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0 pointslumb633y ago0 comments

My personal hypothesis is “night owl”-ism is not as widespread as it seems (not to say it is not existent), but instead, our society makes it easier to be a night owl. I have had times in my life where I am out of bed at 5, at 8, at 11, and all have felt reasonable at the time. But definitely it is harder to be out of bed at 5 in today’s society.

Artificial lights, entertainment, modern lifestyle, and socializing all keep us up later than we ever would be in our natural state. How many night owls do you think there would be if we did not work indoors all day, had no light past sundown, no television or sporting events to watch, no bars or parties to attend, and no addictive activities to engage in? When considering this, it is easy to conclude that one is a night owl.

Just as the night owl feels ostracism for being unable to perform at early meetings and suffers throughout their youth, many early birds feel similar ostracism, because they want to sleep when night life is coming alive. I imagine these “coincidences” create vastly different outcomes in life for people based on their biological inclinations. It’s something we should be cognizant of.

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18 comments · 5 top-level

nonethewiser3y ago· 7 in thread

“Night owl” does not describe some innate biological reality. It’s a matter of preference and habit.

lumb63OP3y ago

To the contrary, there are genetic changes that correlate to different chronotypes [0]. I find interesting the hypothesis that chronotypes arose as a survival advantage because tribes could more naturally sleep in shifts to stay safe during the night time. I do think, however, the genetic component is overstated. I agree with you that it is more habit than anything, and lifestyle.

We as a society should do more research to determine how large the habit versus genetic components are, or publicize the information and act on it more if it is out there already. If we are fighting an unwinnable battle trying to adjust people in opposition to their genetics, we should change our practices. Similarly, if we are instilling a defeatist mindset into people (e.g. “I can’t do that, I’m not an early bird”) which cannot be justified by science, we should change our perception.

[0]: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6084759/

edgyquant3y ago

The fact it’s called a correlation shows it is not a fact that there are biological night owls.

2 more replies

CommieBobDole3y ago

I'm not sure that's true, at least based on personal experience. I'm a long-time night owl who has been getting up relatively early for work purposes the last couple of years. I still do my best work late at night and struggle a little on complex tasks before noon.

It seems like, while I can adjust my sleep schedule to whatever, the actual cycles of alertness have their own schedule that doesn't want to move.

peyton3y ago

I think with genetic sequencing we’re way past this belief.

edgyquant3y ago

We are not. There are some suggestions that they might be biological but it is not a settled matter at all.

1 more reply

908B64B1973y ago

Without a clear biochemical pathway (or an absence of) that's just an opinion, as weak as most the the current research in humanities.

dahinds3y ago

This is false, the biological pathways that underly circadian rhythms have been mapped out in great detail in multiple organisms.

yamtaddle3y ago· 5 in thread

BINGO.

There are probably some genetic night-owls or something, but I bet 95+% of night owls would be "cured" in a week flat if they were allowed no glowing screens past sundown and their typical stupid-bright room lighting were replaced with warm-temp handheld lights at ~2-4 candle equivalent (actual, not "candle power")

Modern sleeplessness is an epidemic born of hyper-palatable on-tap nigh-infinite entertainment, and far-too-bright nighttime lighting, more than anything else. It's mainly due to how incredibly stimulating our home environments are now, unprecedented ever before. Even an emperor didn't have this kind of entertainment available 24/7 on a whim—the closest equivalent would be an emperor in the middle of hosting a huge, expensive festival, but we've got that at our fingertips every hour of every day. No fucking wonder we can't sleep!

MavisBacon3y ago

I get where you are going, but there are a few issues with this, the first being that no screens after sundown is a wildly unreasonable ask in 2023 (especially for the types of folks who frequent this board), at least in my opinion. A lot of the talk around screen time before bed also fails to factor the type of activity being done on the screen, and what type of screen is being used. Shopping on your laptop vs reading on a fully dimmed phone screen are entirely different ends of the spectrum in terms of stimulation and significantly different in terms of light emitted and screen motion

That said, I’ve found switching to warm dimming circadian lighting at night has been a huge help and is an easy enough solution

k__3y ago

I usually sleep 9h from 3 to 12.

But, when I was on a conference last year, where I had to get up early for events for a whole week, my rythm changed and I slept from 12 to 9.

This kept going on for two weeks or so, then I was back to my old schedule.

OkayPhysicist3y ago

A better question is: why is this something that needs to be cured? Why cater society's schedule to people who wake up at "too fucking early" O'clock, instead of either A) having flexible hours for jobs that support it (There's no reason why my office needs to have everyone work the same 8 hours), or B) a middle ground that doesn't involve grating against the preferred sleep schedule of a significant portion of the population.

Somehow we let society moralize "the early risers are Gods chosen people" and the rest of us just need to put up with it.

908B64B1973y ago

> I bet 95+% of night owls would be "cured" in a week flat if they were allowed no glowing screens past sundown and their typical stupid-bright room lighting were replaced with warm-temp handheld lights at ~2-4 candle equivalent (actual, not "candle power")

It's an interesting theory. Problem is, without a biochemical pathway it means nothing.

Melatonin secretion & basal temperatures are both interesting avenues for research. Blue light seems to be a favorite as well.

yamtaddle3y ago

It's not all biochemistry, much of it's psychology. Unless we're going with "psychology is just biochemistry".

ye-olde-sysrq3y ago· 1 in thread

I think there's a lot to be said for habits swaying it but I think "biological" night-owl-ism is definitely a thing.

I've always been a night owl. The most in-tune I've ever felt with my biological clock is when, one summer in college, I ended up going to bed at 5-6am and waking up around 3-4pm. I had friends on IRC who lived in new zealand who I ran a minecraft server with and did minecraft plugin coding with (enabled by the weird sleep cycle, not caused by it).

College and school etc always had me feeling exhausted. I maintain that I must have some innate mathematical ability because my 7:30 AM algebra 2 class in high school was performed exclusively by my subconscious as my brain got an extra hour of sleep regardless of what the external world was trying to impose upon it.

Anyway, blah blah night owl, then I had kids. Both the father and mother have a lot of hormonal changes (obviously the mother moreso but it's still nontrivial for the father) and all of a sudden I was able to wake up with the baby at 6:30am after 7 hours of shitty sleep with relatively no problem. Where was this in high school?? Well, the sleep part, not the baby part. But I digress.

Baby becomes toddler and start sleeping 10-12 hours at night, hormones recede, normalcy restores, and suddenly waking up to go to work at even 9am resumes being mild-to-moderately painful.

Have next baby. Cycle repeats.

Currently typing this having gotten up at 7 with baby #3 so this is top of mind.

mlsu3y ago

This is total speculation on my part, but it seems like there would be a strong evolutionary pressure, at a group level, to select for a mixture of night owls and early risers. The "night owls" stay up to watch for predators to keep the group safe. Those groups without some late sleeper DNA ultimately get selected out.

tokipin3y ago

This is somewhat along the lines of my current theory, which is that night owls vs early birds is about sensitivity to the environment. The reason night owls stay up late is not because it's late, but because it becomes quiet enough that the environment they're sensitive to stops taking attention and they can direct that attention inward. According to this theory, it would make sense for introverts to be more affected by this as they would accumulate an "introversion deficit" throughout the day.

the__alchemist3y ago

I wonder what role widespread caffeine consumption has to play in this.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse

0 comments

18 comments · 5 top-level

nonethewiser3y ago· 7 in thread

“Night owl” does not describe some innate biological reality. It’s a matter of preference and habit.

lumb63OP3y ago

[0]: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6084759/

edgyquant3y ago

The fact it’s called a correlation shows it is not a fact that there are biological night owls.

2 more replies

CommieBobDole3y ago

It seems like, while I can adjust my sleep schedule to whatever, the actual cycles of alertness have their own schedule that doesn't want to move.

peyton3y ago

I think with genetic sequencing we’re way past this belief.

edgyquant3y ago

We are not. There are some suggestions that they might be biological but it is not a settled matter at all.

1 more reply

908B64B1973y ago

Without a clear biochemical pathway (or an absence of) that's just an opinion, as weak as most the the current research in humanities.

dahinds3y ago

This is false, the biological pathways that underly circadian rhythms have been mapped out in great detail in multiple organisms.

yamtaddle3y ago· 5 in thread

BINGO.

MavisBacon3y ago

That said, I’ve found switching to warm dimming circadian lighting at night has been a huge help and is an easy enough solution

k__3y ago

I usually sleep 9h from 3 to 12.

But, when I was on a conference last year, where I had to get up early for events for a whole week, my rythm changed and I slept from 12 to 9.

This kept going on for two weeks or so, then I was back to my old schedule.

OkayPhysicist3y ago

Somehow we let society moralize "the early risers are Gods chosen people" and the rest of us just need to put up with it.

908B64B1973y ago

It's an interesting theory. Problem is, without a biochemical pathway it means nothing.

Melatonin secretion & basal temperatures are both interesting avenues for research. Blue light seems to be a favorite as well.

yamtaddle3y ago

It's not all biochemistry, much of it's psychology. Unless we're going with "psychology is just biochemistry".

ye-olde-sysrq3y ago· 1 in thread

I think there's a lot to be said for habits swaying it but I think "biological" night-owl-ism is definitely a thing.

Baby becomes toddler and start sleeping 10-12 hours at night, hormones recede, normalcy restores, and suddenly waking up to go to work at even 9am resumes being mild-to-moderately painful.

Have next baby. Cycle repeats.

Currently typing this having gotten up at 7 with baby #3 so this is top of mind.

mlsu3y ago

tokipin3y ago

the__alchemist3y ago

I wonder what role widespread caffeine consumption has to play in this.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse