[xyzelement]

Quick advice - see if you can shift that to getting up earlier. You will probably spend the couple of hours in the morning in a way that sets you up for a better day vs staying up late sets you up for a bad tomorrow.

I say this as an always "late" person who now tries to get up at 5 to work out and reflect, it's been very helpful.

[plorkyeran]

A life changing thing for me was specifically scheduling time to do fun things in the morning before doing the things I have to do. If I wake up at six, I still don’t start my day until eight, and instead spend those two hours on things I otherwise would have done the night before. This broke the feeling of dreading mornings that lead to a negative spiral. Even if I know most of the day will be awful, if I can look forward to my me time in the morning I can convince myself to go to bed.

[TeMPOraL]

Wish this worked for me, but my brain straight up ignores[0] any kind of alarm clocks, music, light, etc. until it's something like 10:00 in the morning, or until a person wakes me up (and checks 5-10 minutes later if I'm actually up)[1]. So, shifting time to morning turned out to be impossible to maintain when I was living alone - I could hold such schedule for maybe a week at most, gradually oversleeping more and more. Still, it was possible then and I wish I tried harder, because now it's strictly not - I have two small kids, and one true thing about them is that they always wake up earlier than you[2]. So there's no space for personal time in the morning.

Also I wonder if I'm the only one here who feels that their mind takes some 2/3 of the day to get into high gear?.It's probably more about emotional balance than cognitive functions, but I feel like I'm best able to focus only from late afternoon onward, making late night the only time that's useful for anything.

--

[0] - I tried all kinds of things. Music blaring from the speakers at 06:30 sharp? Within a week, I've mastered getting up, hitting the power button on the amplifier, and falling back to bed in one, smooth move, with ballet-like fluidity. Got an alarm clock that requires you to solve math problems to turn it off? I quickly realized I must've mastered the art of multiplying 2-digit numbers in memory while unconscious, because I would wake up at 11:00 to discover multiple such alarms disabled, with no memory of doing it, or even hearing them ring.

[1] - Yes, that means business trips are especially hard for me. When traveling alone, I rely on wake-up calls from my wife (and check-ups afterward). Even with that, I still almost missed a plane once.

[2] - Except when there's an important appointment coming up that we need to get up unusually early for - on those nights, they're near-impossible to wake up.

[a96]

Sounds familiar. There's probably some sort of pineal gland feature that makes this habitual shifting essentially impossible. You just get more and more sleep deprivation combined with lying in bed not sleeping.

My ex wife told me I'd once answered her phone call in the morning and had a complete conversation only speaking absolute nonsense until she hung up. I had no recollection of that at all.

Two things that might work in these cases are melatonin and bright "sun"light in the morning. These should control the natural circadian cycle. I haven't found success, yet, but haven't tried too hard since I can live with my schedule.

[TeMPOraL]

> My ex wife told me I'd once answered her phone call in the morning and had a complete conversation only speaking absolute nonsense until she hung up. I had no recollection of that at all.

I've had that several times. The kicker is, I actually did make enough sense that she didn't suspect I wasn't awake, and it wasn't until later that I learned from her that the conversation happened - usually because I agreed to something, or was given important information, which I had no recollection of. The phone log, of course, confirmed a conversation took place.

Melatonin sounds like it may work long-term, but at this point my wakeup time is set by our kids, and my bedtime is set by my acute revenge bedtime procrastination, so sleep deprivation it is :/. I wish there was something that could immediately force/reset the circadian rhythm, which I could use on business travel.

[slothtrop]

Some people have more difficulty shifting, but that aside, some factors that feed into chronotype can be more impactful than others. If you moved to the other side of the world, you would surely shift your circadian rhythm and fall back to the habit of getting up at 10am or later, eventually (faster than you think). Sunlight is a powerful factor, but there is also timing of work, social cues, food, and preference. All of that informs tendency towards morning-ness or evening-ness.

The reason this is important is you can manipulate those factors to shift, the same way traveling several time zones away would automatically make you shift.

[ajolly]

Took me decades to learn that by shifting my meal times earlier in the day it made it significantly easier to wake up early.

Cutting out late nights snacks was vital as well.

Tons of research - search for early time restricted feeding. eTRF.

[_caw]

Hey, feel free to disregard this as I obviously don't know you.

Have you considered if you might have ADD[0]?

I know someone with identical experiences and this was the root cause. Having the diagnosis was life changing.

[0] https://add.org/adhd-test/

[TeMPOraL]

> Have you considered if you might have ADD[0]?

Yes, and thanks to HN I went in and got myself diagnosed; turns out I have ADHD, and while treating it solved a host of problems[0] and overall improved my quality of life, it did not help for the problems I mention in this thread.

Well, maybe getting my brain into high gear is much faster with stimulant meds in the mix, but it only revealed that my limiting factor isn't cognitive, but emotional - and so it often still takes me a good chunk of the day before I have all the emotions in enough of a balance to focus without fighting some anxiety.

--

[0] - Or at least allowed me to overcome some major problems, and then replace them with even tougher problems.

[workfromspace]

FYI for anyone wants to try this test: it requires an email address for results (at the end of the test). Also there was only <10 questions. It didn't feel like a competent test.

[sycren]

Could devices to trigger other senses work? Like an aromatic diffuser on a timer switch that pumps out a scent, or a SAD lamp that simulates sunlight. A vibration device for the bed

[TeMPOraL]

Waking up is solved for me now - I'm married, my wife is an early bird (and our kids are the worms, they get up even earlier, or am I getting that adage wrong?), and she makes sure I get up (and stay up).

Right now, the bedtime is a problem - revenge bedtime procrastination + everyone getting used to me doing extra work overnight during some more busy times (I work remotely, so sometimes I handle kid emergencies during the day) + various other issues --> even if I had an "insta-sleep" pill, I'd have hard time getting myself to take it before 02:00.

A SAD lamp is something I'd like to try in general, maybe it'll improve my overall mood or something. I seem to function best in either near-complete darkness (i.e. only light being the screen, indicator LEDs and some street lamps in the distance outside), or very bright environments. The average brightness people I know keep at home makes me instantly sleepy, and I spend most of my cognitive resources on forcing myself to stay awake.

[bombcar]

I find when in those situations Power Nap works decently - for awhile. Luckily I only have to do it once in awhile.

I slam something high in caffeine (ice tea, soda, energy drink) and then immediately pass out. It only works if I’m already fighting staying awake.

An hour or so later I’m up again and can complete the day.

[StimDeck]

This is my solution. I try to get a 90 minute nap whenever I can, but 30 and caffeine can help too. These two numbers are important so that you don’t wake up in a REM cycle.

[sinman]

You sound a lot like me - I've even uttered the same line about multiplying two digit numbers in my sleep.

Not sure if you already tried it, but the only thing I ever found that worked was melatonin (I've tried both before bed and around 6pm). Much info here: https://slatestarcodex.com/2018/07/10/melatonin-much-more-th...

[abdusco]

Did you try sleeping earlier? If you regularly sleep at 01:00, then you won't be able to wake up at 06:00. If you go to sleep at 22:00 then it's not as impossible as you think.

[TeMPOraL]

Yes. If I go to sleep at 22:00, I'll be half-awake tossing in bed from 6:00, but still unable to get up until ~10:00.

[jmkd]

I wish people would understand that "just get up early" simply does not and cannot work for a significant portion of the population (20-50% depending on which study you choose).

Therefore it is aggravating advice to constantly receive, from those for whom it worked, to those for whom it won't.

[jandrewrogers]

In the US military, new recruits are put on a very early schedule (think: 5:00am wakeup) and an appropriately early bedtime. Within a matter of weeks, they become habituated to it such that everyone's body automatically starts operating on that schedule, even if no one wakes them up in the morning. I am skeptical that there is a biological reason 20-50% of the population can't get up early because it doesn't seem to be an issue in the myriad environments where waking up early is a general requirement. These environments aren't selecting for people that can get up early, they habituate people into getting up early. It clearly is possible most of the time.

[volkl48]

Night owl here.

I've had points in life where school or work demanded I wake up early. After a few weeks I could go to bed and sleep at something approximating the time required for an appropriate night of rest and would automatically wake up at the time required - true.

This sounds like success, but is significantly less so than it sounds:

- It didn't change the time my body wants to do those things.

- Waking up: I'd wake up because it's the time I currently wake up daily and know I need to, but the feeling of wanting to go back to bed for hours was still there - not even feeling like I'm not rested, just a vague sense of "this is a time for sleep". Performance for the first 3-5 hours of my day was noticeably poor.

- Going to bed: With enough practice I could usually sleep early enough. I never once wanted to sleep early enough or actually felt tired when I had to go to bed. I had to have multiple alarms set to go to bed, because even though that was the time I'd been going to bed for months - my body still does not give off a single signal to sleep at that time.

- One single night off-schedule would completely blow up the whole thing and take a week or more to feel back on the schedule fully. Months of being on the "early" schedule could be instantly thrown away and I'd be back on the "late" - adaptation is only required in the unnatural direction, the natural one is instant.

- I have actually spent weeks off-grid hiking and away from screens/artificial light before and the behavior still persists. It's not until hours after dark that I feel tired and I don't naturally want to wake up until far past sunrise. (I am also perfectly happy sleeping in full daylight, room light/darkness has no impact on my sleep).

[shard]

I have the same feeling regarding much of what you said, with the slight difference that even though my body didn't feel the need to go to bed, strangely enough, after lying in bed for 20 minutes or so, I often fall asleep without noticing any sleepiness before that, just wide awake, and the next thing I know I am waking up in the morning.

[BeFlatXIII]

While I was never in the military, I have been in environments where I needed to be an earlybird. It's exactly as you say: the adaption to the environment makes the early rising palatable. However, once left to my own devices, I quickly return to my nocturnal habits. For me, it's less revenge bedtime procrastination and more so that nights are better for long blocks of uninterrupted time than days.

[autoexec]

I think people can train themselves to get up at any time, even in the middle of the night, but I have doubts that they'd all be fully alert at that hour even if they did it for months or years. I can train myself to wake up early, but my brain doesn't fully "wake up" until much later in the day. It might be genetic (https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/05/150514085748.h...) and there are groups looking at drugs to help night owls adapt to the artificial constraints modern society imposes on them.

[shard]

I think is a combination of physical activity waking the recruits up and keeping them alert, as well as physical exhaustion helping them fall asleep. I suppose anyone who is chronically unable to stick to that schedule would get weeded out quickly.

[faeriechangling]

I suffered from delayed sleep phase syndrome for years and years. Root cause was undiagnosed health issues causing chronic pain and alertness.

Once I nailed down the problem all it took from there was a mere complete lifestyle change, once which takes constant discipline to maintain. Which I manage to maintain mostly because lapses in discipline result in me being slapped hard back to reality.

I was told to try melatonin so - many - times. I had so many printouts on sleep hygiene handed to me over the years. I was told repeatedly both to wake up early AND to restrict how long I spend in bed. Being told to wake up early was given The idea of doing a differential NEVER occurred to people as my sleep problems were obviously a result of my poor ethics and laziness and could be fixed with nothing more than an attitude adjustment.

The point of this all being, is to say I agree with you rather strongly.

[nyanpasu64]

Dealing with similar issues myself, what health issues did you discover and what do you do to cope?

[a96]

"Have you tried not being depressed?"

"Thanks, I'm cured."

[xyzelement]

I find your comment unhelpful. We have no indication that the person being responded to has a hard limitation vs suboptimal habits.

Not giving him advice because it might not help someone is the worst because it guarantees that it will not help him.

[jmkd]

Fair point, but I find the kind of advice given goes beyond being unhelpful into being actually damaging. It's exasperating at best and makes the 'patient' feel as if no one understands them, or worse that the world is against them.

On balance I weigh the damage of that as more negative than the absence of advice that might help.

[xyzelement]

This is where you and I disagree. I find that a chance at tangible improvement is worth having to deal with the risk it cannot be accomplished.

[eska]

I used to be depressed and constantly received the same bullshit advice which led me to believe nobody understands me and that I’m incurable and I was about to give up. Please don’t be a cliche programmer and speak on matters outside of your expertise as if you know what you’re talking about, this is dangerous territory.

[1123581321]

As someone who used to think I had unique physiology, I eventually appreciated people who kept suggesting sensible advice with no downsides to try it. Thanks.

[taneq]

I find your comment unhelpful. Which is okay, you know, not every comment is gonna work for every person.

Have you tried mindfulness? /s

[xyzelement]

We are all completely empowered to accept or reject all advice.

Separately from that, there's a question of "which strategy is most likely to yield a good outcome." EG - you are welcome to get 100% of your calories from junk food, which is separate from our ability to discuss that you'll probably have a better life doing something different.

On this sleep thing - one can do whatever the hell they want, and of course they may have limits in place that are unique to them. Which doesn't preclude us talking about what would be best and then whether we want to and can get there.

[dahart]

Yeah suggestions about what to do, sans anything helpful about how to do it, are just annoying, especially when the thing is hard to do.

That said, there’s a very big difference between doesn’t work and can’t work. Humans are pretty adaptable given the right circumstances, so I’d wager we’re talking mostly about the doesn’t category. Your comment totally reminds me of many conversations I’ve heard and read about weight loss where someone says “just consume fewer calories”, as if it’s somehow simple. Other person, annoyed, says “I’ve tried that, it doesn’t work for me” or “studies have shown that doesn’t work for most people”. It’s true that it generally doesn’t work for most people, I believe the failure rates are even higher than 50%, and yet it’s guaranteed that it can work, it’s physics. It’s not because people actually eat fewer calories and it fails, it’s because people generally aren’t able to reduce their calorie intake permanently, they revert. And trying to will yourself to overcome hunger tends to backfire, just like trying to will yourself to ‘just get up early’ tends to backfire. It doesn’t work because they don’t really know how to change their habits; habits are really hard to break, behavior is really hard to change. A lot of people fail to appreciate how hard it is, especially when some people do seem to be able to do it.

I’ve gone through long periods where I was unable to be a morning person and, maybe like you, I could have bopped someone lightly on the nose for saying to me ‘just get up early’. But changes in my life have made it easier; my job changed, my kids turned into teenagers, my exercise changed, my outlook on life has change, my evening activities have changed. I also have a better idea of how to wake up early, and it doesn’t need to involve setting alarms and trying to force myself, it’s much more about how to spend the time, much more about what I want to get done, and much less about when.

[MrDrMcCoy]

I think the point may have been more that many people have chronotypes [1] that negate the benefits of changing a sleep schedule to something that fits your waking schedule. Doing this may allow for better time allocations, but comes at the cost of the effectiveness of your forced circadian rhythm.

[1] https://www.sleepfoundation.org/how-sleep-works/chronotypes

[dahart]

Oh no I might have accidentally stepped on a small land mine. Circadian rhythms aren’t permanent. If they were, international travel would be impossible for humans. Circadian rhythms are defined as entrainable, meaning adjustments to the environment must change the rhythm. I might have to walk this back some day, but right now that site you linked gives me vibes of homeopathy. There’s a non-zero amount of irony in asking if individual humans identify with different animal species, isn’t there? The idea that an animal species as a whole sleeps at a given time undermines the very idea that each human is a unique snowflake, and suggests that the variation in humans that we’re talking about is not fixed, but is a product of environment, habits, behaviors, situational preferences, etc., doesn’t it? I mean we have lots and lots and lots of evidence that humans can change sleep schedule when they have to, and that preferences largely come from what we’re used to, no?

[TeMPOraL]

> Circadian rhythms aren’t permanent. If they were, international travel would be impossible for humans. Circadian rhythms are defined as entrainable, meaning adjustments to the environment must change the rhythm.

Sure. That's why I'm a night owl in every timezone.

You seem to be assuming that circadian rhythms are driven by some stable 24h/cycle oscillator, with an offset that can be changed with some effort, whether self-directed or in response to environment changes. But if that was the case, international travel would be a chore - you'd probably be back home before you finished adjusting.

The way I see it, circadian rhythms are more like the oscillator with a floating reference point, constantly adapting to environmental cues, and a stable offset that's near-impossible to change (probably genetically fixed). Under this model, international travel is easy - the body will quickly adjust the reference point to the new timezone, based on environmental cues, but the offset remains fixed. And this is what I observe - I'm a night owl in every timezone.

[dahart]

> You seem to be assuming that circadian rhythms are driven by some stable 24h/cycle oscillator, with an offset that can be changed with some effort, whether self-directed or in response to environment changes.

I don’t know how you got that out of what I said above, but FWIW, Wikipedia does say that in order to call something a Circadian rhythm, it must be a cycle of about 24 hours, and it must be resettable [1], which seems to match your assumptions about my assumptions exactly... your description appears to fit the definition of Circadian rhythm almost exactly, you’re only missing the bit about temperature compensation.

> if that was the case, international travel would be a chore - you’d probably be back home before you finished adjusting.

I totally don’t understand what you’re saying here. Jet lag is pretty well understood, no? It takes a few days to adjust, and they you’re fine. If you fly home after a day or two, yeah, you’re home before your Circadian rhythm got reset. If you stay a week or more, and you’d be fine overseas and then have to reset again when you get home. It’s widely agreed that jet lag does make international travel a bit of a chore, no?

I mostly assume that the minute people start talking about Circadian rhythms, we’re probably in the arena of pseudoscience. I’ve just noticed over time that invocations of Circadian rhythms get used incorrectly a lot to justify bogus arguments, like with daylight saving time, for example, with claims that humans can be out of sync with their rhythms for months and months. That’s not true according to Wikipedia’s definition, because Circadian rhythms must also be able to be “reset by exposure to external stimuli (such as light and heat).” [1] And the reset generally takes at most a few days for most people. [2] The ‘sleep foundation’ article above certainly loses credibility by mentioning Circadian rhythms and then launching into the ‘what’s your spirit animal’ personality quiz blogspam fad.

I don’t know what evidence there is for an offset that changes when traveling but can’t change when staying put, or that it’s genetic. Do you have links to any? There’s a metric ton of evidence that superficially seems to counter that idea, because humans adapt and change sleep schedules all the time, they respond to light therapy, etc.

Look I’m generally a night owl too, and left to my own devices I wake up late and go to sleep late. I have absolutely no doubt that it’s very difficult for some people to change though, I’m not suggesting it’s easy. But - have you ever tried camping outdoors for a week or more? It’s quite surprising to me how fast I adjust to waking up with the sun. Try it! There’s also loads of evidence that people have a hard time changing any habits, and that use of electronic screens and artificial lighting mess with our sleep schedules, and that jobs and life stress can as well. We have to rule all those effects out first before saying it can’t be changed, and those are really hard to rule out, no?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circadian_rhythm#Criteria

[2] https://nigms.nih.gov/education/fact-sheets/Pages/circadian-...

[MrDrMcCoy]

I may have some terminology off. The point of chronotypes is to sort out the what, who, and why of "morning people", "night owls" and various states between. I don't care for the animal metaphors either, and they can easily be omitted with no loss of value. As a "night owl" myself, I have anecdotally found that while I can certainly force myself to function early in the morning on a regular basis, my body never stops hating that even after years of doing so. The best times for me to get up and go to sleep are closer to 10 am and 2 am, respectively. The chronotypes system proposed here was useful in helping contextualize all that.

[slothtrop]

It's incomplete advice, but it can't be separated from effective advice. Similarly, "just eat less" is not useful/workable on it's own, but at the end of the day, losing weight relies on caloric deficit; it's still true.

The missing piece with this, not unlike weight-loss, is the use of effective tools (that can include sunlight, scheduling everything differently, among other things).

[ederamen]

^ This - thank you

[dgb23]

I agree with this. I struggled the same thing as GP mentioned, and worse. And from my experience it’s a vicious cycle.

I don’t necessarily agree with the specific “get up at T”, but generally working towards getting rid of bad sleeping habits (and nutrition etc.) is incredibly beneficial. Seemingly small improvements can have a positive snowball effect.

Negative circumstances (like “my job is shit”) can be overcome more easily the more energy you have.

Seems trite, but it’s trivially true. My mental state improved gradually and I gathered more courage, got more resilient and more creative.

I’m much happier, helpful and have much more impact on my life and my surroundings than ever before. And it all started with the basics.

[hickelpickle]

This is what I do to maintain a some what normal sleep schedule while having to find quite time to work on personal projects with a 4yo in my free time. The thing that gets me is I seem to be way more productive at the end of the day at night. Idk if its just being a night owl, or maybe something to do with attention issues, but I feel like I grind out a lot more code from say 10->3am than 3am->8am even if I am more tired near the end of the night if I stay up late. But I still stick to the waking up early routine as I get a good rest and can always "sleep in" by getting up a little later so I always get 6-7 hours sleep instead of 5-6.

[gofreddygo]

I tried to get up early (5am) almost all my adult life. Till I could, after I was a parent.

My key observation is this, no matter how well I sleep, I will wake up groggy eyed, my mind begging me to go back to bed, for my own sake.

I get out of bed as soon as my eyes open unless its before 4am. My mind plays the dirty trick every day, and I have to tell myself, "what good will a few more minutes of sleep do that the whole night could not" and I'm up.

If my head hurts 10 mins after I'm out of bed, I go back to bed.

[oulu2006]

That's some nice advice, thank you.

[Zenul_Abidin]

These days I sleep at around 8, and it made it much easier for me to get up at 5 and still get 8 hours of sleep. And then I have energy to do basically anything in those early hours.

If I even get just 6 hours, I immediately feel crankiness the next day.

[Macha]

I finish work at like 6. Add an hour for cooking and eating dinner after that and it leaves 1 hour for personal activities with such a schedule. If I go to the office for a day, I don't get home until 7:30pm.

[noufalibrahim]

Was going to suggest the same thing. A great way to break the cycle is to somehow wake up early one day and force yourself to not sleep. You'll feel very sleepy early in the night and will fall asleep.

[TeMPOraL]

I envy those for whom this is the case. For me, I might be dead tired during the day, but I will spontaneously regain energy in the evening - enough to delay my bedtime a couple hours again.

It's absurd and somewhat dangerous - if I ever pull an all-nighter on something, it's really important I force myself to go to sleep early the next day, because I will suddenly become full of energy again come 21:00 - 23:00, go to sleep late again, and suffer further come next morning.

[matwood]

Like jet-lag it can take some time to adjust. But, also like jet-lag, you have to push through.

[TeMPOraL]

But unlike jet-lag, it reverts back to baseline as soon as you stop pushing.

[lostdog]

Do you have any reason to believe this applies to people who are not you?