Natural working hours
Medical studies have concluded and I myself have seen the effect that working in the morning is better than in the afternoon. Many people say that they like working or studying at night because all is quiet and there’s nothing to distract them. I used to be like that, but then I tried going to bed regularly at 10pm and getting up at 6am. I can safely say that it works and you will feel much better all the time overall. You will get much more done, and you will feel refreshed most of the time.
The reason few people actually convert to this lifestyle is that they miss the key word in the sentence, which is “regularly”. If you are used to a night lifestyle don’t expect to be able to convert in a day or two. It takes at least a week, but you will feel better by day three at least.
There are many benefits, possibly the best is that it allows more flexibility. Sometimes I am up until 3am or 4am (poker party), and I can still get up reasonably early (8-10), but more importantly, I can sleep well at night afterwards. Getting up at 6am is also great because there are similarly few distractions, and you will feel much more alert.
I can’t really link to a study here, but I know that sleeping 7 hours going to bed before midnight is more restull than sleeping the same 7 hours, but going to bed after midnight. This has to do with certain body functions starting at determined times. Also, sunshine is an important factor in life, so the body’s bio-clock is set to beat in time with the natural start of the day.
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Actually it is simply untrue that this is a universal benefit. I myself am naturally nocturnal in that my body clock isn’t set the same way yours is and I’m neither a rarity or unusual. I spent years listening top other people repeating this same nonsense about ‘everybody should be diurnal’ and trying to force myself to work during the day and sleep at night, including the regularity that you believe is the universal wonder key. It never worked.
What did work however was applying that same regularity to my natural cycle and making sure that while I was active in the afternoon, evening and night, I achieved the same hours of sleep every day. Regularity of sleep is the no 1 need for restfulness but it does not always have to be at the age the Victorian mindset believes we all live at.
For years I would go to sleep at 6am, sleep for 7 / 8 hours and rise at 1 / 2 Pm for breakfast, each again at around 7 pm (everybody else was having supper when I had lunch so no worries there) and again around 3 am (when the taste buds are at their most sensitive by the way). I got more work done with less mistakes, I felt refreshed and more alert (no walking into doors from the perpetual tiredness of diurnal activity) and generally felt better.
I recently got married and had to switch back to the diurnal pattern a year ago to be in sync with my wife and the entire world and its grandmother has noticed I am no longer so energetic or attentive and I know that I only get a third of the worl done that I used to achieve with less quality..
Thankfully not everybody is the same as you suggest, and thats why we get conditions such as S.A.D. and why different humans need different amounts of sleep. A lot of the hearth wisdom we had foisted upon us by well meaning parents (Don’t read in poor light, eating before a bath makes you ill, everybody needs 8 hours sleep) is actually now being shown to be nonsense. Studies have even shown that without external signals (day and night) the human body is designed to operate at a 28 hour cycle despite the fact that we live on aplanet with a 24 hour cycle.
Hi Spikey!
Thanks for your comment, and you did address something I left out. I know there are a few people who don’t work like this, but that’s very rare. My girlfriend ALWAYS had a nightime lifestyle, when she was very young she once didn’t sleep for almost 5 days and once her parents got the fact that she does not need to sleep that much she always felt better.
The VAST majority of people though do work like this. There’s a good reason why your body feels better at daytime. For millions of years humans have been sleeping at night (no electricity) and being awake at daytime.
Let me make it clear, that for everything I write there are exceptions. Some people work best without any productivity tools, the are their best when everything is in chaos around them. I am giving tips to 90% of the people I hope.
The other 10% should leave comments
to clarify issues. Thanks again 