That's all. Just curious cause I'm seriously considering just forcing myself to become an early riser.
And why? By choice or necessity?
I'm a night owl. Always have been, really. It's by choice. I find it nice to be up doing my own thing when most are asleep. It's peaceful. I want to start waking up early though. It makes the day feel so much longer. And I feel much more productive in the morning.
I thought I grew out of late nights since I've been going to work at nine. I still hate the morning but I can usually get up like an adult now. But I was just out of work for a little while and I drifted right back to staying up into the early morning. Night time is the right time.
I'm a night owl. I think it started while playing World of Warcraft when I was 12/13 years old. To join guilds and to gain experience, you had to play late (i.e. past 00:00) and you kinda wanted to, because the game was fun as hell. It continued through high school and college, even if I had stopped WoW. I never had a semester with "clean hours", that means where I start everyday at the same hour. It's been nearly 10 years that I didn't go to sleep before 00:00, with its consequences. I tried several times to change habits to wake up early, but without "clean hours", it's really hard. So for now, I stay awake till 1-2 am and have to wake up at 6:40 if college start at 8, or wake up at 10:40 if it starts at 12. I will try again to be an early bird when I finish college.
If there is sunlight in my room it is extremely difficult for me to sleep. As a result, I naturally awaken rather early. When I am in a stable sleeping pattern I usually rise around 7 a.m. without an alarm. I get tired early and am not one of those people who easily ignores being tired. I love waking up early and knowing there is a whole day ahead of me. I love the quiet and potential of a new morning. I love when it is 10 or 11 and I have already crossed many things off of my to-do list. Sometimes though I have trouble sleeping. Sometimes I love to stay up late. It is easier to be social later than to get work done but I have gotten real good solid work done, sometimes, in the solitude of night. I am an early morning bird person. But occasionally I subvert my nature and stay up most of the night instead.
My natural sleep rhythm seems to be 1am to 9 or 10am. I do love my sleep, though I also love the feeling of being productive and waking up early.
Early bird, for many of the same reasons listed by other users. It's nice to be awake when most people aren't, everywhere you go is more calm and relaxed. No crowds, no rush. No lines in the dining hall, no lines at the local cafe. Nobody else using the showers in the shared bathroom. There are almost countless benefits for a person like me who values a slow pace and a lack of people. I also feel more productive. My mind tends to fill up with distractions as I go through the day, if I start working on something early on in the day there's nothing else vying for my attention. I can spend some time getting stuff done before my daily obligations, or alternatively I can simply spend some time relaxing and wasting time.
I've been a night owl all my life, just to different degrees. At one point staying up to 10 was daring (somewhere around 7 or 8). Now I just stay up until 3 or 4 regularly. I just find it nicer that way. nemo is right, it makes the day seem much shorter.
Somehow I'm both.. during the week I get to bed around 11pm and midnight and get up to work at 6:20am and by the time I arrive at the time (around 7ish), I'm pretty much awake. But as soon as the weekend comes up, I stay up till 3 or 4am in the morning and sleep in. Two free days can already screw with my sleeping schedule. My natural rhythm seems to be sleeping from 5am to noon, at least this is what happens if I'm on vacation and I can be in bum-mode. After 2-3 days I stay up till the early morning and sleep till around lunch time. Surprisingly, getting up early works too, though. I guess I'm lucky that I only need 6.5-7 hours of sleep for the most time no matter when I get those hours.
It's becoming increasingly obvious that I won't have the luxury of anything resembling a routine for any extended period of time in my life. Hah, and I haven't started grad school yet. Fuck.
Early morning is the best as I've said before. There's nothing like beginning the day with the sunrise. But find your own rhythm. If there's people in your life who like to talk, it's wonderful to be with them late, late at night when thoughts move away from the workaday world towards the esoteric. But there's no point forcing yourself into anything. The body has its own needs and rhythms. However, if you want to become an early riser, sleep this spring in an east-facing room. Open the curtains and let the light in. There's a lot of bioscience around light and darkness. Google around a bit. They say darkness produces melatonin to help us become drowsy.
The theory behind dawn simulation is that early morning light signals have a much greater effect on the body’s biological clock than light signals given at other times during a day.
I've always felt better and more productive/enthusiastic when I'm awake late into the night. By contrast, I feel pretty terrible in the morning. That said, I've been waking up at 05:00 and going to sleep at 21:00-22:00 for several years now. A combination of choice/necessity - most of my clients are several timezones ahead, I like to be awake before they get into the office. I also find it helpful to wake up before family/friends are awake; I don't think interacting with people just after I've woken up (and am thus in a bad mood) is conducive to good relationships. Sometimes circumstance forces me to stay awake longer than usual, and then I'm suddenly reminded again of how much better my brain works late at night. I haven't yet tried going back to staying up late, but sometimes I'm tempted.