Why You Don't Get Sleepy At Night ft. Matthew Walker
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 18 ก.ย. 2024
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Professor Matthew Walker is a Professor of Neuroscience and Psychology at the University of California, Berkeley, USA. He is also the founder and director of the Center for Human Sleep Science. If you've got sleep questions, he's your guy. In this clip from my full length interview with him (links below), we talked about chronotypes, or the category of sleeper you may fall into. It turns out, whether you're an early riser or a night owl might not actually be your "fault", and in fact it may have been something you were born with. Let me know if you have any more questions about sleep below!
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I remember reading somewhere that having Morning people and Night Owls could have also come from our evolution as humans. Always having someone awake or on watch could have been extremely beneficial for protection in the earlier days of human history.
Wait WHAAAAAT OMG
I heard somewhere that pre-historic human tribes didn't sleep for 8 hours in one sitting. They woke up early, did some light work like fishing or sharpening their tools, then took a nap through the hottest hours (11 am to 1/2 pm) and then hunted larger animals and went out to gather fruits and plants. Most of their time was spend socializing and resting, until they went to sleep around 10 pm to midnight, and woke up early in the morning to repeat the cycle.
@@gakeon963 my relatives in hot rural areas totally do this thanks to the absence of work schedules.
This guy who wrote the book on sleep explains this it's true
So, genetics again. Okay. Evolution takes our best survival qualities and passes that on. Fears of environmental dangers, aggression from limited resources, attraction towards viable mates. All behaviors that passed on through generations while Darwinism took out the rest.
So, if you’re saying the split in our preferences on when we’re awake are based on survival behaviors that were passed on by evolution, you’re saying it’s genetics, again, but putting a time-stamp on it. Tomato, tomato.
I got emotional listening to this, as someone who is a heavy night-owl (2am-10am) I used to feel horrible for how I slept and people looked down on me for it, some still do. I almost cried when they said it's not my fault, we're wired for this! Years I've forced myself to fit the "standard", but I would spend all day heavily sleep deprived in class being unable to pay attention properly, it didn't matter how good my sleep hygiene was. By the time I had to go back to sleep I would be wide awake and the cycle continued. I would nap sometimes if I really had to (and actually had the time for it), but would end up feeling horrible afterwards so I avoided it as much as possible. Weekends were for catching up on sleep. My sleep pattern can be described as DSPS - Delayed sleep phase syndrome, but honestly I hate the name. It's not syndrome, it's not something wrong with me, it's not something to "cure", it's just how I am. For now I can choose my own sleep time and never felt better, but I'm not looking forward to having to force myself to be sleep deprived again just because it's so difficult fitting in in society with my sleep time.
if i remember correctly in his book he goes over why we have different sleep schedules from an evolutionary perspective. unlike birds which can do unihemispheric slow wave sleep which means they can shut off one side of their brain and continue to observe their surroundings for predators with the other half, humans are unable to do so and we depend on others to look out for dangers at night time, night owls are basically just those who are able to keep watch while the rest is at sleep which makes sense. His book is very interesting and i highly recommend it.
I'm a night owl too and people often think of me as lazy because i sleep in whenever i can, but they fail to realize that i'm up most of the night which is where i'm most productive. It's so unfair that society is built this way when it's complete natural. There's absolutely nothing wrong with you and if people judge you it's because they are ignorant.
I felt this so hard. I too got very emotional by them saying „it‘s not their fault“ because I am a very severe night owl (5am - 1pm on bad days) and I‘ve been feeling terrible about this for years. No matter how much I tried to force myself into the standard sleep schedule, I could never keep it up and even if I managed, my concentration and performance was so bad my grades dropped severely.
I don‘t understand why there‘s this connotation of „you go to sleep very late and sleep half the day? So you‘re lazy“. When in actuality that makes no sense, I‘m awake just as long as everybody else - just at a different time. This societal pressure has done nothing but worsen my anxiety and (back when it was still very severe) my depression. It‘s worth noting I in university now and all my lectures are prerecorded so I finally get to decide my own sleep pattern. However, the majority of my friends still think of me as lazy just because I don‘t get up at 6am which will occasionally still get me to shut down and waste hours if not days trying to sort my mental health out. I dream of a world without judgement for night owls.
tbh if you still can't sleep at 6am then that might just be an issue because anything past that is simply too late when you'll wake up.
@@somebodyoncetoldme2664 i would bet 1k$ that you go to sleep after 6 am on the vast majority of days
@@jessieornot6121 actually I go to bed exactly at 6am some days but most 4am
As a person who has always had a bad relationship with sleep, I find talks about it very interesting and enlightening.
Me too
Same here
Ly mike thx for yr vidss
That's an interesting idea, gonna look into that
maybe couples therapy might work?
"it's not your fault" hit me hard 🙏
I needed to hear that.
I'm an night owl struggling with mental health. I have been in therapy for a couple of years now and my sleep pattern is still an issue. Now I know that it's not me who has failed in my attempts and struggle. It's just in my genes...
It's not your genes that's the problem. It's society. I'm sure we've all met that person -- the one who when met with a suggestion to change work or school time, or even just hearing someone venting their grief about how they're not getting enough sleep, they tell you about how when _they_ were young _they_ had to wake up early and be miserable, and then they give you a big, smug grin, like "Yeah, I'm gonna make _you_ suffer now, haha!" The people with that attitude just need to not be in charge of anything, ever.
i think this message needs to expanded more: it's not only NOT our fault (i'm a night owl too) it's SOCIETIES fault. We talk about differently abled people and how society isn't geared towards them, and how we need to start talking about their interaction with society in a positive manner rather than just label it "a disease they have" or something, and i think chronotype needs to be part of that.
note: one thing that has helped me btw, was going biphasic. I take a little nap sometime at night then wake up late at night 11pm-ish and stay awake till 3, when i go to bed again. It's a short sleep - that second one, but at least this way I'm getting SOME sleep during my natural sleep hours (3am plus) even if i have to wake up early most days and that sleep can't be 8 hours (obviously i make up for it by sleeping sometimes late evening/night - kinda like if a morning person took a nap in the afternoon) BUT this also means i can do stuff and be active when my brain is actually wanting to be so (late at night) and i'm not trying to fight it.
In all honesty, the reason why so many people struggle with sleeplessness and mental health problems is because our culture expects us to wake up early and function as mere cogs in the machine. And it all started when, as kids, we had to get up so early to get to school so that our parents could still be there before they left for work. Night owls who struggle to be productive in the mornings are compelled to work in occupations that are mostly in service roles since the hours are more suitable for us, but the salary and work benefits are never adequate. This is a dysfunctional system that is terribly unjust to night owls. If we weren't required to work from 9 (or earlier) to 5 every day and instead had control over our own daily lives, society would be better.
It actually started with agriculture and farming. People had to be up with the sun to use every bit of natural light to tend to animals and crops. It's literally impossible to take care of a field by candle light at 11pm at night. So it was be an early bird or starve/die. And honestly most tasks back in the day took hours and required sunlight, laundry sometimes took days to complete etc. Candles/oil were a resource people couldn't afford to waste it staying up all night for no reason.
The weird thing is we are not pre-industrial farmers anymore but we're still on that schedule. Most people have electricity and machines for everything, we can be awake and work any time day or night.
@@Milkymommy09 Right. I was born a night owl, but wtf would I do on a deserted island during the night?
@@sunshine3914 oooh sooo much can be done. Star light and moon light are very very bright when not blocked out by human lights.
The harvest moon is soo bright you can in fact harvest by it.
You are part of the THINKERS. We sit up at night star gazing and coming up with sciences and math and the whys of the world.
I have been having my "3am Why Time" since middle school.
True I am also Neurodivergent and was tested and found "gifted" (its a curse in this current world not a gift)
So that's probably why I am heading the route of that's when we think.
But my brain is audible. It buzzes. And it gets louder at night. When everything quiets I can hear my brain think better.
You can fish at night. You can make weapons/crafts at night. You can watch the world around you at night on the deserted island.
You can dig for clams.. Soo many things.
@@Milkymommy09 Right?! People telling themselves that they're nightowls and capitalism is at fault for them not functioning well in society are a little delusional, tbh. Humans have been awake when it's light out and asleep when it's dark out for hundreds upon hundreds of years. What would nightowls even have done then? Sat around in the dark and ... waited? Of course there's some variation to when someone becomes productive but "true" nightowls ("I can't get up naturally before 10 am") probably just messed up their sleep cycle.
@@Milkymommy09 nerd why couldnt they just order food online
As a night owl, I cannot go to bed before 3AM (with melatonin) and I naturally don't start to get tired before 2AM. Thank you for shining some light into this. I just started a new job and they have daily meetings at 9:30AM which make me hate my life and them I just can't. I was so happy at my previous job where I could just follow my body's natural time (most of the time)
i think this message needs to expanded more: it's not only NOT our fault (i'm a night owl too) it's SOCIETY'S fault. We talk about differently abled people and how society isn't geared towards them, and how we need to start talking about their interaction with society in a positive manner rather than just label it "a disease they have" or something, and i think chronotype needs to be part of that.
note: one thing that has helped me btw, was going biphasic. I take a little nap sometime at night then wake up late at night 11pm-ish and stay awake till 3, when i go to bed again. It's a short sleep - that second one, but at least this way I'm getting SOME sleep during my natural sleep hours (3am plus) even if i have to wake up early most days and that sleep can't be 8 hours (obviously i make up for it by sleeping sometimes late evening/night - kinda like if a morning person took a nap in the afternoon) BUT this also means i can do stuff and be active when my brain is actually wanting to be so (late at night) and i'm not trying to fight it.
This is a great conversation. I’m a “night owl” and I’ve always felt guilt and shame around my predisposition because of societal standards. Sleep is so important and making it more acceptable to have diversity in sleep/wake patterns, and allowing people to have flexibility in their schedule and lifestyles, would make a world of difference.
I've had this problem since I was a child
I felt those standards even when I worked evening/night-shifts... I got so much judgement for 'being in bed all day' just getting a standard 8 hours, if that, and was always expected to watch other people's children, be up for social events with the retired generation, or do the household solo whilst being the one making the most hours and earning the most. I also had a time in my life I went to bed around 8pm so I could hit the gym before work and that was 'too early'. Wish people cared a lot less about how other people spend the same hours we all have in a day.
@@esmee6308 I feel you. I worked a job that was 3-11 in the evening/night. I would go to bed around 1-2 am and would sleep until 10-11 am and was made to feel guilty about it by a lot people but it was just that my day was just a little different than the morning people.
@@esmee6308 That last sentence can be applied to everything, not just sleep paterns.
I can somehow manage to be a morning person, but I always tend to go back to the night owl schedule. The 9-5 office time does not work.
My family still gives me grief for going to bed late.
So I wrote my Master's thesis about this and I can tell you that it has been proven that being a night owl is correlated with worse mental health, especially with higher rates of depression and anxiety. On the other hand some research (including mine) shows that night owls have higher IQ, which probably developed to increase problem solving ability in evening type people as they were constantly working against what society demanded of them. Moreover, chronotype is not only about sleep and productivity, the field of chronobiology shows that your chronotype can affect virtually all aspects of your life - even such things as cell renewal and cancer formation. I am so glad that someone is finally talking about this on a platform that will reach normal people too and not only those who read scientific journals.
I’d be interested in finding out the correlation between that study and what percentage of the night owls were neurodivergent.
@@rileyackison4495 that would indeed be really interesting to see! We asked our participants about general and mental health but we did not ask about neurodivergance in particular. It's a great idea that I will have to use if we do a follow-up study
@@Monland You point out that being a night owl positively correlates with worse mental health. How much of that is because of, for instance, a lack of sun to synthesize Vitamin D; and how much of that is societal? It's no secret that basically every modern culture is heavily biased in favor of morning people, so it's only natural that those who don't fit in would have a poorer mental state. I'm sure you know high IQ is also associated with such issues.
@@Soufriere84 it's mostly societal/environmental, although genes also play a part in it. For exmaple evening type people have a slightly different brain structure. The differences I mentioned are to be expected like you said, the point is that the expectations line up with reality and when scientifically tested, they prove to be correct so evening types have worse mental health and higher IQ like predicted.
Doesn't sound like you've successfully argued in favor of high IQ developing from sleep pattern. Couldn't it just as well be, for instance, that the traits are just dictated by the same genes?
I have always tried explaining to people that my whole family are night owls. I’m glad to hear that there is now evidence that shows that our sleep patterns are genetic. It is unfortunate, however, when you work with people who have a completely different time of productivity than you do.
Hi Melanie 👋 how are you doing today hope you're having a good day ahead of you
I have felt so much shame about having insomnia and needing to nap during the day. The more I learn about sleep, the better I feel about it, but most people still don’t accept “odd” sleep patterns as normal. To most people, I’m just irresponsible “staying up late,” and lazy for napping during the day.
Try mediation or getting more exercise. I love the nightlife ( grew up in a bar ), & even in grade school I never fell asleep before 4 AM… until I got a job on a rescue ranch. I’m so beat by sundown, that I’m asleep as soon as I hit the bed.
I feel the same way. I live and work on a farm then also take care of the household chores and children etc and I struggle with sleep so I want to nap during the day. My husband tends to think I’m lazy due to it or that I didn’t work hard enough during the day since I can’t sleep(his father says the same thing since they were little so now he does the same) but my husband is a morning person who can sleep at the drop of a dime where as I can’t. It makes me feel terrible and frustrated with the way people seem to view it. I also have a 12 year old who is the same as me with struggling to sleep at night also. And that’s even with us taking sleep aids etc.
‘Tired but wired’ is one of the worst feelings. I got to the point that not even meds would help (if anything I felt more anxious). You know what did help? Therapy. 🙌🏼
If only I could afford it...mental health is so expensive 😩
you got prescribed meds before therapy? lol what kind of doctor does that
@@avr7120 Why? Are you a doctor?
@@evaggeliastavropoulou7829 It can be! 😔 .. I had to use Better Help and pay out of pocket since I could never find an appt through my health insurance.
I have had C-PTSD since around 6yrs old. I also have ADHD and am *gifted (Neurodivergent) and have been a LATE night owl since at least middle school.
My brain has an audible buzz to it. It gets louder at night.
No meds touch it. I have learned I need cannabis to calm the brain enough to let the melatonin take effect. No other sleeping pills have ever worked.
As an night owl I’m really glad that this Doctor of Neuroscience said that it’s not our choice and that society favors the morning people, since it’s true. I’ve been chastised for staying up late, but I can’t do anything if I’m more ‘awake’ in the evening than I am in the morning. Also I’m the kind that sleeps a lot, I can reach 12-15h of sleep which I thing is problematic but I’m kind of a lethargic person who isn’t in for having fun or going out. Tried to change, didn’t work out.
I'm a morning person married to a night person; however, when we were both working, our schedules followed our work schedules. Now that we're both retired, the difference has asserted itself, and we've survived best by sleeping separately, on our own schedules.
im happy you both are accepting of each other
@@Philemon5 We're coming up on our 50th anniversary; we make things work.
@@laurahubbard6906 Wow, congratulations! Wish y’all the best on your anniversary! :)
Hubby and I are both disabled now.
He's a morning person that gets insomnia.
I am, and have always been a late night owl. We are trying to make it work. He has stopped making my "extreme insomnia" now known as my genetic make up (thank You @doctormike ) my fault. He now just makes sure I take my pills on time and that if there is an appointment the next day to remind me to go to sleep before midnight to get up for the appointment.
We are listening to ourselves and our bodies.
Thank you Doctormike for this. I now have science to backup some thing I have known my whole life.
In middle school I called it my "why time" up at 3am trying to answer the questions of humanity and religion and society as a whole.
@@laurahubbard6906 that's amazing! I'm so glad you both are doing well! Me and my best friend are like that, h goes to sleep at like 11 and i don't until 4 am
This is a great video. I'm a night owl and it's good to see an "explanation" for it. Also, I suffered with insomnia caused by anxiety when I was finishing college and I felt just like Matthew Walker described - I felt tired, but I couldn't fall asleep, spent some time having only 3-4 hours of sleep per night, then I started going to therapy and eventually it got better, but the insomnia still shows up when I'm feeling anxious for some time. It's great to see doctors caring about mental health, not just biological factors. Always quality content here ❤
I felt so validated and relieved I almost cried when my sleep doctor told me about sleep phenotypes and that 'night owl' behavior wasn't some sort of moral failing on my behalf. Knowing doesn't really help in terms of trying to function in society, but at least I don't have to feel like I'm some irredeemably lazy reprobate.
I cannot express enough gratitude for this video as it's something I struggle with. Due to an attempt on my life I have PTSD, and afterwards I'd go days without sleep and when I did sleep it was during the day... No matter how hard I tried, if I tried to stay up ALL day, I still haven't been able to sleep at night. Recently, more so than previously, I've be lambasted from so many people for not getting a regular night time sleep schedule, for not socializing, etc during the day. Admittedly I have other mental health issues, anxiety, depression, addiction (Clean 4.5 yrs) BPD, PTSD, and agoraphobia. I've come a long way in the last 2 years in recovery (CBT/DBT therapy) and managing these things, but most of the people in my life, family, friends, and those in the village where I live, don't understand any of this. They think I've CHOSEN to not sleep at night, that I've CHOSEN depression, anxiety, etc! It took me a whole year after the assault to finally stop panicking about when I would sleep... Laying in bed for hours anxious as the minutes go by and I'm not yet asleep (as he described as wired but tired)... I gave myself PERMISSION to sleep whenever I slept, knowing that the body will sleep when it needs. Believing that took a lot of the anxiety around my schedule away. It's just SO hard to always be questioned and have assumptions made, all the time! So tyvm for this video, helping me validate my existence. 💖🇨🇦💖
"Normal" people are so ignorant to mental illness. We're all a lazy, useless bunch of people according to them.
Being a night owl has been a huge struggle for me my entire life, I tend to over sleep, because my body refuses to go to bed at a “decent” time so I don’t get enough sleep. I have always struggled with waking up, and the fact that society determined I must wake up and do things in the morning has been awful. And to top it off I’ve always struggled with just falling asleep in general, though some of that I’m sure was trying to go to bed too early because that’s what I was told to do. My mom is a night owl, my dad isn’t. But my dad has a hard time sleeping in that if he is waken up he can’t go back to sleep. About the worst combination possible for me 😭
Wow you literally described how I feel and how both my parents are as well!
For one semester in college my first class of the day began at 12:30 PM instead of 8:00 AM.
I'm not kidding when I say that those three months were the best period of my life. My grades shot up, my depression vanished, my relationships were better.
I'd fall asleep at 2:00-3:00 each night and actually get to sleep for 8 hours, then wake up at 10:00-11:00 AND still have time to bathe, eat breakfast, etc. Turns out those things are good for you! Who knew?
I genuinely considered dropping out when I realized that my next semester was going back to that 8:00 AM hell.
I felt this on a personal level. My parents always tell me to go to bed earlier and I’ll wake up earlier, but I literally cannot go to sleep earlier, I’m not tired. They get tired around 9-10 pm, I get tired around 12-1 am, although I can sometimes fall asleep late 11 pm almost 12 if I try. If I try any earlier, it’s just a waste of time cuz I won’t fall asleep and my mind will just be racing about things I don’t want to think about. On the weekends I tend to wake up at 12, but if I’ve had a long break, like summer break, it changes to around 10 (I think because I sleep better from lots of outdoor activities and less stress), but my go-to-sleep time is the same.
I really hope my future career will allow me to wake up at at LEAST 9, and give me time to eat breakfast. Right now granola bars are my best friend lol.
College is amazing isn’t it lol
I used to be able to get away with poor sleep hygiene, but I've recently changed a few things in my life (location, career) and started consistently taking over an hour to get to sleep. I've started tracking it in a bullet journal. After watching this, I think I might just need to go to bed an hour later, and spend that hour puttering around tidying up by lamplight, and reading reading/journaling.
This is the bit I struggle with. They tell us to get off our screens and turn off the lights... but then what?! Are we meant to just sit in the dark??
@@Ailieorz Exactly! They also say don't eat a meal after [insert mid-evening time here.] If I'm going to bed at 3am then that family meal back at 6pm was basically lunchtime to an early bird's bedtime.
I’m a textbook evening type and I only realized it after my schedule changed from high school to college. And suddenly, with classes later, I can tell how much more productive I am! My creativity spikes in the evening and for most time this productive period went to waste because of an extremely morning schedule and I still couldn’t sleep. Now I know I got gaslit in my childhood that there’s something wrong with me, but still, explaining this to family can be tough.
It is incredibly hard to live in an early bird world when you are a night owl! I've said for years that I have no control over it. This was so interesting! I'm going to listen to the whole podcast.
Yes!!! My uni classes start at 8:30 am and in just dead on first, sometimes second class. But im full of energy later in the day, of when my classes start in 11am or 6 pm. World isn't fair to us :(
@@unnamellie Get a good education and get a job with flexible hours ;) I'm a morning person and I'd hate to start at 8 am - I'd just waste 2h in bed staring at my phone. My flexible hours allow me to start at 6 am and leave at 4 pm. You could start at 10 and stay till 8.
@@strange144 what flexible job do you have? lol
This was honestly soothing to hear, since I can finally understand what happens to me a bit better. As a Moderate-evening person (yes, I did the test) it SUCKS to live in the world we live in. I am a teacher at a high school, and as such my schedule is doomed to ever be a morning-type one. I have tricked my body into going to sleep at 11:30PM but it has taken YEARS to do so, and it's not fully reliable. I have bad sleep, which turns into bad performance, which I believe also gives me bad memory (I couldn't remember for the life of me ANYTHING my co-workers told me when I started and I had to write down everything). All and all, living a morning life as an evening person feels so helpless.
This makes me so happy to hear, because I feel like I am just weird and can’t control myself because I don’t want and cannot sleep before 12/1
Same
I'm a night owl and I get called lazy a lot because people see I don't wake up until at least 11am, my mother especially was the one to call me lazy the most. I have a job now that suits my lifestyle just fine where I work from anytime between 4pm and 1am. For years, even as a child, I had struggled with not being able to sleep at what was seen as a "normal" time and I was tired all the time because of having to get up early for school. As I entered the working world nothing really changed, I was going to work on only a few hours of sleep most if not everyday which was something I started to think was a normal thing that people did. I was made to feel guilty for "sleeping in" on my off days even though I was still sleeping a perfectly normal 8-9 hours. Booking appointments was a nightmare because at one point my schedule completely got flipped on its head because I was working until 5am some days (not anymore though because my work changed this) and most places were closed by the time I was awake and able to go places.
Being told I'm lazy is still the most irritating part, I wake up, do some daily chores, maybe sleep for a bit longer because I do have a tendency at times to naturally wake up after only 5-6 hours of sleep, and then I do whatever I want until I go to work later that evening. Though because my schedule is far different than the typical 9-5 grind, I'm automatically branded as lazy. My roommate says I'm lazy all the time purely because my schedule is different from theirs and I'm just tempted to not do anything for the day, no cleaning up the house, no doing laundry, no grocery store runs for things we need, nothing, to show them the true meaning of laziness and that just because my schedule is different doesn't mean I don't understand how to be a functioning adult.
Stand up for yourself! Get a little magnetic white board and put it on the fridge and put a checklist of all the things you do every day so that your roommate can see that you are doing everything they’re doing (if not more) despite just having a different schedule
@@cheesebread5eva Maybe I will. Clearly what I do is not as obvious as I thought it was. As if it must've been some cleaning elves who snuck in and did the laundry, dishes and tidied up the house during the day, it couldn't possibly have been me at all because I'm so laaaaaaaaaaazy.
I literally do my roommates laundry as well because we don't generate that many clothes so we just do communal loads of laundry to save water, washing power, etc. I just fold their stuff too cuz it's usually only the few pieces of clothing that they wore the day before so I don't mind at all. Again, it's like they think magical cleaning elves are the ones folding their laundry every freaking day. Maybe I'll just drop their laundry pile on their bed unfolded as well.
During my last 2 years of college I was taking melatonin supplements every night to try to get some sleep. The program I was in was so demanding and time consuming and it caused a lot of stress and anxiety. After graduating 6 months ago I haven't needed melatonin for sleep and was finally able to be off the anxiety medication that I had been taking for 10+ years. Stress really screws with your ability to sleep.
Screws with everything. Makes everything a flight or fight situation.
I can't stop thinking about absolutely everything AS SOON as I start wanting to sleep because of it. It sucks but when I go bed later when I love it happens less somehow so I'm not too sure.
as someone who has struggled with sleep literally my entire life, I really appreciate this. my mom has always told me that I've always been a bad sleeper, even when I was a baby, and when I started having mental health problems it just got worse and worse. I spent forever being a slave to my mental illnesses & just always feeling horrible cause I was so anxious & depressed all the time, and on top of it I never felt rested cause I couldn't get more than like 5 hours of sleep - I was either too anxious to sleep or spending all night doing work for school. when I finally decided to try and work on all of it, I ended up having to figure it all out myself because I didn't feel comfortable talking to doctors or my parents - I never felt like I could talk to any of them about my mental health cause of all the stigma around it, and I didn't feel like I could talk to doctors cause 1. I thought my parents would have to be involved and 2. I've had such a bad history with doctors not actually listening to me or being condescending. I ended up having to go through all the info I could find & figure out my own ways to manage my anxiety & insomnia by myself, and by the time I actually was able to get treatment for my anxiety (which didn't even happen until a few months ago) I had already gotten most of these things under control or found a way to manage or work around it. I was so frustrated that I had to do all of it by myself, and I'm really glad that things like this are being said now because it means that not everybody will have to go through the same rough process I did
This! And when you do figure it out and get to the doctors, they just dismiss everything you've discovered because we can't possibly understand our own bodies (or something idk)
I’m a night owl naturally. Since I was a kid, I’ve actually had morning sickness. If I’m awake and moving before 10am, I’m like, violently nauseous. And unfortunately I work at a doggy daycare, and have to work as early as 6:30am. I threw up on my first day, which was not the impression I wanted to start with
I thought I was the only one, just its only if I wake up between 3 and 5 am
I'm the same way. If I have to go anywhere in the morning I get up at least 2 to 3 hrs before I have to go anywhere or else I too might embarrass myself. Working nights helped me. Morning can still be a problem.👍
Omg same here! I feel actually sick when I first get up. I'm foggy, sometimes nauseous, bumping into door jambs, etc. It's hard to make early plans. You're not alone be
Me too!
Can you try THC for the nausea?
This is so interesting since I've always been a night owl, I remember struggling with early mornings ever since I was a little kid! I always had to wake up early for kindergarten and in the evenings I really struggled to fall asleep before midnight, at some point my mom even told them to not let me nap with the other kids because if I did I would end up staying up past midnight and couldn't wake up in the morning... Sometime around middle school I started kinda accidentally pulling allnighters quite often, simply because I just couldn't fall asleep and knew I wouldn't wake up on time if I only had 2 hours or less before my wake up time... Then in high school I had some more freedom with my classes, so I actually started skipping my earliest classes quite often because I just couldn't get myself out of bed... What's also interesting is that I was really depressed the years I spent in school, I really feel like the constant sleep deprivation had a major effect on it since once I graduated high school and kinda decided to take a breather, my depression almost seemed to disappear? The biggest change was definitely that now I actually get a decent amount of sleep since I have no tight schedule that requires me to wake up early, I just stay up until I feel tired and sleep for as long as I need! My mental health still isn't the best but it's nowhere near as bad as it was in high school, back then I slept like, max. 4 hours a night usually and now I get a minimum of 6 hours of sleep most nights! I tend to go to sleep between 2am and 6am, and wake up sometime between 11am and 1pm. Back in school it was more like stay up until 3-5am and wake up at 7 or 8am and I was always miserable :(
Thank you for doing this video! It’s super interesting and made me feel better about not being tired until 1:30am-2:00am 😅 I’m the only one in my immediate family that stays up that late so they don’t understand why I’m always staying up later saying “what’s there to do at 1:00am?” Umm… reading?
Ask them "What's there to do before 8 o clock?" (or 10 for that matter) :p
oh and also using your phone
I read, write, knit, paint, design, watch tv, listen to podcasts, clean... I even wrote my 120-page thesis exclusively in the nights between 10pm and 3 am. I felt great :D.
What we need to do is remove insurance companies from making decisions for doctors. Period. Currently, they set times and costs, and frankly, that's insulting to Drs. 15 minutes is not enough. We are not production items.
Great video Dr Mike....100% respect. I'm a night owl, and always knew that. I would be awake at 4 years old, listening to my parents watch Johnny Carson, lol.
Amen! Insurance doesn't give a whit about what the patient needs and they interfere with any caregiver who does. For me, it was my parents watching Taxi. Lol. Thank you for this comment.
I resent the fact that unless you go to bed at 10 or 11, you’re considered lazy and strange. To be perfectly honest, one of the reasons I stay up later is so I can have peace and quiet after everyone else in my household goes to bed. That’s why a 2am to 10am sleep schedule works perfect for me. In truth, if I were to give into my night owl tendencies completely, I would be going to bed at 7am and waking at 3pm, but I miss a lot of daylight on such a schedule, especially during the winter. The schedule I have now is the perfect balance.
I come alive at night . My mood improves then also, the groggy sick feeling is gone. I go to bed around 6am and wake at 3pm also. I'm an introvert, kinda homebody... not sure if that has anything to do with it.
Same, that 2am to 4am time has peace in air feeling for me, specially on winter nights.
Im awake at that time everyday but still cant get bored of it
Its just too good
Well said! I'm on almost the same sleep schedule as you. It makes a huge difference
I think people who go to bed early are lazier that those who sleep in. Like, you want to go asleep already? Hit the hay at 9.30pm? Really? >:u
Changing sleep habits based on the desire for peace and quiet has nothing to do with natural tendencies, genes, etc... You just don't have the ability to build a healthy lifestyle.
Omg. I almost cried listening to this. I have struggled to function "normal" hours my whole life!
Dr. Mike. You help me through so much. This morning my dog died, she lived 14 and a half years. and your videos help me smile and bring me joy. Thank you 🥰
Another thing that I would like to mention are naps. They honestly make or break you. You either decide to take a nap and struggle to fall asleep even more at night, or you don't take a nap and you're balling your eyes out, dying to rest for the remainder of the day, until it's finally time for you to go to bed. Also, as a night own, I'm SO GLAD that you mentioned that it's not up to us whether we're a night owl or not, and that it's not that easy to wake up in the morning and be productive and attentive; I feel like people oftentimes overlook how hard it really is to try to be productive when it's just not up to you.
I hope there’s Can be more videos about this ‘cause being a person who hates mornings has always make me feel like I’m lazy 😅
Thank you so much Dr. Mike for always thinking about every type of person 🥺
I have been hard wired since I was a child as a night owl and could never fall asleep. Both not tired and nightime anxiety, falling asleep took hours. Was 8 years old and went to the other side of the world for a week(12 hour difference) and coming back, I was up all night and slept from 10am ish-5pm ish until my parents forced me to stay awake for two days to get me back on track. They joke Thai time just always stuck. 20 years later and the option of working 11-7 instead of 9-5 is absolutely perfect and working an 8-5 is just soul-crushing for me
Professor Matt Walker has a phenomenal voice!
This is such a huge issue. To placate these people with cbt and therapy is just not enough at this point. Suffering with no sleep just sucks! Thank you for looking at this.
I'm a night owl. I feel more energised and happier during the night. Sometimes I'll even take a nap in the late afternoon, just so I can stay up all night. It's also why I don't like summer, because it doesn't get as dark which makes me more tired and I feel more down during that time.
I completely agree and am a night owl as well, but for the summer thing I found that for me it feels like the sun is on my time and I can do more things outside during the later hours.
I'm a night owl and this makes me feel relieved that it's not in my head and its just natural to me. I've always been a lot more active in the night time rather than the day. I always feel terrible when I wake up at 2-4pm because I feel like half of my day went away but I still have the night to do things (that are still open)
I noticed this when I went on holiday, I live in the UK and when I went to New Zealand which is 13 hours ahead, I had the best sleep of my life every night I was there for a month. I would wake up a 7 fresh and be tired at around 11. I have never had the once in my life at home.
That was me when I visited the UK from my former home of California. I was actually a morning person over there!
Thank you so much for this kind of videos! I said it in a comment on a different video about sleep and sleeping hours. I always felt (and still feel often times) so guilty for sleeping till 9:30 or 10am because society makes me think I'm lazy and stuff and I just can't function properly when I have to wake up early to be at work or uni at 8am. That's just not possible. And even with chores around my flat I often tend to clean the bathroom in the evening or doing laundry or doing the dishes. So huge thank you to bringt this to attention and helping me for myself to be kinder to myself and not feeling so guilty - which is hard with depression nontheless but yeah... I'm just a night owl and not a lazy a**.
This is fascinating. I have been struggling with chronic exhaustion, and have done all the sleep studies which have come out inconclusive. This makes me think the fact that I have no issue falling asleep pretty much anytime of the day or night is a huge clue. These videos you do are so helpful. Thanks!
Thank you for talking about this. It makes me feel a little less weird.
It's always been difficult for me to fall asleep in the evening. I can be incredibly tired all day, but around 8 I become wide awake. Even if I am tired when the light is on, it stops when the light is turned off.
I also know the feeling of being exhausted but still not able to fall asleep. It feels like you're going insane, and you would give almost anything to just get some peace.
Thank you, thank you, thank you, Dr Walker (and Dr Mike for giving him the stage)! After being told my entire life that I'm wrong to go to bed between 1-2 am and wake up around 9-10 am (luckily, I am privileged to have a job that usually allows that), I feel so vindicated by this!
Accidentally fell asleep while trying out remote work, so this couldn’t have come at a better time! Covid was great at helping me learn that my ideal wake up time is 12-1am, so overnight shifts or super early work shifts work best for me
This all rings true. I work overnights and sleep during the day, and I've always had a hard time sleeping at night. If I could, I would. You can imagine how hard it was back when I was in school and always had to be awake, not only during the day, but in the early morning.
I love this guy, I’ve almost finished reading his book “Why We Sleep”. Very much recommend it to any laymen who love science and interested in knowing more about the whys of sleep and how the lack of it affects us. It’s quite scary too when you realize just how much depends on a good night of sleep.
This is such an interesting topic! I was a night owl during high school but became an extreme morning person in college. Now I feel like my brain shuts off around 6 pm so I need to finish all productive work by then. My gym sessions have to be in the early morning (5-7) and I have a hard time sleeping in. Even if I go to bed later than usual, I wake up at my usual time and have to force myself back to sleep or start the day.
It would be fun to listen to a discussion about this topic with a perspective on those diagnosed with ADHD/ADD. I have been diagnosed with it and that tends to be the main culprit for my poor sleeping habits and delayed sleep - but I'm also privileged to be able to work from home and set my own schedule, so I can adhere to what my body wants me to do as opposed to what society expects from me.
Yup, exactly this. I also don't doubt a lot of the people experiencing this or in this comment section might have undiagnosed ADHD or smth else causing it, tbh x-x
I remember when I first did night shifts at the hospital as a nursing student. It felt so easy and natural for me. I didn't have that consistent tiredness the entire shift as I did with day shifts.
Hello Stephanie 👋 how are you doing today hope you're having a wonderful day?
Thanks for having Dr Walker on the channel. Love his book, Why We Sleep.
This was fascinating to listen to, I'll have to listen to the full video on his other channel. I think more should be done with medications negatively impacting sleep such as SSRIS from my own personal experience they make you drowsy during the day & unable to fall or stay asleep at night.
This video was extremely helpful for me right now. I am currently in the process of going off of oxazepam, which has been detrimental to my sleep schedule. Realizing that I'm going to bed too early, causing insomnia and more anxiety and panic attacks, I can now actually try to adjust my sleep schedule to accommodate my coming off of the meds. So, thanks for this!
I don't really have a preference when I go to sleep or wake up...I just let my body do what it wants at this point.
I am normally in bed around midnight and wake up at 6:40 AM every morning even on my days off.
I do nap throughout the day but I have a lot of health issues and have problems falling asleep/staying asleep. (Stomach issues, muscle cramps, tension, sleep apnea etc)
Omg I need to show this to everyone in my life who shame me for my sleep schedule. I am glad there is more research about this topic and hope that it can change how society is some day
Watching this at 1:21am and finally feeling like someone understands!! Thank you for highlighting this issue Dr Mike. More conversations need to be had around this topic. I’ve struggled since my teens (I’m not in my 40s) and people keep telling me I “just need to get used to waking up earlier”
The world is always better with Dr. Mike in it. He just makes the water better Place by being himself!
Thank you so much for this conversación, I have always feel so misundestarted whenever I’ve tried to explain that I can’t sleep even when I’m exhausted. Thank you do much to the both of you ❤
As a night owl and 2nd year attending Family Physician, I struggle the most with keeping up with the day to day patient load & documentation. The struggle with sleep I have further burdens the uphill battle of daily practice. I appreciate the candid way you discuss each of these struggles. I will remember to watch this again when I find the workload hopeless or feel inadequate as a physician. Thank you Dr. Mike.
Maybe if you can manage a private practice, you can adjust your hours to be later and help patients with later schedules too? I know easier said than done.
This has been a VERY helpful video regarding the Morning Bird and Night Owl problem. I've always had a rough time with mornings myself, depending on how early, though I figured out years ago when my best sleep times were and that it was related to my biorhythms. I have a friend that I've known for years, who is rarely asleep before the sun is up, has struggled for years with the world not tolerating her being a Night Owl and telling her to change. She's tried, and failed miserably for decades. Like me, she's glad to see that they finally have scientific proof that it isn't her fault that she's a Night Owl.
Thank you so much for listening patiently to this guy talking. I've seen so many interviews where the host interrupts with their own anecdotes that it's so refreshing to just get to listen to what they have to say! I wish my GP was as patient at listening
This was wonderfully insightful 🤓
This video is very enlightening! I’m definitely one who cannot sleep “like a normal person”. Constant sleep issues not being able to fall asleep at a “decent time” which makes it extremely difficult to get up in the morning.
Hi Cheryl 👋,how are you feeling today hope you're having a great day
Very informative video, thank you❤
Definitely will listen to the full podcast on Spotify
I have had awful insomnia since I was 8. Some of it is down to what is discussed here. I find it easier to fall asleep after 3 or 4am. I find it easiest to wake around 2-3pm. I don't have much energy (due to health issues), but when I do get bursts of energy, it's usually around 9 or 10pm, sometimes later.
I'm lucky that, for the most part, my job allows me to start later in the day, so I'm able to get sleep sometimes (when the insomnia itself lets me) but if I had to get up early (like at uni, I often was up at 630am) I'd have had little to no sleep. But my body wouldn't get the message that it needed to sleep at a different time, because it wanted to sleep after 4am, it didn't matter if I'd been awake for a day (or 3) at this point.
I must say, I tried CBT along with many other things with no luck. But I love that I can help some people, and if those people can't get help,.that is great
As someone who is not only a night owl, but suffers from severe nightmares and ptsd due to past trauma, being forced to wake up early is almost impossible. I literally have to drag myself out of bed to do anything in the mornings and even the early afternoons at times due to the trouble sleeping, even if my schedule allows me to sleep during my ideal times, which is like 5/6am to 1/2pm
Great talk! Explains why I have always been a night owl and had hard early mornings when I used to do a corporate job and in my early twenties doing early morning hospitality shifts.
I love waking up at 6 AM, I always have a little time to myself, maybe watch the sun rise and drink my tea on the porch. It feels like the world belongs to me and nature, and it's so nice and quiet
DR. MIKE LIKED MY COMMENT AND THEN UNLIKED IT 😭😭😭
Loved this! Everything discussed from the difficulties of being an evening chronotype to the "tired but wired" phenomenon just made me feel so seen and so validated with my chronic sleep struggles. Thanks for making this video 🙏
As a student who is sleep deprived, this video actually somehow helped me. T
As a nurse early in my career I was scheduled to work 7to3 (days), 3to11 (evenings) and 11to7 (nights) sometimes within a 10 day stretch. Talk about mental health! I finally went to my first Nurse Manager and told her I was not functioning very well with what I considered crazy scheduling which she set up. So she did change my schedule so that over each monthly time sheet I worked days/evenings or days/nights which made all the difference in my ability to get enough quality sleep. I am a night owl which my mother was also but had a father who got up with the birds. I still need an alarm clock to awaken me before 10 AM.
So glad I am retired-whew. I lasted 40 years at the bedside and kept my sanity!
Honestly I am very happy you have shared this. I have always struggled with insomnia and I find a lot of people don’t get it. I always get question “Why were you awake until midnight, you need to get some sleep to have a better day.” If I could fall asleep sooner I would. I always joke to myself that I am a warewolf or a vampire and just don’t know it yet. It makes the whole situation feel lighter. It is hard on my mental health because I feel so guilty, and intern that makes it harder to sleep. Hearing this information makes me feel less guilty for all of it. I can’t wait until we know more. Thank you.
Sleep is an incredibly important thing. I so appreciate this content. Thank you, Doctor Mike.
Hello Angela 👋, how are you feeling today hope you're having a wonderful?
All of my life I've just been told I'm lazy but I can't fall asleep naturally until the sun rises. I get enough sleep once I'm asleep but getting to sleep I just can't seem to drift off unless the sun has risen.
This video is so incredibly important. Very well done. More people need to hear this. We need to talk and discuss sleep issues more, because nobody talks about this while it is effecting our lives so much.
Im a Night owl. I am productive and creative at night. But also I need to wake up early in the morning for school. I do not have sleep insomnia, I can fall asleep pretty easily. But only very late, so the result is, that I just sleep less. I know this isn’t healthy as well, but I guess i am a person that doesn’t need too much sleep in general and i kinda adjusted to my situation. But still, even if I had like one hour more in the morning to sleep, it would be better.
I am a TH-camr, so I'm a NIGHT LARK 🤪
Happy you had a conversation with him. I listened to his masterclass about sleep. Time well spent. You learn so much.
I listened to Matt Walker on JRE! Very knowledgeable and entertaining to hear. Glad you had him on!
I spent most of my adult life tired and in need of constant naps because of the need to be at work early. Since COVID, I have been blessedly free of that and my typical sleep times have moved to 3am-10:30am. I get so much more done.
When I was a teenager, I often pulled late nights having fun, so I am sure that messed things up pretty bad after multiple years of doing it. Then I joined the military and for 5 years I spent allot of time pulling 36-48-hour shifts with maybe a couple hours thrown in here or there and travelling often back and forth between time zones. Then I deployed and my job was legitimately operating during the night between 11pm to 11am. Leaving the military I have had all kinds of mental health related issues, so I am purposely up at night and try my best to sleep during at least the early day/afternoon. Less people are out and about, less activity around me, and quietness of the night helps me be able to get work done and cope with issues better. Does this make me an actual "night owl"? I don't know, I do not recall ever having issues prior to my military service going to sleep at night and getting up, but that could have been youth resiliency. Right now, there are allot of environmental and mental issues that makes being up at night better to tell if it is a natural preference or necessity of circumstance.
Not me crying watching this video finding out I might actually be normal and don't need to be fixed 😭
I've been a night owl my whole life and I'm so much happier when I sleep during the day, I have been trying to fix it for years now and it's caused so much stress and pain in my life! Hearing this is earth shaking for me! Thank you Dr Mike for having this man on to discuss this, absolutely changed my outlook on so much!
Very interesting. I had assumed there was a genetic component since I'm a night owl and it seems to run on my mother's side (she's a night owl and my grandma was one as well), so it's nice to hear that confirmed.
I do agree that things are biased to morning people and I wish that would change. "Normal" work hours are 8/9-5 and so I end up getting less sleep than I should for most weekdays (if I try to force my self to bed early I experience the sleep onset insomnia Professor Walker mentioned). Even things like exercise groups can be problematic. A majority of triathlon or running or similar training groups meet super early mornings for workouts. The assumption being that to be an endurance athlete you have to be a morning person when for us night owls that is one of the worst times to exercise. If I force a morning workout I'm usually sluggish and it's not a good workout. Afternoons or evenings (after work) work a lot better with my natural energy levels.
I wish people could just work when they want to (if you have a job that isn't customer facing). I'm a morning person and at my last job, I couldn't start before 8. It sucked. I wasted my most productive hours on simple stuff like laundry and tidying up. Now that I can start and leave when I want to, it's so much better for everyone. Sure, when my last two coworkers rock up at 10am, they do get the occasional jokes, since everyone else has been there since at least 7:30 but I have to deal with jokes on the same level when I leave at 4.
This way is just better for everyone.
I've never had a physician or therapist express acceptance of my natural sleep patterns - SO nice to hear there is evidence that it is natural to be a night owl!
Oh yes. This is good content 👌 I am a night owl. I've been that way since I was a kid. I would be sent to bed as a kid but I'd just lie awake for at least an hour before falling asleep. My body won't let me go to sleep before 2am these days and it's incredibly hard to fight against that natural tendency. Although curiously, my mental health seems to suffer more on this schedule. So I do try to actually get up earlier in the day so that I get that early light. I often seem to mentally feel better. But if I'm not constantly monitoring all these sleep hygiene factors, my schedule will naturally slip back to 2am-10am. My nervous system is definitely hyperactive too though. I do get that tired but wired sensation sometimes. But I also have ADHD so sometimes I don't actually feel stressed or anything, I just can't get my brain to shut up about stupid stuff. It's like listening to a radio that keeps switching stations and the switch is broken so you can't shut it off 🤣
Same here!
Med student who was sticking their head in a freezer due to tachycardia, nausea,vomiting told my physician who diagnosed me with tachycardia and htn…just prescribed metoprolol…no family hx, under 30 when it started…did DBT for anxiety and THERE learned more about vagal stimulation and WHY I was sticking my head in a cooler to feel better! Blew my mind that no one in the medical field even suggested my physical symptoms could be tied to my stress level and an overactive sympathetic response…just a huge eye opener in how far we still need to go AND how important it is to think holistically as providers. Meds absolutely are critical but so is addressing the underlying pathophysiology/cause….
Hey doc
My friend wondered why her hands always has poor circulation?
her hands turn pale and vibrates
Thx doc 😊
I suffer from a list of problems including diabetes, PTSD, high blood pressure and depression among them. I have worked nearly my entire life at night. I was injured on the job over 20 years ago that permanently put me out of work. Ever since I've suffered from insomnia. I did do a sleep study for which after 2 hours I fell into an unrestful sleep waking up every hour or two and fighting to get back to sleep.
The sleep study Dr. suggested that I needed to retrain my sleep habits. I finally went to a mental health professional for my depression and he eventually put me on sleeping pills. Even with the pills it took a long time to regulate my sleep into anywhere near a normal pattern. I believe wholeheartedly he saved my life.
"If you were on an island and had no requirement to wake up at a specific time, then when would you go to bed?"
Ooooooh, bad question for me to answer! If I'm in natural light, then I would go to sleep an hour after sunset, no matter what. If I'm in artificial light, however, then I go to bed later and later while waking up later and later.
I’m an evening person and throughout school and my 9 to 5 job I always felt terrible. I had sleeping issues, I was tired all the time, headaches everyday... And after all these years I never got used to going to bed and waking up early. I decided to switch jobs and work shifts and for me it helped so much! I only have to wake up early twice a week or so. If I can’t sleep early it’s okay because it’s just once or twice a week that I have less sleep. And most colleagues want to work early so they switch out their evening shifts with me.
Now comes the real challenge of convincing my family that these facts exist and that not everyone should wake up at 6 a.m.
I suffered (highlight SUFFERED) with insomnia for many years especially when I was younger. I'd be awake for days during the week (because of school) and sleep during daytime hours on the weekends. I always felt like staying up late (until early hours in the morning) but because I was forced to attend activities during the day I could never sleep when I was able to sleep. When I went out into the world, I finally found relief when I started working graveyard shifts. I never felt better in my life!
Oh man, the most rested I've ever felt at work was when I worked graveyard. And that was despite somewhat poor sleep quality caused by my very loud home environment at that time. Even with those very real disruptions I was *still* more rested than when I was getting up at the asscrack of dawn to go to school or work day shift jobs during hours my body seems to think it should be sleeping. And I felt less sick all the time! I could wake up and eat if I wanted to.
Hi Doctor Mike, there is a comedy medical TV show that just had it's final ever episode, which would be great for you to review next it is called Doc Martin, it's a British comedy drama, he was a vascular surgeon, but becomes a GP (family medicine Doctor same as you), the show is medically accurate, and to top it off it is hilarious.
dr mike his tired but wired point was so accurate...i just passed high school and currently preparing for college entrance exams....during these last 2-3 months im so stressed all the time with so much to study that ive noticed the same thing that my brain tells me to sleep but when i go to sleep i have this anxiety and an urge to study....and not only this i stay indoors most of the time studying that ive lost sense of time.......i think this will only get fixed once i clear that exam...for now i go to bed only after 24 hrs of waking up basically when not only my mind but my body cant stay awake
As someone whos Neurodivergent ive never had a sleep pattern or a time where i sleep best it just keeps moving not just over long periods of time but day to day i wonder what this will have to say about that
As someone who has “non 24 sleep wake disorder” please look it up and see if it sound like what you have. Your the second person in the comments who has described something like N24 and it’s rare disorder. Then again sleep it took me 7 year to finally get diagnosed so sleep is definitely not taken as seriously as it should be and there r probably a lot of people undiagnosed.
I actually did that experiment, not with an island but with unable to work due to disability, for some 15 years, and this is what happened to my circadian rhythm: it completely shattered. Meaning I wasn't just going to bed and waking up later, I lost any sense of rhythm at all. Total chaos. Now I'm trying real hard to adjust myself to society's system because I know now I can change and improve, and maybe be able to work one day, but my sleep is what I struggle with the most. What I've learned from that is that with total freedom and no responsibility, you lose rhythm and routine because there is no need for it. I think our bodies are built to adapt, and are great at it, but that our minds tend to instead reject adaptation, because of fearing/disliking change.
I can diagnose myself with that I seek the instant gratification of staying up at night when the world is calm and there's no responsibilities, because that's what I allowed myself for so long, until I suffered the long term consequences of fucked sleep. And now changing this is difficult because I have to re-train my brain to sacrifice instant satisfaction for the sake of long term satisfaction and health. I know that if I just went to bed when I actually start feeling tired, at roughly 10-11pm and then woke up 7-8h later in the morning, and give myself adequate rest, food, exercise and mental stimulation throughout the day, it does not matter which time of the day I sleep. What matters is adaptation, discipline, routine, healthy life choices and motivation. As boring as that may seem, I really think it's that simple.
But yes, I agree that some people (including myself) feel more energic in the evening than in the morning and that can make it harder to motivate onself to an earlier sleep cycle. Because yeah, we lose out on our strength. But I think if you're healthy, this shouldn't be a big deal.
Dad: You should wake up early like me
Also my Dad at 2pm: 💤💤💤
I remember I did a research project on chronotypes during college. It’s very fascinating
If I feel sleepy I will go to bed
My bf and I were just arguing about our sleep patterns, and how they're dif, this morning. This helped us be more understanding of each other's. Instersing video, thanks!