The Effect of Sleep on Happiness

Re:The Effect of Sleep on Happiness by keerthiko on Wednesday July 18, 2018 @04:35PM (#17561849)

I have the opposite problem. I'm an incurable night owl, despite having tried to shift. I thought I too would grow out of it, but I'm moving into my 30s next year and it's going stronger than ever. Such that the last time I tried to fix my schedule and be up at 0800 (by going to bed at 0100) I fainted at my desk and had to go nap, and return to staying up till 0400 and waking at 1130-1230. So it's hard for me to maintain any professional commitments before noon, which kind of sucks. Luckily my cofounders are very understanding and honestly kind of appreciate that I get a lot of work done between the end and the start of their day after we sync up.

That said, the time from 0000-0330 is amazing. For the same reasons people like to wake up really early (3+ hours before going to work), this time is (human, coworker and outdoor capitalist) distraction free, I can't run boring errands outside, so I can focus on creative work at home. It's great that it can double up as late-night partying/dating/gaming/social time. But other than maybe once-a-week for gaming, I use it for the others once a month or rarer.

There are some social costs however, besides the professional one mentioned earlier. I'm a complete corpse when trying to make morning weekend plans (breakfast/brunch, hikes, events). I get to be known as "that guy who only gets up at noon". Which makes me wonder, is waking up at 0400 so much more socially upstanding that going to bed at 0400 if I'm using my isolationist time mostly the same way? Waking up early is associated with discipline and diligence, staying up late is associated with childishness and immaturity and lack of discipline.

I't all just a trade-off. I suppose one can train for schedule flexibility, but I love my late nights.

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Re:The Effect of Sleep on Happiness by jpmoyn on Wednesday July 18, 2018 @05:20PM (#17562160)

I think there is some moral notion ingrained in me that staying up late is just a bad thing, and being up early is a good thing. It feels so satisfying waking up really early and having a peaceful morning alone, before the hustle and bustle of the day begins. I see the parallel you draw to late night, but it just seems less wholesome to me for some reason.

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Re:The Effect of Sleep on Happiness by keerthiko on Wednesday July 18, 2018 @06:23PM (#17562549)

Yup, I hope you and others who share your way introspect as to why it seems that way, other than just because that's the social conditioning we receive.

Here are some (strawman?) arguments that support your view, but are they actually justified/true/not-true-for-staying-up-instead?

- it takes effort to build a habit of waking up early, therefore it's good

- the hardest workers i know wake up early, it must be integral to why they're productive

- college kids stay up late, and college kids lack discipline

- being out when the sun is up is healthy for you, so sleeping through sunlight is bad for you

I feel like if businesses operated from 12pm-12am instead of 9am-9pm, all these would be flipped in favor of staying up late =/

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Re:The Effect of Sleep on Happiness by rootusrootus on Wednesday July 18, 2018 @09:43PM (#17563416)

Those are some good arguments, though from my perspective it seems like it could be simpler.

For one, just like you can't get up early, some of us can't sleep in. Takes no effort for me to build up a habit of waking up early, my body just likes to wake up at 4:30AM. I go to bed relatively early because I'm going to be awake at 4:30AM either way so I might as well try to make a full night of sleep happen.

Other than that, I think there might be a bit of moral judgement going on, but I think it's just that the business day starts at 8:00AM and sleeping past that looks like lazy or luxury. One thing I like about working in tech is that there is less judgement there -- hell, if anything, I get more flack for waking up at the crack of dawn than my coworkers who get into the office at 10:30AM or 11:00. I'm not the only guy who gets into the office early but on my team I'm in the minority.

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Re:The Effect of Sleep on Happiness by mjevans on Wednesday July 18, 2018 @08:42PM (#17563213)

I feel like if that schedule happened what other countries do as a siesta would become a much longer primary sleep block, maybe broken up by some private time around sunset before a pre-work nap.

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Re:The Effect of Sleep on Happiness by Jill_the_Pill on Wednesday July 18, 2018 @08:16PM (#17563126)

Ha! As an early bird, I am often frustrated to have to wait until 9 or even 10 to get errands done!

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Re:The Effect of Sleep on Happiness by systemtest on Thursday July 19, 2018 @04:02AM (#17564574)

Look up DSPS / DSPD, you might “suffer” from this.

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Re:The Effect of Sleep on Happiness by tonyedgecombe on Thursday July 19, 2018 @05:44AM (#17564928)

You would think it should be easy to shift your sleeping window but that doesn't seem to be the case. Perhaps there is some evolutionary advantage to having part of the tribe awake early and part awake late.

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