I've had sleep problems for as long as I can remember. I self-diagnosed Non-24 Sleep-Wake Disorder, where your body clock is typically slightly longer than a 24 hours, and so you feel tired later and later every day, eventually going to sleep is nearly impossible. It makes keeping to a normal routine extremely difficult.<p>The fix for me was morning blue light lamp, as soon as I wake up, for one hour. And 1.5 hours before bedtime, I take 500mcg melatonin. These 2 things worked like a miracle. I kept a log of doing these things, and the exact time I performed them, for a month. After a month, the habit was there, and I know have a normal sleep pattern, so long as I stick to the light and the supplement. It's had a huge impact on my life.<p>EDIT>> 500mcg, not mg
This 9-5 mentality being imposed in a way that if your sleep pattern is an owl, you're kinda ostracized and viewed as an issue you need to fix, has been going on forever. When the crux suggestion from this `research` is to go to bed 2-3 hours earlier and wake up 2-3 hours earlier and presuming the person does not have DSPS (Delayed Sleep Phase Syndrome) or other genetic trait that causes this is, and always is, offencive.<p>The way we treat night owls is akin to mental health in the 40's.<p>Not everybody works 9-5, not every job can be fitted into a 9-5. But many of the jobs allocated 9-5 could equally benefit from flexi-time and have those who wake up early come in earlier and those who wake up late, come in later. Covering more hours, and cater for those who are equally not 9-5 people.<p>It's time work hours got some research, not the people being forced into this arbitrary cookie-cutter mentality.<p>Some companies already do flexi-time and cater for such people, but time and time again, the media and research go to mentality is in viewing such peoples as an issue in a way that parallels many forms of negative science we have seen historically upon many differences between humans.<p>People's sleep patterns are not unified, not even binary, and people should be able to find the sleep pattern that works for them and not be forced into all wearing the same dictated sleep pattern.<p>With that, the way to boost wellbeing of night owls is:
1) Stop treating them as an issue but an opportunity and embrace that diversity.
2) See point one and stop repeating the same mistakes with different categorisation.
| Wake up 2-3 hours earlier than usual and get plenty of outdoor light in the morning<p>| Eat breakfast as soon as possible<p>| Exercise only in the morning<p>| Have lunch at the same time every day and eat nothing after 19:00<p>| Banish caffeine after 15:00<p>| Have no naps after 16:00<p>| Go to bed 2-3 hours earlier than usual and limit light in the evenings<p>| Maintain the same sleep and wake times every day<p>So basically, stop being a night owl. Great advice.
> <i>They focused on "night owls", whose bodies drive them to stay up late into the night. The problem for many night owls is fitting into a nine-to-five world.</i><p>An alternative solution is to go ahead and live your life on the 25 or 26 hour cycle that your "night owl" body demands. You'll need to be single (or partnered with a similar night owl), have light-proof curtains or blinds, and work independently (or remotely for an accommodating company). And probably you'll want to live in a major urban area so you have access to 24-hour restaurants, supermarkets, and other resources when your constantly shifting day/night cycle leaves you awake at night.
One excerpt from the article [1]:<p>> Individuals were screened for no diagnoses of sleep or neurological disorders via self-report and were not taking any medications that affected sleep, melatonin and cortisol rhythms.<p>I'm really curious if insomnia or DSPD counts as a sleep disorder here.<p>I guess the core point of the study is, if you force yourself to be on a morning schedule for a few weeks and follow basic sleep hygiene, then it will work and you will feel better.<p>I don't know what to take away from this. I already follow their protocol, but my sleep onset is still naturally around 1:30am. For me, when I go to bed earlier, I fall asleep even later than usual, since I just doze for an hour and am even more awake. When I wake up earlier, I tend to fall asleep during the day. (I test negative for sleep apnea).<p>The comments here are pretty split between "I just tried getting up earlier and it worked great!" and "I do all of this and it doesn't work at all," so my experience isn't unusual. It reminds me a lot of comments on anti-depressant efficacy.<p>So I'll probably do the same thing I do every time a study like this comes out: Follow the sleep protocol more carefully for a few weeks, then feel discouraged when it gives no results, then feel even worse from the comments claiming that I am just being lazy. And then finally I will remember that the science on this subject is weak and incomplete, that morning people's unyielding sense of righteousness and morality is based on nothing, and that maybe someday we will discover universal methods of adjusting sleep schedules.<p>[1] <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1389945719301388" rel="nofollow">https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S138994571...</a> and if you cannot access the full text, sci-hub.tw may be helpful
Well, I don't think these are "simple" tweaks. If you are a single person and must wake up every day at the same hour, won't do anything at night. If you just have time to exercise at evening, you wouldn't exercise anymore.
"Scientists studied 21 "extreme night owls" who were going to bed, on average, at 02:30 and not waking until after 10:00. "<p>I guess that makes me an extremely extreme night owl then.
To the other night owls out there, I would love to know:<p>-Do you struggle to sleep every day? Or is it only as the work/school/lark-world responsibilities progress through the week?<p>-Would you characterize your difficulty as struggling to sleep or struggling to wake up, or both?<p>-How does this impact your days off (i.e. weekends), and what is the first and last day off typically like in comparison?<p>-Is this the kind of struggle that you manage, but it frustrates you, or has other effects, or is it something that regularly threatens to derail your life? (i.e. late for work or class, or other real-life consequences)<p>-Do you feel like it is something you will always live with, or do you feel that there could be a lifestyle/solution, either involving your change, or accommodating to your current behavior and/or natural inclination?<p>I'm a night owl, and I won't go into detail about my situation with hope to not impact responses too much, but it would help me (and hopefully others!) to understand just how similar/different I may be. Thank you!
The only real advice here is:<p>- Exercise only in the morning<p>- Have lunch at the same time every day and eat nothing after 19:00<p>- Banish caffeine after 15:00<p>everything else is "stop being a night owl".
Is there any research around that tests whether self-defined "night owls" are immune to the hormonal effects of sunrise and sundown (as visual stimuli)?<p>I once considered myself one, until I started actually rolling the blinds up in the mornings (Spanish blinds block all light) and staying away from blue light in the evenings. Being brought up in a cloudy, rainy town and having a very obstructed view of the outside from my bedroom window didn't help, I must admit.<p>Also I wonder if certain habits and behaviors, like dopamine-induced compulsive social browsing or gaming, food addictions, etc. play a role here.
I am a night owl, and tried to shift the sleep cycle to earlier (get in bed earlier and wake up earlier). However, what I observed (when I went to the bed earlier) was that then I wake up very very early in the morning (around 5), but then after about an hour or two I became very sleepy again.<p>Is this supposed to happen if you try to shift the sleep cycle?
My issue is I get a ton more work done at night when you don't have a million distractions going on: emails, meetings, loud noises, conversations, etc... All of that dissipates or disappears into the late evening - and focusing becomes easier.
This article is kind of dumb, basically saying that you shouldn't be a night owl, but I will admit that my quality of life is improved when I'm in a natural rhythm of going to bed "on time" and waking up early-ish, getting at least 7 1/2 hours of sleep per day. Around 2-3 cups of coffee per day seem fine, anymore and I need to scale it back. One cup doesn't do it for me. I also now get to work early and don't stress if I'm occasionally late.<p>The early bird gets the worm, so no matter how much we'd like to adjust society to be accepting of different sleep schedules, early risers will always have a natural advantage.
Not really sure about the sunlight in the morning. If you can force yourself to a early sleep (either by tiring yourself one day) or slowly shifting it early each day, you will be able to change your sleep cycle.
these "tweaks" boil down to "stop being a night owl." If I could wake up hours earlier and make myself go to sleep hours earlier I wouldn't be in this mess, BBC.
One item mentioned in the article that matches my personal experience is the importance of sleep consistency or regularity. Waking up at the same time and sleeping at the same time each night has been beneficial, even if those regular times are shifted from what the article suggests. There was a study that touched on this [0].<p>[0] <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-03171-4" rel="nofollow">https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-03171-4</a>
I personally enjoy being a night owl. I get plenty of excercise, sunlight, and sleep, and I've never had a problem at any of my workplaces for arriving late (say between 10 and 11) and then working late to compensate.<p>Furthermore, the article is common sense. Obviously, shifting my daily routine 3 hours would shift my daily routine 3 hours, and I'd eventually get used to it, but why would I want to?
I struggled with insomnia for about 3 years before finding something which worked for me: magnesium supplements. Learned about them through a random Hacker News comment.