this post was submitted on 07 Jul 2023
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Seriously, though - those studies are horrible, mostly because human research has shit controls.
Like, no shit that going to bed early and rising early makes you healthier and more productive in a society where type A personalities rule the world and operate on a 9-5. You either get the dregs of work, or you drag yourself out against your natural schedule to fit theirs. You're constantly tired and that has well demonstrated effects on health. Support systems also work on 9-5, so you're still screwed.
For anything they say to be valid, they'd need a control society run by 4p-12a work hours, so you could go to bed at 2-4a and get a full 8 hours and a relaxed morning ramp up like all those type As do today; then they'd have to demonstrate that the type As still did better in this control society.
FFS, to do financially well you need to be an early riser on East Coast time! To line up with the stock market! If the stock market ran 3-12 PST, how do you think those New York early birds would do with a 230am bad news dump? They'd be hours behind the Pacific night owls who could execute trades when they're coherent and focused and would make more money on those trades.
All they currently show is "lining up with the ruling sleep schedule is easier on your life".
Not to invalidate your point, but I just want to qualify and add on to your comment.
I'm a researcher studying the molecular causes behind circadian rhythms (ie, what exactly does our cells do that gives us circadian rhythms?) and how circadian rhythms affect our ability to fight off infections. Over the past 10 or so years, we've come to realize that circadian rhythms affect a lot of our biology, and a lot of its effects are directly measurable and not psychological. (That is to say, we have a direct, molecular cause-and-effect for how circadian rhythms affect our cells.) Having a messed up sleep schedule has been shown to mess up your circadian clock, and that has pretty bad downstream effects on how well your body can resist infections.
That being said, some people are natural night owls, and your body is (supposed to be able to) naturally adjust its circadian clock to match your external time. If you're a night owl, then forcing yourself to stay awake in the morning/going to bed early at night is itself a disruption to your circadian clock. The best that I would recommend, if you do want to go to bed earlier, is to dim the lights at night. Your circadian clock uses light to measure the time, and you could be inadvertently tricking your circadian clock into thinking that it's earlier than it actually is.
Edit: Also, felt like I need to add, researching circadian rhythms is probably one of the most hypocritical things you can do as a work, because my sleep schedule is mad fucked and I know exactly how it's affecting my body and I can't do anything about it
I agree with what you're saying about light and timings. I don't have any reason to disagree with that and I dare say it might even be more productive to rise earlier etc
But I know I'm not the only one who struggles to conform to a morning schedule. Is it hard wired into me? I don't know. But I know a night schedule is what I always gravitate to.
So realistically my choice is either a comfortable night schedule, or a messed up morning one where I accrue a sleep debt and pay it off at the end of the week. I think everyone would agree that's suboptimal.
I also want to address the conflation of night owls with "messed up" sleep. 8 hours every night is not a messed up schedule, definitely not compared with 5 hours every night.
Im just like that. Had to get to wake up at 6 am to get to uni. Couldn't even eat until 11 without getting extreme bowel cramps that would get me "throne bound".
I can't focus well before 10-11 am whether I am working or not. It's like you woke a regular person up at 2-4 and told them to get dressed, eat something and go to work.
I did it though. Consistently for months in a row for uni or work. Constantly reacting weird to stuff because smh my feelings were always imbalanced, constantly feeling hazy. Every time, without fail, when the summer break came, as soon as I didn't have to force my body awake at 6, it would default to going to bed at 4 am and waking up at 12-13. I'd suddenly have infinite patience, stable emotions, focus like a machine! I was genuinely another person.
Fast forward to now where I can distribute my workload however I please and suddenly I not only work faster and more accurate, but more hours. Had I stayed at a "get up at 6" job, I'd have been called a lazy absent-minded uninvolved guy my whole life. Now I am easily top 5 most reliable in my office and people appreciate it.