Why is getting up early seen as such a virtue.

[edhopper]

Last edited Sun Mar 20, 2022, 07:29 PM - Edit history (1)

My body tells me to stay up later and wake up later. I will get the same work done, as I work the same hours no matter when I wake. I will just be less tired or crabby. Probably more efficient. What is virtuous about going against your natural rhythm?

If you are a morning person, good for you. Why is that any better than me being a comfortable later in the day?

[FakeNoose]

1. Well you know the old saying...

Early to bed, early to rise,
Makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise.

So what do you think EdHopper?

[edhopper]

15. I bet if we did a survey

we would not find that to be true.

Also it was probably first said by an arrogant early riser.

[tblue37]

18. It was said by Ben Franklin in "Poor Richard's Almanac."

[edhopper]

20. They guy who stayed up late in Paris

drinking and whoring?

[whopis01]

105. Maybe "early to bed, early to rise"

meant something different for Franklin than what we are assuming.

[BigmanPigman]

38. Yes, it was one of Ben's many pearls of wisdom.

A penny saved is a penny earned, etc. Growing up in Phila I was surrounded by his history and infuence. He is everywhere in Phila.

[smirkymonkey]

74. +1000

Agreed! All my life, I have been harrassed and shamed by morning people. I am so tired of it!

[CloudWatcher]

52. Early to bed, early to rise ....

(I swear I'm not making this up ....)

At our family dinner table, when I was about 10, my father
asked me to finish this old saying ... and without missing a
beat I replied ...

Early to bed, early to rise ...
... and your girl will go out with other guys.

That pretty much put an end to quizzes at our dinner table

[MLAA]

55. Good one!

[smirkymonkey]

75. Touche!

[CrackityJones75]

107. Doesn't state which MAN.

Just that some man is getting healthy and wealthy off of your work.

[TreasonousBastard]

2. You are right. I think it was Bette Davis who, when asked what she ate for breakfast...

answered "A cup of coffee at 2 in the afternoon."

[mopinko]

3. cuz the ppl who get up early are the ones who make the 'rules'

the ones who stay up late are the artists and the weirdos.
if you go by the whole left brain-right brain thing, which is a bit sketchy, the side w the numbers, and the words, and who are the organizers has all the ammo when arguing w the part w the art and music.
asymmetric warfare.

[luvs2sing]

4. You and Hubster are the same..

night owls. I’m the opposite. I naturally start drifting off to sleep around 10:30pm and am wide awake and ready to go as soon as it’s daylight. I think it’s important to go with your natural rhythms.

[panader0]

5. My dad used to say: Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise.

I get up about 4 AM every day. I'm not particularly virtuous or wise, certainly not wealthy.
It's probably a carry over from my construction days.

[Arazi]

6. Exactly! I know several very successful night owls

They often stay up until 2 or 3 am and get a late start every day. They say they get their best work done in the quiet night time hours.

[Poiuyt]

7. I get up late and I take a nap in the afternoon

Fuck it--it's my life

[druidity33]

44. I like your style! nt...

[Mossfern]

73. I do the same thing.

For some reason, I can't bear to go to sleep at a 'reasonable' hour. It's 12:18 am now and
will force myself to go upstairs and get to bed. Last night/morning it was 3:00 am.

I've always taken naps - it's my thing.

[smirkymonkey]

76. I am the same, but I have to set my alarm for 7:30 for work tomorrow am, even

though I won't actually get up until about 8:45 to turn on my work computer (WFH tomorrow). I try to go to bed at a reasonable time during the week (around midnight), but on weekends I stay up until I get tired and sleep late. Sometimes I even take naps.

I would nap during the week if I could (and sometimes, I REALLY wish I could). I am just never very on the ball in the morning, even if i am up early. That is why I try to schedule most of my meetings after Noon.

[Baitball Blogger]

8. Because you can make the early morning breakfast meetings where some of the most

corrupt good ole boys meet to talk about ways to abuse their power.

At least, that's the way it was in the nineties and the ten years that followed.

[brewens]

9. I'm retired, so it doesn't really matter, but I like seeing the sun come up. TV and other stuff

I do, time doesn't matter like it used to. I'm usually eating breakfast and waiting for it to get light to go for my morning walk. I have to watch going to bed too early, so I'm not up at three.

[I_UndergroundPanther]

10. Im a weird situation than

I go to bed about 2:30,3 am and I wake up at 6:30 -7am.
I just don't need much sleep been that way all my life.
If I go over 6 hours I feel crappy all day.

Sometimes I have insomnia and go to bed at 5am and still automatically get up at 7.

I dont feel tired during the day.

So what am I early bird or night owl?

[Beartracks]

11. Perhaps a new, hybrid life-form.

=========

[Alice Kramden]

43. I wish I could do that

I knew a colleague many years ago who said the same thing - he also said as you get older you need less sleep, which in my case is not true. I'm old but I still need 8 or 9 hours.

[smirkymonkey]

77. This is why I am looking forward to retirement, if I ever get the chance.

I will just sleep when I feel like sleeping and not have the pressure of feeling like I have to get so many hours in to "function" for a specific purpose (usually work).

The hours that I sleep won't matter so much, because I will have the entire day to myself and can nap if I didn't sleep well the night before.

[Alice Kramden]

95. Exactly

Totally wanting to retire for the joy of following my own circadian rhythm

[Totally Tunsie]

12. Follow your natural Circadian rhythm.

Easy for me to say as I'm retired, but what a great day it was when I could stay up until 3:00 or 4:00 a.m. and sleep until 9:00 or 10:00 a.m. It's the way my body works at its best and I've learned not to fight against it. My best time of day is around 6:00 p.m. I really get rolling about then with a burst of energy.

Make the best with the time you have!

[Buckeye_Democrat]

13. It's probably a very old idea going way back...

... to when sunlight was more of a necessity to get work done.

People used to have "two sleeps" in the Middle Ages, once in the early evening and again in the early morning. Those slackers!

They'd rekindle the flames of a fire in between, and such.

The forgotten medieval habit of 'two sleeps'
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20220107-the-lost-medieval-habit-of-biphasic-sleep

[Victor_c3]

21. Interesting article

From the article:

One major side-effect of much of humanity's shift in sleeping habits has been a change in attitudes. For one thing, we quickly began shaming those who oversleep, and developed a preoccupation with the link between waking up early and being productive

I have a lot of problems with waking in the middle of the night for 1-2 hours. Apparently, it’s not really a problem but a more natural sleep pattern. When I wake up in the night like this, I’ve long adopted the philosophy of “if I can’t fall asleep, don’t waste time trying to fall asleep” and I get up and do something for an hour or two.

Again, really interesting article.

[uponit7771]

27. +1,

[mcar]

30. I read about that

interesting.

[quakerboy]

57. Id hazard a guess

That it also has to do with going from the need for folks to keep an eye out for night predators sneaking up on the camp to solid walls that are solid enough to make danger from anything other than fellow humans basically a nonissue.

[Blue Owl]

14. Yeah -- I am real sick of that shit

As a night owl, who cares what hours you choose to sleep vs. what hours you choose to be awake?



I could care less if Ned Flanders next door wants to get up at 5am to read his devotionals and pretend he's one of the 'good people' -- I will be going to bed at 3am and getting up at noon, thanks...

[Sympthsical]

16. Remnant of a more agricultural society

The idea was you got up before dawn to prepare for the daylight, then use as much of that daylight as possible.

Kind of not a thing for many jobs these days.

I used to be a crazy night owl as a teenager and through college. Slept 4a-10a. Around 30, however, I discovered gym routines work a lot better if I did them before work. So, I started waking up at 6a to go.

Nowadays, I'm naturally up by 5-5:30 no matter what time I sleep, which is usually around 11 or 12. I don't require a lot of sleep to function. But I like it, because it has a very night owl vibe to it. I get a lot done in the quiet hours, and by the time everyone else is waking up and getting going, I've already the bulk of my tasks for the day out of the way. On non-gym days, 5a-8a is prime homework time for me. I don't know why, but I get so much done then.

[nitpicker]

101. And less use of candles

Either the stinky tallow candles, or the much more expensive beeswax candles.

Candles from whale oil didn't get really launched until after Franklin's heyday.

[Gidney N Cloyd]

17. It's good to get those so inclined up and out of the house/out of the way as soon as possible.

Joke's on them.

[Meowmee]

19. I don't know

Morning people are among some of the most obnoxious ime, although I am sure others are too. They do seem to be the ones in charge since continual time shifts to make it better for am people, schools biz, etc. have been forced upon the world for years as has an am schedule.

Even when evidence suggests that early am is bad for many of those situations, schools starting too early, biz open too early and close too early, medical procedures nearly always done too early even though research has shown outcomes are worse. Dsl changes cause more car accidents heart attacks and other health issues.


Even long before having severe insomnia in my 20’s when I fell asleep easily as a child I hated the am and felt tired, even when I slept a good amount. I hated it so much I devised a plan to wear my clothes to sleep so I could save time getting ready in the morning 😹 I have always been bad tempered in the morning. My father used to make me some tea and wake me up for years. Now I need 7- 10 hours to feel half way normal.

I have felt and worked better at night for years and I am often up working all night. It is the most peaceful, productive time. My natural rhythm now is totally destroyed from health issues but basically I seem to be biphasic following the second sleep pattern for many years. Which is a natural pattern for many people. The only time I like the am seems to be if I have been up all night working or if I am on vacation, then I wake up early even with time changes. Although the first days can be bad depending on where it is.


We used to start school at 7:30 am which is crazy. We were always waiting for the bus or walking in the dark even with dsl part of the year anyway which did not bother me and I slept through the first class either way. In England we started at 9 am and I was up at 8-8:30, ate breakfast and walked around the corner. It was still a bit too early for me but much better, I don’t remember feeling as tired.


Now I can’t do anything too early unless it is an emergency or unavoidable.

This is a puritanical country which enforces a lot of negative things on its population.

[edhopper]

23. Your last sentence

hits the nail.

[Meowmee]

24. Yep 😀

[I_UndergroundPanther]

58. Puritanical and tyrannical

And making money/ business has been the excuse for so much diversion from our natural sleep times and how we all live our lives too.

Capitalism as well as puritanical bullshit has been a curse tolerated for too long.

[Meowmee]

65. Yes agree

The middle and lower economic end usually always get the worst treatment.

[smirkymonkey]

80. I so 100% agree and relate to everything you said here!

I am exactly the same way down the description of putting your next day's clothes on to sleep in as a child so you could just roll out of bed at the last minute in the morning and be ready to go! (Until I got caught, and that was the end of that brilliant solution). I never even liked eating breakfast - ever! Because my body just wasn't ready to go yet and I wasn't hungry.

Now that I am a little older and with the pandemic/wfh thing still playing out, I find I have a little more schedule flexibiiity and it's been a blessing for me. Having to get up that much earlier to get ready and commute was just less time that I could stay in bed sleeping. Now I can wake up 10 minutes before I have to turn my computer on.

We are going back to a hybrid situation a few days a week, but i have found that I can spend the early comuting hours WFH and then head in around 10:30 or so. I didn't really ask if this was ok, but people seem to have found their own rhythms and nobody seems to have an issue with it yet.

[Meowmee]

108. That is funny you did that too!

Lol. I think I decided after one time that it was too uncomfortable and my clothes were all wrinkled etc. so I stopped before anyone noticed. I was even debating whether or not to wear my shoes to bed as well, but I decided that it was not sanitary etc. 😹

I hope you can continue in the late schedule hybrid deal.. I think wfh is best for my needs now so I hope I can go back to it eventually. I was mostly a-synch too so I could make my own schedule, which allowed me to care for my ther as well and be at docs/ hospitals etc. 24/7 during that time.

[liberal N proud]

22. I am up a at 5:00 am

First in the shop. I get more done in one hour before anyone else shows up than the next 8 hours.


I do my best work early in the morning.

[IcyPeas]

25. Yay for night owls

I worked second shift for many years. It was the most natural thing for me. A lot of people couldn't understand it.

[mcar]

26. Makes me crazy

I'm not a great sleeper. I kind of doze, off and on during the night. Once hubby gets up around 5, I usually fall into my deepest sleep until about 8.

Over the years, I've felt judged by older family members who are all gone now.

My husband of 36 years is, obviously, used to it. So now, it's just me to feel mildly guilty, like I'm doing something wrong. In my own head now, I know, but years of expectation wears on one.

I'm self-employed as a writer/editor. I do my best work from noon to 4 p.m. I can get more done in that time period than I could in an 8-hour workday when I worked in an office.

There is nothing virtuous about going against your natural rhythm but we've been conditioned to feel that way.

BTW, hubby and his sister both wake up by 5 every morning, regardless of any factors. When SIL visited last weekend, she expressed frustration that she cannot break that cycle.

[ProfessorGAC]

31. I Was An On/Off Sleeper For Years

Decades actually. Sleep an hour, up 30-40 minutes, repeat all night.
Since I retired I sleep much longer segments, and fall back more quickly.
A little bit of that was being in 12 time zones every year, but the general pattern predates my heavy travel years.
All that said, I do wake up 5-5:30 each morning, even though I've got nowhere to go.
Even when I sub, or it's regular golf season, I don't have to be anywhere much before quarter to 8.
It's just habit. My wife is the same.
I don't see it as a virtue. Just how we are.

[mcar]

34. I'm more comfortable with myself being myself

especially since I can set my own hours. I set an alarm clock a few mornings a week for a 9 a.m. exercise class. Otherwise I sleep till I wake up.

SO really suffers when he has trouble sleeping because he wakes up at 5 regardless. He is most productive during that time, though, and greatly benefits from an afternoon nap.

[smirkymonkey]

81. I'm like you - my deepest, most refreshing sleep seems to be in the mid to later

morning hours. Somewhere between 5-8am until 11am - Noon, or later if I can get away w/ it. Unfortunately, as I am still working, I can't do that very often unless it's the weekend or I take a day off here and there.

I also feel like I can pretty much crank from Noon to 4 and get more done during that time than most people can in a full 8 hour day. I am pretty useless before 11am, and sometime between 4 and 5 I just feel like I am kind of done. Not tired, just done.

I can't wait until companies start also seeing diversity as people who have different ways of being in the world instead of the dominant norm. (valuing introversion as much as extraversion, afternoon/night people as much as morning people, creative/big picture people as much as analytical/data people, etc.)

[relayerbob]

28. As a night person, I see no virtue in it at all

In fact, I’ve seen research that indicates more creative people are night people.

Let’s face it, day shift was created by companies to make more money during the daylight, and they sold it as a virtue.

[smirkymonkey]

83. +1000

I wonder if there is actually a book on the topic. Re: Capitalism and society's effect on sleep/wake cycles and how night people have in a way been "demonized" in this society as "lazy" and "n'er do wells".

I have almost completely internalized society's negative view of me as a night person, even though I think it is completely natural for some of us. I constantly refer to myself as lazy, simply because i am not a morning person, but can still manage to run circles around most of those people when I am productive during "my time".

[PCIntern]

29. As a very early riser I can answer that to a degree

First, I agree with every single poster here.

We are not special in any sense, however, we do the stuff that greets the rest of you upon awakening: in my case it’s complex clinical procedures and night-long emergencies, but for others, they deliver to stores the perishables and daily foodstuffs. Or they close off the roads and begin to work on water sewer and buried utility lines so that the project may be completed as rapidly as possible. Or they pick up the trash and garbage and have to start early in order to complete their rounds. Or perhaps they are surgerizing patients early, or are a part of the support staff which is essential and thus the patient may be followed post-operatively closely during the first few hours which reduces morbidity and mortality. Or they deliver or sort mail and newspapers for early delivery.

This is not to say that other functions performed during the day are less critical. By no means. But try living comfortably if we didn’t get up early as a group for our occupations. And no, I do not see myself as a martyr. This is the life I chose with full knowledge aforethought.

[Withywindle]

64. All true but wouldn't you say that a lot of that work

might be getting done by night owls who are just still awake? I've worked graveyard shift and a lot of the predawn work is the END of a full shift, not the beginning. I know a lot of delivery guys who make the rounds at 4 and 5 AM. They don't wake up to do it, they STAY up, then they go home and go to bed just as other people are showing up to the office.

[PCIntern]

68. Some...not all by any means.

Broadcasters and technical people on networks get up at 3 AM or so every morning to do the shows….and as I said before, hospital folk….

I know many delivery folks who do the same.

[Withywindle]

91. I think my point is that people are naturally all over the sleep spectrum

We're a 24-hour society, so we need people who are at their best and most alert at all hours. To keep our cities running seamlessly, all body clock types are valuable and important. Night shift people are less common, so they should be valued and rewarded. (I was so happy to get that extra night shift pay, to work the hours I would have chosen anyway.)

I'm not making a negative judgment on ANYONE's schedule, but my god, morning people judge the fuck out of night people, and the distinction between the two is not that clear-cut when you're talking about people who are most alert in the dark when the 9-to-5 people are sleeping, and doing important work at the time.

[PCIntern]

93. Agreed....

And my point is that everybody needs to be tolerant of everybody else and none of us in that sense are so very special. The problem with getting up at the hour which we do, is people with regular schedules, so to speak, 9 to 5 types, say that they could never do that and shake their heads in disbelief. My response always is well, nobody asked you to do that so you don’t have to worry. Those of us who are on what would have been called unusual shifts understand each other very well.

[msongs]

32. before affordable night time lighting ppl had to rely on daylight to get it done nt

[Blaukraut]

33. Antiquated ideas based on the need for sunlight to do one's job

Since the advent of electricity, no profession other than farming needs larks, aka morning people. But nature seems lo prefer a bit of both anyway.

Hubby is a morning person. He nods off at 9.30 pm. Gets a second wind around 10 or 11 pm, depending on if there's something interesting going on, and then gets up between 6-7 am. It doesn't matter how long he's slept - he's up at the ass crack of dawn. Me - I'm the opposite. I don't get tired before midnight or later. If I had to get up (with the help of an alarm clock) before 9 am, I might get the afternoon sleepy period, but as soon as it gets dark, I am wide awake.

During the winter I try to push my waking period to 9 am, just so I won't miss out on too much sunlight. But it's forced, and I can't keep that going naturally for long. My sweet spot seems to be sleeping from 2 am to 10.30 am.

Oddly enough, as a child I was a midnight owl, but still an early riser. I remember sleeping over at my cousins' house, and waking up at 6 am (after playing until past midnight) and starving, when everyone else was still fast asleep. I'd end up just walking home to wake up my mom for some food.

Our daughters take after us, respectively. Older one is a night owl, and the other one goes to sleep and gets up with the chickens, like my grandmother used to say (and do).

[I_UndergroundPanther]

63. Im up late 2-3am

And get up at 7 am when the sunlight wakes me up.
No pressure regarding sleep. I sometimes just feel a bit tired I rest for an hour in the afternoon but not sleep.
I spend that time cuddling with Othello.

After an hour I feel refreshed again . Why I dont sleep during this time I dunno.

Its like whenever I get over 6 hours I feel shitty.

I used to worry about it.
Told my psychiatrist and he told me it was normal.
I felt good about it ever since. Better not to fight your sleep cycles over what you think you are supposed to do.

The only time I get 8 hours sleep is if I am sick.

[Hahn_Bikey]

35. An old Jay Leno joke on this

There was a scientific study that showed that early morning people are in better moods than late night people. That’s because the late night people have to listen to all the early morning people talk about how wonderful it is to wake up early.

[smirkymonkey]

85. *snort*

As a night person, I find this so true!

BTW, welcome to DU!

[Igel]

36. Cultures set patterns.

Those patterns don't adapt quickly. Many a culture is mal-adjusted or dysfunctional.

If you're in an agrarian society or one where artificial light is expensive, you want to be up, awake, fed, and ready to work at daybreak. Otherwise you're missing daylight that could help you feed your family, or wasting resources. I worked landscape maintenance one winter. We *got* to the worksite shortly after dawn. And we worked until near sundown. Get there at 9? You've wasted money, and that 11% income might make the difference between profit and making payroll or operating at a loss and having cashflow problems.

You work in an office with the privilege of cheap electricity, and have cheap energy that lets you stay up 5 hours past sundown? Obviously you're very, very privileged when it comes to cross-world existence or how people lived throughout history. And you're wasting energy, contributing to carbon emissions. Just sayin'. (As one who has been known to forget to go to sleep.)

Historically the wealthy and privileged could afford to stay up late. They were early adopters of electricity, gas, kerosene, whale oil, candles, burning olive oil. It required some carbon-compound to be burned, and that cost money. If you were a laborer, you couldn't afford it. You checked your privilege and found it had relocated elsewhere.

If you waste money and your family's prosperity is marginal, you're a fool. Not virtuous.

These days, it's old fashioned. But cultures adjust slower than technology and other circumstances. So some cultures still value large families, assuming that there's a high infant mortality rate. For example.

Lots of examples.

[IronLionZion]

37. It's good to have a choice

I felt the same way years ago but now I like getting up early and finishing my work early and doing whatever I want after that. There are days when I've finished everything in the morning and can take a walk or something in the afternoon.

Sunlight makes me feel good and I don't have much interest in nightlife.

[BigmanPigman]

39. According to Autie Mame, 9 AM was the middle of the night.

" Morning, I discovered, was 1 PM for Auntie Mame. Early morning was eleven and Middle Of The Night was nine."

I follow Auntie Mame's schedule.

[70sEraVet]

40. I am fighting the feelings of guilt myself.

After retirement, wife and I moved to a very small, rural town in Tennessee. All of the retired friends I have made out here ALL get up by 5 am. I'm lucky to be up by 8!
I tell everyone that its because I worked nights most of my life (true, but not much of an excuse).

[BluesRunTheGame]

41. I'm an OTR truck driver.

I have found that FORCING MYSELF to start early results in a much more productive day. The hours between 4 & 8 AM go way smoother than the hours between 4 & 8 PM. It’s not that I love getting up early, working late just sucks. And yes, I have to work between 12 and 14 hours most every day.

[Wicked Blue]

42. Because we get the worms

[Alice Kramden]

56. LOL n/t

[SeattleVet]

61. ...and that's the thing that Ivermectin if actually good for!

(Well, it's not good for the worms...it kills them.)

[Quixote1818]

82. But the second mouse gets the cheese. nt

[BumRushDaShow]

90. ...

[taxi]

94. Yes, it seems that the early worm gets eaten.

[Skittles]

45. us night shift folk generally see day shift as the weakest link

yes indeed

[TripleKatPad]

46. I'm with you, Ed.

I retired in January and am now able to live the way I've always wanted to, but could only swing during vacations. I am a natural night owl. I stay up until 4 or 5am, sometimes even later. I sleep until 10:30ish. Later in the day I take a catnap to round out my sleep hours. Never been happier. Unfortunately, my cats are not thrilled with my new schedule. They seem to think I should be in the bed when THEY are ready. Oh, well. Can't please everybody.

[FrankTC]

47. Teenagers Ruined It

Those slothful carousers, the young late risers — their hedonistic bad example gave all not-morning-people a bad rap. Guilt by association. Actually, nightowls on average have a higher IQ than early birds. Sleeping in late — It’s something to aspire to.

[BlueIdaho]

62. Having kids

Forever ruined my ability to sleep in past 8:00. Those little rascals needed tending and once that pattern was established it has been near impossible to change.

[PatrickforB]

49. I think it had to do with the times prior to electricity.

When it got dark circa 1880 or earlier, they had oil street lamps and oil lamps in homes, but they were dangerous. Plus, there literally wasn't much to do after dark, except maybe read a little.

So people got up early so they could hit work the minute the sun came up, and they worked until it went down. Remember until the Haymarket riots in the 1880s, the standard work day was 12 hours. If you were lucky you only had to work 6 or 8 hours on Saturday, and then you had Sundays off.

But, then, silly workers, they bled in the streets at the hands of Pinkertons hired by management greed-heads, and we got the 40 hour work week.

So, to answer you question:

a) not much to do after dark but read a bit
b) after a 12-hour work day, people gobbled some food, then hit their beds like rocks
c) in the way-back-when they 'rolled up' the proverbial sidewalks in most towns in the US after around 5pm - bars open but not much else

Hence, the old adage, 'early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy wealthy and wise. Capitalism took away the second and third of these, and 12 hours breaking your back in a factory 6 days a week took away the first.

Moral of story: Thank God for unions, because without the blood of those honest workers flowing in the street, we'd still be working long days, and we can also be thankful for electricity, but now have a different problem: chronic sleep deprivation.

[Alice Kramden]

50. I love this thread

Especially as it relates to our perceived work ethic - appreciating everyone's diverse responses. Right now I am conforming to the early bird schedule due to work requirements but mightily look forward to finding my optimal rhythm when I am able to retire in a few years

[lame54]

51. Old saying before electricity...

Make most of the daylight

[c-rational]

53. My Mom had a board with the saying...I would enjoy the day more if it started later. Needless to

say that if you drove by my childhood home at 1 am the lights were ablazing.

[USALiberal]

54. Is someone attacking your rights to do it???

[edhopper]

59. No

[MetalMama]

60. Night owl here

I was even born at night. The only way I like to see a sunrise is if I've been up all night. Working 8-5 was a stone drag. I was so happy when I got to work a swing shift for awhile.

I'm now retired; I stay up until 4 am and don't get up until noon or 1 pm. I'm much happier, and so is my family.

[Meowmee]

66. People it seems followed a 1st and second sleep a long time ago maybe even in hunter gatherer times

Regardless of electricity, light etc. often getting up after the first sleep to do things at night, whether by moonlight, candlelight or other means. And then going back to sleep at dawn.


https://www.sciencealert.com/humans-used-to-sleep-in-two-shifts-maybe-we-should-again



“Anthropologists have found evidence that during preindustrial Europe, bi-modal sleeping was considered the norm. Sleep onset was determined not by a set bedtime, but by whether there were things to do.

Historian A. Roger Ekirch's book At Day's Close: Night in Times Past describes how households at this time retired a couple of hours after dusk, woke a few hours later for one to two hours, and then had a second sleep until dawn.

During this waking period, people would relax, ponder their dreams, or have sex. Some would engage in activities like sewing, chopping wood, or reading, relying on the light of the moon or oil lamps.“

[ecstatic]

67. Funny you should ask

I just took a Benadryl to try to go to sleep early so I can get up early tomorrow and hopefully get more things done. But it seems like even when I get up really early, nothing is accomplished during the morning hours. I can't seem to become productive before 11:00 am. lol. SMH

[betsuni]

69. My husband leaps out of bed at 6:45 full of energy, chatty, thinking about plans for the day

or the week and beyond; if he asks me do I want to do this or that or go somewhere and what time and what day, I just look at him. He knows the rules. The night owl spends the morning quietly and isn't interested in going anywhere, so the answer to the early bird's questions is always going to be "no."

He takes long walks in the morning (now that he's retired) and yesterday ran into another walker who he's become friendly with. Guy, who's never been married, asks my husband why his wife doesn't walk with him, isn't that what married people do? Not if they do everything in shifts, they don't. I take walks in the afternoon while the husband rests from his busy morning. I perk up after dark and he's in bed by nine.

[EX500rider]

70. The early bird gets the worm..but what does the early worm get?!

[Quixote1818]

72. The early bird gets the worm but the second mouse gets the cheese! nt

[Quixote1818]

78. You might enjoy this article. Night Owls tend to be smarter and more creative

https://www.startupgrind.com/blog/why-night-owls-make-for-better-startup-founders/

[meadowlander]

79. I'll trade you

for no raised eyebrows when I leave the office at 4 after starting earlier than everyone else or not wanting to go out for drinks on Friday after work when I'm exhausted.

My brain shuts down at 4. But everyone acts like that makes me a misanthropic party pooper or a slacker when all the "hard workers" - who started actually working at 10 and spent half the day making personal phone calls want to burn the midnight oil.

[JI7]

84. It's for people that can mostly get work done during earlier Hours

Things like shopping, dropping off picking up kids and others, banking and whatever else .

And Work .

I am NOT a morning person but to get things done I need to get up early . But it's difficult for me because I prefer being up late hours and sleeping in the morning.

So what happens in cases like mines is that people can easily stay up later than they should and then they get up too late and then are in a rush to get things done.

So it doesn't really apply to your case.

[Duppers]

86. Most Cambridge University classes do not

begin until the afternoon; only a few begin at 10am. If you arrived at an office before 9am, you were by yourself.

And these brainy folks often don't leave before 7pm either.

Seems that the more rural folks put a lot more "stock" Ben Franklin's "Early to bed, early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise."
But rural folks need to adhere to their critters' time schedules....and chickens crow early.

[muriel_volestrangler]

92. Hmm - what decade are you talking about there?

I'm unaware of it changing (apart from covid-related stuff, of course) from the 1980s, when I was there. We (engineering) typically had lectures or practicals from 9 till 1, and some in the afternoon (and a few scheduled for Saturday mornings, in the first year, but those were very sparsely attended - under 20% of the nominal amount of people the lectures were for), but afternoons were freer. Other departments with a significant lecture load (eg natural sciences, medicine) were similar. Arts subjects that taught more through seminars were more evenly spread through the day.

[GenThePerservering]

87. Night owls are not all 'artists and weirdos'

as said above. I worked evening and nights for years and I was a technical editor and operations manager.

That's when I was paid the most to do the work I did, and when I could basically run the place as I wanted. I got almost as much done on my evening shift than really any two on a distracting day shift.

[FormerOstrich]

88. Night person here!

It drives me nuts that everything seems to be in favor of the early morning people, especially in the business world.

Apparently, they aren't much for working past noon since it seems most meetings/conference calls are always scheduled for the AM. Most simply won't respect your preference and attempt to schedule things later in the day.

It's bad enough to be left out and/or behind because you aren't in step with the crowd, they seem to think there is something sketchy about you doing things later than them. For most of my career I am cautious about the times I send emails because it just raises eyebrows.

Society doesn't abide much either. It seems when there was finally some progress to late night activities it is one step forward and two back. Right before 9/11 there were a couple of Home Depot stores that were staying open 24hrs. Then when 9/11 happened it was used as the excuse to shutter things at sundown.

Then things were shifting slightly and the pandemic was the next excuse to shutter at sundown or before. Hell, even the 24hour Walmart Super Store (which I loathe to shop at) now closes at midnight or before.

It matters not how much sleep I get...I always drag during the earlier part of the day. But come around 9:00 PM I am raring to go....but there isn't anywhere to go and no one want to go with anyway.

[canetoad]

89. I hear ya there, edhopper

But as a morning person, I can't say I've shared your experiences.

I love the early morning and get up as early as I can because it's important to get my dog/s out for a free-range run before the accusatory fingers start pointing; 'That dog,' the voice trembles, 'Should be on a lead'.

In the semi-darkness I'm less likely to meet these fucking puritans on the beach or in the bush. I've come across them before, mostly tourists, one big tattooed guy made a point of crossing a wide deserted beach to kick our dogs because, 'they should be on a lead'.

That's not the only reason. Last 15 or so yrs before retirement I worked as a graphic artist for architects. Early mornings were my inspired work times. I helps to be an introvert - fewer people around in the morning.

[Johnny2X2X]

96. Sleep is important to a happy and healthy life

Not only does US culture favor the early birds, but they praise people who sleep very little. I know people who don't need much sleep at all, but they are a rarity, most people do need 7-9 hours of sleep a day. People often brag they only need 5 or 6 hours of sleep, like that's some sort of virtue.

In general, America has a problem with not being rested enough, we have bad habits. We can't unplug from our devices, we treat the bedroom like a place to watch TV. We don't listen to our bodies.

And society is set up for an 8-4 or 9-5 work life. It's what time your kids are in school. It's what time shops are open. First shift is a good lifestyle for me, but some people just work better at different hours, business is starting to accept that a little more. In tech industries, young talented engineers are changing trends. They're using their agency to drive changes into office environments with demands for more flexible hours and work from home options. With the worker shortage today, expect these changes to accelerate. We're hiring engineers out of college now who will only work from home, we've hired some who will only work their own hours, we've got a talented software engineer who only works late nights, it's when he's at his best.

But I also work in an environment with a heavy ex military presence. And those guys like to get up at the crack of dawn. Early rising in the military is a way of life. So we get execs scheduling 7 am meetings occasionally.

But overall, society is changing some on early risers, there's more room for different sleeping patterns now.

[FSogol]

97. Puritian work ethic. Also, running a succesful farm required early morning chores.

No real way to sleep in late and run a bakery, dairy, chicken farm, or restaurant.
Also, pre-electricity, you had to maximize sun light to be productive.

[drmeow]

98. For the same reason

We live on a world designed for extroverts, not introverts. Statistically (and, in the case of circadian rhythm, genetically) we live in a world with more morning people and extroverts. As with everything in which there has been a majority with little scientific understanding, the majority will declare their status the norm and denigrate and punish those who are different. Much of it is about control and "you should be like me." Even science takes a while to overcome those societal determinations of norms. Scientists have only recently started to acknowledge that the poor health related to being a night owl could be because we are forced to live most of our lives on the wrong schedule!

[DFW]

99. With me, it's not a virtue, but rather a necessity

If I have things that have to be done in Paris or Barcelona before noon, much as I would LIKE to stay in bed until noon, it just doesn’t jive with my work schedule. Air France and Iberia refuse, for some reason, to fly when I want them to, and instead insist on flying when THEY want to. Most inconsiderate of them, I think, but they refuse to budge.

[AngryOldDem]

100. Whatever works best for you.

Not at all being sarcastic.

I’m a morning person, mainly because I sleep for shit anymore, have a job that for some months of the year requires an early start time, and a cat who has now been conditioned to follow my sleep schedule, so that even if I did sleep in, he’d be pestering me to get up at 3:30 a.m. I don’t see this as a “virtue.”

People’s productivity and internal clocks vary, and shouldn’t be made to fit into any kind of routine or pattern. As long as everything you want to get done gets done. (And that, folks, probably explains why I’m not considered management material.)

[fescuerescue]

102. So is going to bed early.

[obamanut2012]

103. Because of the exploitive owner class

[Aristus]

104. I'm an early riser.

I started getting up around six in the morning in sixth grade, without an alarm clock. I just ran out of sleep. I've also had pretty bad insomnia ever since.

On workdays, I get up at 5:30 in order to be at the clinic by about 6:15. The clinic doesn't open until 8:00, and I don't see my first patient until 8:30. But I need those nice, quiet hours before opening in order to do paperwork uninterrupted.

I would never insist that people should get up as early as I do. I like it nice and quiet when everyone else is asleep.

[treestar]

106. Because pre-electricity

daylight was when you could get things done. Agree, it does not apply now.