Therefore it is aggravating advice to constantly receive, from those for whom it worked, to those for whom it won't.
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).
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.
"Thanks, I'm cured."
Not giving him advice because it might not help someone is the worst because it guarantees that it will not help him.
On balance I weigh the damage of that as more negative than the absence of advice that might help.
Have you tried mindfulness? /s
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.
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.
[1] https://www.sleepfoundation.org/how-sleep-works/chronotypes
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).
