What makes some people wake up in a bad mood/grumpy/cranky/etc.? You know, the whole “not a morning person” thing.
For myself, unless I’m woken up rudely, I’m fine. I wake up and I’m in pretty much the same mood I’m always in. Then there’s some people I know who you literally cannot talk to first thing in the morning or they bite your head off…
Have there been studies done on this (I have a feeling there have been)? If so… what have been the findings? I couldn’t find any good info on it when I looked.
I am most certainly not a morning person. Many morning people report that they wake up feeling refreshed. It is the opposite for me. I wake up feeling like absolute hell with the extreme urge to go back to sleep. I will fall back asleep within seconds if I stay still for the first 30 minutes - 1 hour in the morning. I also have puffiness in my face and a severe brain fog. Both my wife and mother haven’t understood this and inisted on rattling off a long list of the day’s events and my responsibilities in a fast, chirpy voice. I have no recollection whatsoever of many of these supposed conversations.
I think that night owls can understand morning people at least in an intellectual way but the reverse isn’t often true. Imagine waking up largely mentally and physically impaired and then slowly waking up throughout the day until you are most awake and at your peak during the late night hours.
That’s the problem I think, some people are always woken by the alarm considerably earlier than their bodies would like to get up. That’s me, I have to get up at 6:45am for work, but left to my own I’d sleep until maybe 9:00 or even later sometimes.
It’s really an unpleasant feeling I go through every weekday morning, dragging my carcass out of bed through sheer will while every fiber of my being is screaming for more sleep. I’m single, so there’s nobody else there to interact with, but I doubt I’d be a pleasant conversationalist at that time.
I just wonder why it varies for me so much. I can wake up in a terrible fog and physical achiness like **Shagnasty **reports, even if I wake up on my own without an alarm or baby. Or I can wake up energized and ready to take on the world (or at least GD). Most of the time, it’s somewhere in between. What’s different about my sleep experience or body chemistry or whatever?
In fact, this morning I was woken up by the door buzzer by a toddler to watch. He’s as whiny as ever - this kid usually drives me bonkers - but today it’s not bothering me. Yet I distinctly remember waking up and tossing and turning a whole lot last night. I didn’t sleep well, but my mood is good. What’s up with that?
It’s about time. Either you haven’t slept enough, or you wake up at the wrong time (according to your dream cycle.) If the person who always wakes up in a bad mood was allowed to sleep another say 30 minutes more every morning, he might wake up feeling good every morning.
This is my experience, being often very tired in the morning my whole life, and seldom very happy. When I became a grown up and also freelancer (w. no kids), and was able to choose my own time, I fell asleep about 01:00 am and got up 08:00 every morning, happy as can be. Unfortunately, this was just for a few month of my life.
As a mother, I know that if a small child wakes up in the morning or from a nap grumpy, it’s a sign that they haven’t had enough sleep. Let them go back to sleep, and they wake up in a good mood.
As to the body clocks that are set to a different time than the rest of us, I imagine you’d just have to adjust either your jobs, or your sleep schedule. Some of my kids are early risers, some need to be dragged out of bed every morning.
I’ll second this. If I get into the habit of falling asleep early, I can wake early with no problems (though I’d always like to stay in bed a little longer). Recently, though, I was letting my friend who’d fallen off the wagon stay at my place while he tried to get himself into a detox facility, and he’d wake me up at 7:30 or 8:00 (they start selling beer at 8 around here), only a few short hours since I’d fallen asleep, asking where his wallet was or, sometimes, pestering me to walk to the store to get him beer (which I refused to do). So I was being woken up waaaaay earlier than I wanted to, by a person who annoyed the crap out of me (although I think a bright-eyed & bushy-tailed “Get up! It’s a beautiful day!” would have garnered the same response) and I was really cranky. I had similar experience when I lived with my ex-boyfriend. I didn’t have to be anywhere before 10 AM, but he had to get to work by 8, so when the alarm went off at 6 and he didn’t immediately turn it off and get up (it was on his side of the bed, turn the damn thing off!), I’d kick him. Now I live alone, though, so I don’t have to inflict my morning persona on anyone until I’m good and ready.
So some people, night owls by nature, are forced to be morning people but are just terribly unhappy about it. I’m lucky in that my sleep schedule can adapt, but I know some who are just unable to fall asleep before 1 or 2 AM.
Our circadian rhythms are governed by hormones. The hormones don’t necessarily follow the clock. I once asked my doc why I could barely drag myself up a few flights of stairs in the morning that I’d have no trouble navigating later in the day and he explained how the chemicals required to get a person going in the morning likely have not yet started up for me at that time of day.
I’m sure someone else (who’s not still in morning fog phase) will pop in and use all the proper terms and names of the chemicals. There are some people who have major problems because their normal cycle is so far off that of the rest of society.
I used to get up grumpy, hated morning. Now I do OK and only occasionally wake up grumpy.
My theory is that my REM cycles didn’t used to start until morning. I used to feel I got the best sleep in the morning. Things have changed somewhat in my health that allows me to enter REM much earlier and so I no longer wake up grumpy.
I think that’s my thing, too. Unfortunately, I never realized it until recently. I was a breakfast cook for many many years, which meant getting out of bed at 3:00 or 4:00 AM, when nobody else is awake. I also didn’t have a car or driver’s license during that stretch. So, I’d get up long before anybody else, take my shower, and then walk or bicycle a mile or two to work. I’d have a good hour or more all by myself to “get the juices flowing”, and by the time I got to work I was wide awake and cheerful.
Skip ahead to the present day. I’m no longer a breakfast cook, and I have an erratic work schedule where sometimes I go to work at 10:00 AM, sometimes at 4:00 PM, etc. By the time I get out of bed these days, my roommate, who is retired, has been up for hours. After really getting into it with him one day shortly after I’d woken up — I’d just gotten out of the shower and he started trying to talk to me about our renter’s insurance policy, and he got all offended thinking that I was ignoring him or blowing him off — I realized that my brain doesn’t wake up at the same time my body does. I explained this to him later, and persuaded him to hold off of trying to start conversations that require me to think, at least until I’ve had a chance to get a cup of tea and some food into me.
This is purely anecdotal, but I think to some degree morning mental state is hard-wired.
I have two daughters, ages 1.5 and 3.5yrs. The eldest has been crabby in the morning since birth. She wakes up whining and fussing every day. There is no dealing with her for the first half hour or so. It doesn’t matter how much sleep she gets, and she wakes up whenever she wants to.
The youngest, on the other hand, sings herself awake with a happy little song. There is no crying. She sits up, smiles, and starts playing with the nearest stuffed toy. When she’s ready to get out of her crib, she calls us with no grouchiness at all. She, too, gets up when she’s ready, but usually half an hour before her sister.
Neither of their parents are morning people. (the 2nd child may be a changling. . . )
I’ve been a complete night owl since I was a child. But as I came into menopause it all changed. Now I struggle to not wake at 5:30 every morning! What an odd turn about, as I was truly a champion sleeper. I am happy and bright in the morning. But I often nap in the afternoon, especially if it’s hot and humid. And I wake cranky as a child.
I think there could be something to that hormone thing now that you mention it!
I have obstructive sleep apnea. Left to my own devices I will sleep 16 hours and still wake up grumpy and groggy. Treated with CPAP this is not an issue, but I am still best waking up before 5 or after 10. That window of 5AM to 10AM (regardless if I go to bed 8PM, 10PM, 12AM, or even 2AM) is killer. I will be groggy and in a bad mood. 4:30AM or 10:30AM are the best times to wake up for me, and since I work late but still have to be at work before 10, I am perpetually grumpy in the morning.
I have been trying to find a paper that I saw referenced a few weeks back but now can’t seem to track down. I saw a reference that cortisol or some other adrenal hormone is released in about 10 bursts that start around 4AM and die down by about 8PM. Anything know anything about that?
I am not a morning person at all, but like twickster and Phase42 it’s more of a general alertness and mind-functioning thing. I’m generally a very docile person and hardly ever have bad moods. But, unfortunately, I am extraordinarily grouchy this morning. :mad: