<p>It’s interesting to hear about Obama’s habits: He’s an early riser, goes to the gym, gets to work early. Bush also was an early riser.</p>
<p>Ben Franklin thought that early risers had an advantage – healthy, wealthy and wise, and so forth.</p>
<p>Is it true? Does anyone know any owls who are hugely successful?</p>
<p>My money would be on larks, though i can’t back it up.</p>
<p>This said somewhat defensively as an owl, though–
I almost feel it’s an inborn feature. I’ve always been a night person. After a mid-late afternoon lull in energy, I’m pretty zippy right up until bedtime (late). My favorite time of day is when afternoon turns into evening. I love that the sun is going down! Maybe I’m a vampire…
My father was a day person, my mother a night person (and at 84, still is). Of our four kids, S1 seems to have taken after me. </p>
<p>I seem to recall reading about a study that said we were basically wired one way or the other. I’m sure it can be changed by habit, but the tendency is there. It also said that larks usually feel they have the moral high ground. Hmmm. Actually, I’d prefer to be a morning person, but it just didn’t work out that way.</p>
<p>lspf72 - thank you for validating my life. No matter how many times I’ve tried, I cannot be a morning person… meaning, if I wake up too early, I feel it physically in my body. My heart rate goes up, my head feels foggy, etc. (I’m not a caffeine person so I can’t trick myself into being a morning person).</p>
<p>Just before reading this thread, I was about to post a question on the ongoing cardio thread. I’d always heard you shouldn’t exercise in the evening because it will keep you from falling asleep. But around 9-10PM, that’s when I feel like exercising. I don’t do it because I’ve been told it’s not good for sleep habits. It’s a rarity that I’m asleep before midnight, and usually it’s more like 2AM. But my work schedule allows that. However, this morning I had to go in for a 8:30AM meeting. I did manage to get to sleep before 1AM, and didn’t get up until 7:30, but when I got up, it was the most physically ill feeling for the first half hour or so. I absolutely cannot do anything that early in the morning that requires clear thinking, and be able to function the whole day. I can almost guarantee that, if I do not get enough sleep over a period of 2-4 nights, I will either get a cold sore, or get sick. So I have to sleep - I just can’t do it before midnight.</p>
<p>With my job, I occasionally (maybe once or twice a year) will get called out when it’s dark at night/morning. Our phone service is always mystified when they call me at 2AM, and apologize for waking me up, and I tell them they didn’t. I’d rather be called out at 2AM, than 7AM.</p>
<p>It’s not the best wiring to have, but I’ve learned I have to pay attention to how much sleep my body needs and respect it.</p>
<p>It depends on the definition of “success”. May be one has to be a lark to be a successful politician, but I have yet to meet a lark scientist. Everyone I’ve ever worked with were owls, and the ones who spent a lot of time moonlighting in the labs had very successful careers in their field.</p>
<p>Defensive owl checking in!</p>
<p>It really irritates me the way that people (family members, you know who you are!) seem to think that naturally waking up at 6 AM is a virtue. Yet the fact that they are bears to be around past 9 pm while I am still fully functioning is not seen as a virtue.</p>
<p>I’d pay good cash to end my insomnia but even when my sleeping is going well, my clock is one of waking up later and going to bed later. I say that someone had to make sure the fire didn’t go out overnight and they can thank my ancestors!</p>
<p>bunsenburner - sorry to break it to you, but my H is out of the house by 5:30AM, religiously, every morning. He usually gets home between 6-7PM and is in bed by 10PM, snoring by 10:15. However, he likes to go in early because he says it’s the only time he can get anything done without being interrupted by other people, so I guess that says all the other scientists aren’t in as early as he is; they must stay later.</p>
<p>teriwtt, I know a couple of folks like your husband. They do it for exactly the same reason - it is quiet in the labs at 6-7 am. Around 10, everyone starts piling in, and the labs are usually buzzing with life well past 9 pm. My H (also a scientist) discovered this trick, and to my horror, he decided to turn into a lark. So I am now a hybrid kind - I wake up at 5:30, but go to bed around 11:30 and toss and turn for another hour before falling asleep.</p>
<p>FDR and Churchill were owls and they drank allot too, as most owls are want to do. And they were the two most (goodly) important people of the 20th century.</p>
<p>teriwtt-- same here. On a regular work day, he usually wakes up between 4:30 and 5-- no alarm clock! </p>
<p>I have a very hard time waking up in the dark, and am at my all-time-nastiest when woken up too early.</p>
<p>Owl here - always loved to stay up late. I was the kid with the book and the flashlight under the covers. If I could sustain it, I’d go to bed at about 4am and sleep until 11 or noon. I have spent more of my life being successful than not. </p>
<p>With one big exception - when I’m on vacation. That is the only time I like to go to bed early and get up early.</p>
<p>Ah - we are in good company!
I can relate to just about every one of these posts. Should tell my H that I am joining a Defensive (or Proud?) Owls organization…! He tends to fall into pugmadkate’s virtuous early riser category. I spent a few evenings re-caulking and siliconing the shower and bathroom, and he never even knew because he was sound asleep through the whole thing.</p>
<p>lspf72 - sounds like me. I cleaned out the basement storage area a couple of weeks ago, but didn’t know he had planned to do it the next morning, so when he got up, he was surprised to see it had been done, and he’d been at home the whole time (but asleep). I often feel most productive at this hour. Pay bills, file stuff, get organized, etc. I’m NEVER interrupted. It’s nice.</p>
<p>You guys are showing me that there is a subset of owls - industrious owls. I am not an industrious owl. I like to read, sit in front of the computer, watch bizarre television shows and old movies, etc. Cleaning out closets - nah.</p>
<p>I was clearly separated from teriwtt at birth as we appear to keep the same schedule. My office schedule is different from everyone else @ work because I’m the night owl. I get SO much done from 2 pm - 8 pm-ish particularly after everyone else goes home!</p>
<p>The Christmas tree & all decorations came down and were packed away on a Friday night between the hours of 9 pm and about 3 am while I watched a movie On Demand.</p>
<p>I often wish to be a morning person but just don’t see that EVER happening!</p>
<p>maysixxmom - you never know. I was born in Texas!</p>
<p>Not only were my decorations put away during those hours, but they were also put up between those hours.</p>
<p>“It really irritates me the way that people (family members, you know who you are!) seem to think that naturally waking up at 6 AM is a virtue. Yet the fact that they are bears to be around past 9 pm while I am still fully functioning is not seen as a virtue.”</p>
<p>This is what really ****es me off. The same amount of sleep is had and yet it is somehow more virtuous to get it from 9 to 6 than from 12 to 9. My husband will nod off around 8 or 9 on the couch and then “defend” himself by stating how early he got up. Never mind that fact that we both got the same amount of sleep.</p>
<p>It does suck to be a night owl because of the way our world is set up; I’m just glad that my college freshman, who is a night owl like me, managed to get a schedule that works (earliest class at 10; 11 last semester). Those 8 am classes in my undergraduate days killed me.</p>
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<p>Oh I so agree with this! That absolutely matches what I’ve seen too…and had never really thought about it before.</p>
<p>Owls do NOT “drink a lot”. There is nothing wrong with doing your exercises later if you are staying up late- it’s a matter of not exercising just before going to bed. As a night person who always slept in on weekends and vacations it was a relief when my son was a late sleeping baby/child. I can’t imagine having to get up because children are up at the crack of dawn- what do they do before a 9 am school start? I was waking my son up at 8+ am for elementary school. The worst part of my long ago job was needing to be there early- I find it much easier to stay up late. I remember my mother was a nightowl also. I’d much rather stay up to finish something than get up early to do it. Notice how we nightowls are on CC in the middle of the night?</p>
<p>Notice the time the previous posts were all written – in what I call “the middle of the night,” and by owls, obviously! </p>
<p>Lark here. While I do have an appointment at 8:30 (only 10 minutes away), I got up at 6:30 anyway, “just because.” Best part of the day as far as I’m concerned.</p>
<p>Which bird needs the least sleep?</p>
<p>My theory is the most successful need very little of it, easily fall asleep as soon as their head hits the pillow, then sleep deeply and soundly, regardless of what is going on around them, until they awake - refreshed - six to seven hours later.</p>
<p>Obama could well be an example, as I personally never could have put in a day like Inauguration Day —> well into the wee hours of the next morning, and then been up and productive early the next morning.</p>