Nocturnal

As I write this, it’s 5:13 AM. No, I didn’t get up early–I’m still up.

I’ve been holed up in my apartment reviewing for the boards for the last month, with no place to be at any certain time, and I’ve pretty much gone nocturnal. I’ll stay up until 6 or 7 in the morning and sleep until the mid-afternoon. I get so much more done at night it’s not even funny–there are fewer distractions, and I just feel like I’m more productive in the middle of the night. I also feel much better, since I’m not trying to force my body into a 24-hour cycle (which it has never cared for) and allowing myself to sleep when weary and not according to when I have to be someplace next.

Why, then, do I feel so bad about it?

For some reason, I just feel incredibly guilty when I stay up this late. Perhaps it’s because my girlfriend gives me grief about it, and my mother thinks I’m nuts. (Both are the type who tend to pass out at about 10:30, which I can’t even fathom.) Perhaps it’s that societal notion that 11:30 PM is “Late”, and 12:30 PM is “Late Late”.

I usually don’t have a problem with non-conformity, though. Does anyone else ever do this? Do you feel the same way?

Dr. J

As I write this, it is 2:35 AM.

I also stay up late, even when I do have stuff to do the next day. Why? I’m an idiot teenager, of course. Oops, the clock just turned to 2:36. Several months ago, I stayed up only to chat with friends over AIM. Now, it’s been at least an hour and a half since I’ve talked to anyone on my buddy list, even though there’re a few online. What am I doing? Jumping around the Straight Dope. A passing phase… I figure in a month or two I’ll be less attached here.

If it were up to me, I too wouldn’t hit the hay unless I was tired. But I have a class tomorrow morning, so I have to scram at 3:00, at the very least.

In my mind, “late” is 5:00 AM. “Standard” is 3:00 AM. “Early” is anytime before midnight. And no, I never feel guilty. Well, except when I get too tired to continue chatting with someone when it’s obvious they still have stuff to say… but that’s a different story.

As I am also a student, I feel your pain, man. The classes I take are from 3:30 pm to 10 pm, Monday through Friday, and I get home around 11 pm, depending if class gets out on time or not. Bedtime is 2 am or so, since I prefer to do most of my homework when I get home, as doing this late at night, I am far more productive (except when I do things like posting on message boards).

Since I am studying to be a chef, the late night thing will probably never end, as we are notorious night people (except for those crazy breakfast cooks).

My mother thinks I am insane, since there have been occasions where I am still working on the computer when she wakes up at 4 am (and she thinks I’m strange…). The BF goes to bed at midnight, and wakes to see me, a slobbering, snoring mass next to him, that, bless-his-heart he still kisses at 7:30 am.

You sorta hit the nail on the head with the societal notion of “lateness”. I think it just goes all the way back to when the only people who were up and about all night were evil demons, witches, warlocks, vampires, werewolves, living dead, zombies, mentally deranged mass murderers… you get the point. “Ungodly hours” were kept by ungodly people, as only the righteous woke up at the crack of dawn and put in an honest day’s work. I mean, what normal human would want to deprive themselves of the glories of the morning? Gaaaaaack.

Don’t feel guilty about it. Your body is doing what it wants to do, since you haven’t set time limits for it. If you’re feeling better, since you haven’t been forcing it into a schedule it naturally doesn’t like, then by all means, do it. When we don’t force our bodies into what society expects, our bodies will naturally do what it needs to do, when it needs to do it (eat, sleep, etc).

Count me in. You might want to check out the Nocturnal Society

http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Studios/5423/index.html

Oh, and this link is good, too :slight_smile:

http://vic.com/~nlp/n-people.htm

As I am typing this it is 4:10 am where I am.

I have not been to bed either. The only problem is I am supposed to be in high school still. I have always had problems forcing my body into the standards of being up all day and sleeping all night. My body loves being able to stay up most of the afternoon and night. Everyone thinks I am crazy. (specially since I am in deep doodoo because of this and am no longer in high school and I have problems with home schooling so life is generally going downhill)

So many times to I get told to go to bed at a ‘decent’ hour. By my parents, teachers, councellors, psychologists… I’ve even tried to get into a sleep clinic to help me get back on track. (I had to get a referal by a psych but he told me that the waiting list was a year long and just told me to try and get back on track snorts)

I am just hoping I can work out something so I can get my diploma and then hopefully a job that I can work late at night so I don’t have to worry about it much. (My sleep is very erratic… sometimes I’ll sleep ‘normally’ other times I’ll sleep during the day)

I agree with the whole vampires/supernatural beings thing though that makes a lot of sense. Actually sometimes I think being a vampire might be neat. (My role playing coming through I have several vampire c’s :D)

If I could I would alway just stay up whenever and do what I feel like but I can’t sighs Ah well.

(Just a note its now 4:44 am and it took me so long to write because I am role playing right now :smiley: I also probably won’t get to bed for another couple of hours yet or I might go crazy and attempt to stay up the rest of the day as well)

I must be an earlybird - it’s only 0140 right now.

I became a night owl when I was reliant on bartending for a living. Typically I would not finish work until 0100, hence I was not sleepy until nearly 0500.

15 years later, and the habit is still not completely broken. At the mooment I am on leave from my job, but I’m gonna get a big shock come next week…

It sounds like this is a relatively new pattern for you. Personally I’ve been living like that from roughly age 10 onwards. I’ve had periods of several years when I predominantly followed a ‘traditional’ schedule (and I had hoped to follow it forever, but there are simply too few hours in a day – and those undisturbed midnight hours are gold,

Don’t worry. You’ll begin to view this very differently in July (depending on your school and your rotation) For at least the next 5-10 years of your life, your relationship with sleep will be far different than most people’s.

Considier it an asset. Not that it matters. You won’t feel much luckier after a 36 hour call anyway.

I adore staying up late. For me, 11 PM is I-had-to-go-to-bed-way-early-because-I-had-to-catch-a-train-or-something. Before 1 AM is I’m kinda bushed, guess I’ll turn in early. 3 AM is fairly standard, since right now I’m starting work at noon. 5 AM is late, and 8 AM is I-just-couldn’t-get-to-sleep.

At the beginning of this year, I was in the hospital and had a lengthy recovery at home so I was unemployed. I spent every night online (mostly on SDMB) because the medicine I took made me jittery and hyper, so I rarely slept at night. It’s good to know I’m not alone. I love staying up late. I hate that I have to go to bed early and I don’t post nearly as often, but I also love that I have a job now.

This is a fairly new pattern for me, but then again it’s been a while since I’ve had a schedule this free.

I’ve always gone to sleep at about 2:30, regardless of what time I go to bed. If I go to bed at 11:00, I’ll lie there awake until 2:30. (You’re not supposed to do that, of course, and I usually don’t.) Left to my own devices for a few days, I’ll usually sleep until about 9:30. This was great in college, when I never had to start before 10:00, but med school and its 8:00 classes were a complete bitch. I could never make myself go to sleep any earlier–instead, I just learned to get by on less sleep. (Or, alternately, I just didn’t attend class. I learned more by staying home and reading anyway.)

Lately, though, I’ve just been up all night. I get in a good study rhythm (with occasional posting breaks), and i’m good to go until 7:00 in the morning. Still, there’s this incredible sense of dread when I start to see the sky light up outside my window–“Oh my God, I’ve been up all night.” I don’t understand it.

Dr. J

Most small creatures are crepuscular. Look it up and it may change your life. Or at least your alarm clock- you will need two. :slight_smile:

My sleep schedule is pretty similar.

In high school I would stay up til 4am and get up for school at 6:30 and be out the door at 7:30am. Now in college during the week I get to bed around 4am or later but don’t get up at 6:30. A lot of times I am not getting into bed until 6:30a but thats usually on the weekends.

But something I have noticed. In high school I could go without much sleep just fine. Nowadays I need my sleep much more it seems. I used to have a hard time sleeping past 9am. Now 9am goes and all of a sudden its 1pm.

I seem to get much more done at these late hours. Though some how I feel more productive when I get up early even if I don’t do anything.

dev

I used to be like that back when I was single. Now with the wife working overnights, and two kids, I don’t even worry about when I sleep, as long as the kids are asleep too. sigh I was operating on 4 hours a night there for ages, it seems.

I think I can be considered nocturnal.

Even though I have to get up for work at 7 am and do not usually get home until 6 pm, I would consider being in bed or asleep by 11 pm very very early. As the residents of #straightdope may know, it is not uncommon for me to be up well past 2 or 3 AM.

I too stay up til the wee hours of the morning. I’ve been known to stay up til 5, 6, or even 7 am. Sometimes I dont get to bed til 9 am (that’s usually when i’m wrapped up in something). I think the reason is, i’m in chat a lot, and also i seem to find all of the interesting stuff late at night. Usually since there are a lot of west coast dopers, we stay up late.

I couldnt fathom going to bed at 11 pm anymore. I even hate getting to bed before 1 am. Usually i can sleep around 2 or 3 am. I even remember getting just 3 hrs of sleep before my 10 am classes this semester (I can get by on 2, if i’ve been pulling an all nighter, AND i have to be up early.

I have never met others like me I know there are insomniacs (and actually I classified myself as one since I CAN sleep normally sometimes and I was trying to sleep normally at one time)

KP I started around that age myself only I was 11. I always had troubles before but life sorta got screwy then and I was always up at night. I managed to work it out for the most part and got through junior high and grade 10 but then I ran into troubles again.

I truly don’t understand how you guys can go on so little sleep. I can’t force my body to do that (except rarely and afterwards I crash for a good 10 hours sometimes a little more) Which only messes me more since my body doesn’t like it.

And dawn does surprise me quite often. I’ll be online then look up and I’m seeing sunlight streaming in my window. (When the sunrises its at just such an angle that it can stream in. The rest of the day not at all)

I too, am very nocturnal, and I am here to offer support. (Cf. My GQ thread on a not dissimilar topic) However, I believe that I am probably weaker than all of you, because I do need my sleep. I just tend to get it at different times. During the school year, I regularly sleep through weekends, so that I can get by with 2 hours a night during the week.

I would probably go on about how our predisposition to be up late is sign of our genetic superiority, but right now, it’s almost 8 AM. It’s past my bedtime.

This guy looks sorta like he’s yawning, right? :o

Well, of course, some of you may recall my post about a month ago about my nocturnal habits during finals. It’s not all the time, but there are times when I just get more done late at night. Part of it is that there are so many more distractions during the day, when the rest of the world is awake. At night, things quiet down and I can concentrate.

I’m staying with my mom for the summer, and she and stepdad go to bed at 9:00 and get up around 6 or 7. Yikes. Luckily, they don’t expect me to be up that early. I have never been a morning person. My summer job has work hours from 3:30-midnight, which suits me just fine. The only problem is, when I do roll out of bed at around 10, Mom has been up for a while and is plenty perky, and frequently wants to have a conversation with me. I have to keep explaining that I absolutely cannot talk until I’ve had my coffee. Just don’t get between me and the coffeepot and nobody will get hurt, lady.

I usually stay up until three or three thirty. Early is two or so… My mom got up and came down and bitched at me the other night when I was up till four thirty. I usually sleep till noon, sometimes till two or three… I cannot IMAGINE why someone would go to bed at ten and get up at six!!

I also have a wierd ability to stay up until eight or nine am, then only sleep an hour or two, and I’m fine. But if I do this more than a week straight, I sleep a few fourteen or sixteen hour nights, but then I’m ready to go again.

My body asks for sleep in very ODD rotations.

–Tim