life that keep them up late (such as my wife, who I rely on to stay up and put the kids to bed at 10:30pm after I am already asleep).
However I stand by my observation that the majority of people who make statements like this are being irresponsible. Not necessarily in the sense of “shirking”, but in the sense of attributing to Physiological Destiny what is truly in their control to change if they really wanted to do so.
Finally, I want to point out that I am basing this on personal experience. I used to say “I’m not a morning person” all the time, for many years. Then I decided I needed to become one. I’m not trying to put anybody down with any of this, just hoping to open people’s minds to the possibility that in all likelihood they can become a “morning person” if they really want to, if they really tried; and to suggest that many people are not honest with themselves on this subject.
From what I’ve read, I think most of us don’t get enough sleep. I’m trying regularly to get 8.5 hours a night and I still need some makeup sleep on weekends. The 8.5 hours is the best compromise I can seem to make between getting enough sleep to function without spending my entire life asleep. I can spend upwards of 10 hours a night sleeping if I allow myself, but that leaves me so little time to do anything.
My sister is a morning person. If you said she could stay up past midnight to watch her favorite show, she’d laugh at you. Staying up past midnight isn’t an option for her. If it’s an option for your friend, maybe that says something about the way he’s wired. If I have gotten enough sleep, it would be an option for me. If I haven’t, it wouldn’t be. I’d be asleep by then.
If I don’t rigidly hold myself to a schedule, I don’t have 24 hour days. I think this is true of a lot of people. I would sleep later and get up later every day. I don’t have that option since I have to be at work at 9:30.
I don’t know why in the world I would assume that others aren’t in exactly the same boat if they say they are. You seem to be assuming that all or most people must be exactly like you. I assume that all or most people might be like me or might be like you and it’s really not my concern one way or the other.
I dunno; staying up later is easy for me, getting up earlier is hard. Going to be earlier is pointless; I’m not sleepy until around 11:00 pm. I’m almost 40; at this point in my life, if I were going to turn into less of a night owl, I think it would have happened by now.
I have had jobs where I had to be there every day doing physical labor at 6:00 am or earlier. I never adjusted to it even after months and I needed 11+ hours of sleep a night to even cope. It just doesn’t work that way. I never adjusted to being at high school at 8:00 am either.
I once lived in total isolation in a Vermont farmhouse for an entire summer with no TV and no phone or anything else. I had no one to see and nothing in particular to do. In those circumstances, I went to bed later and later every night until I was going to bed at sunrise. There was no reason for it. I could read or whatever it was I wanted to do during the day but the drift caught up with me. I switch into this mode for no reason every time I have a semi-extended period with no commitments for no particular reason. I don’t hang out with people and I don’t watch TV. I think you will find that true of many of us.
Believe me 8 hours of sleep from 1:00 am to 9:00 am is completely different than 8 hours from 9:00 pm to 5:00 am. I have never gotten the latter to work even though I force myself if I have to for as long as needed. In case you think it is about responsibility still, I can work from 10:00 am to 11:00 pm almost every day and have done so for many extended periods. OTOH, 7:00 am to 5:00 pm is a real killer even though the hours or shorter.
The only way I was able to lose weight was to go to the gym early every morning. I absolutely could not go to the gym after work because I’d spend all of my working hours finding an excuse not to go. But when I woke up and went, I didn’t have time (or the mental acuity at that hour) to talk myself out of it. This regimen required that I went to bed EXTRA early, and I was successful at the early bed/early rise routine for months, UNTIL RECENTLY. I got off of my schedule because of some wicked oral surgery, and the biggest obstacle has been that I absolutely HAVE to have a cup of coffee in the afternoon lately. Which keeps me up at night. Which makes me sleep in. And miss the gym. And I can’t get out of this cycle…ugh…