This night owl in me is coming out of the closet.

[Newai]

I happened upon this and was a little stunned how accurate it described what I was going through. While I'm not exactly interested in organizing against this perceived sleep discrimination, I was surprised at the effect this was having on my life, why I've been struggling so hard at work:

The most obvious example of night person discrimination is in the workplace. Traditionally, most employment is offered during the 9 to 5 business day. For many, working these hours is difficult, if not impossible. Yet, they are forced to do so. At what cost? They have difficulty getting to work on time. While at work, they are tired. They are more prone to make mistakes. They may be irritable, making it difficult to accept direction, or to work well with fellow employees. They may even fall asleep on the job. So night people are often denied raises, passed over for promotions, or even fired. The perception is that they are that they are lazy, undisciplined, not punctual, or have an attitude problem. However, when members of the majority, day people, are forced to work night shifts, these same behaviors are observed and even expected. Why, they even call it the graveyard shift. What a negative stereotype!

http://www.nightworkers.com/discrimation.html

I hadn't taken this night owl in me seriously, cutting it down to poor self discipline. Now I'm not so sure. I noticed that it was always at night I've been more comfortable, creative, happy. So it looks like I'm going to work on adjusting my life.

Any night owls in the house? What's your life like?

 

[Sourabh N]

Being in a graduate school at a place which pretty much closes down at night.. is a problem for the night owl in me. I can't have coffee at night, I have classes ridiculously early in the morning (okay 11 AM, but when you go to sleep at 5 AM, it IS early) and there's no one around to discuss after 6 PM :-/

 

[Newai]

This makes me wonder if switching to an online degree program would be realistic.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Any night owls in the house? What's your life like?

Life? I don't understand.

I've done some of my best work -esp creative challenges - between midnight and 4 AM. Luckily my self-employment usually allows me to work when it best suits me, which is about 16 hours a day.

No doubt about it though, I have always been a night person. When I was a kid, my parents were strict about bedtime, but I would often lie awake for hours. It was miserable!

 

[Klockan3]

It isn't about night/day people, it is about if you are adjusted to a 24 hour day or not. So it doesn't matter if it is a night shift or day shift, you will have problems going up anyway since you feel that you don't got enough hours. Most are "night people" btw, the problem is that there is too much interesting things to do no matter what time it is so you don't get bored and tired as you are supposed to, it happens to everyone. The only thing to do is just to force yourself to stop doing fun and interesting things when it starts to get late.

 

[Evo]

I am a night owl, so I was lucky to find a job that allowed me to work from home and set my own hours. The world does tend to discriminate against people that function better at night.

 

[lisab]

I am a night owl, so I was lucky to find a job that allowed me to work from home and set my own hours. The world does tend to discriminate against people that function better at night.

I'm a morning person and I totally agee with this. Coming into the office well before the crack of dawn gives the appearance of a go-getter; being at the office late in the evening looks like you're behind and trying to catch up. I have no idea why, but that's what I've experienced.

 

[Evo]

I'm a morning person and I totally agee with this. Coming into the office well before the crack of dawn gives the appearance of a go-getter; being at the office late in the evening looks like you're behind and trying to catch up. I have no idea why, but that's what I've experienced.

Exactly! That's so unfair! People that sleep late are frowned upon, no matter how productive they are, they are considered slackers.

It must all stem from the days before sufficient artificial lighting became available, people worked while the sun was up, so if you wasted that time, you weren't contributing as much as those that did.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Exactly! That's so unfair! People that sleep late are frowned upon, no matter how productive they are, they are considered slackers.

Not a problem when the emails go out at between 6 AM and midnight.

I have discovered that artificial lighting can [apparently] be a problem. There are overhead fluorescents in my office, I but only use them when needed. When I have to run the overheads late into the evening for a period of time, it seems that my body clock gets reset. The next thing you know, I'm still awake at 6 AM. As long as I don't use them late in the evening, I can maintain my 8 to midnight/10 to 2 schedule comfortably.

 

[Grep]

I'm a morning person and I totally agee with this. Coming into the office well before the crack of dawn gives the appearance of a go-getter; being at the office late in the evening looks like you're behind and trying to catch up. I have no idea why, but that's what I've experienced.

It gets pretty crazy sometimes. I recall one place I worked, managers were competing with each other to get in earlier than the next guy, and so appear to be more of a "go-getter". My manager was coming in around 5am, for cryin' out loud. I wonder if they realized how stupid they looked to many of us. I guess it was easier for them than actually working hard.

We often had to wait until the evening to be able to go into the lab and work. Which meant I'd be in at 9am or so, and end up leaving about 10pm at night. And then, the next day, when I'd come in at 10:30am-11am, getting crap for coming in late.

As a night owl, let me just say I agree 100% with what's been said so far. Sad to say there really is actual discrimination there. I wish I had suggestions for how to alleviate the problem, but it's pretty well entrenched. All you can really do is either put up with it, or get lucky enough to get a job where it's ok. I seriously doubt bringing up the subject with my "comes in at 5am boss" would have had the desired effect.

 

[FlexGunship]

Any night owls in the house? What's your life like?

I'm an engineer: I get more done after 10PM than most folks do all day.

 

[Newai]

It isn't about night/day people, it is about if you are adjusted to a 24 hour day or not. So it doesn't matter if it is a night shift or day shift, you will have problems going up anyway since you feel that you don't got enough hours. Most are "night people" btw, the problem is that there is too much interesting things to do no matter what time it is so you don't get bored and tired as you are supposed to, it happens to everyone. The only thing to do is just to force yourself to stop doing fun and interesting things when it starts to get late.

Uh, no. On days off, and vacations, I find that I can get to sleep real fast come morning. At night, no matter how hard I try, I just can't fall asleep. It's those times that I'm happier and productive. For about a year I was living with my parents and all that time I was up at evening and night, asleep early in the day. And it worked out great.

 

[FlexGunship]

Uh, no. On days off, and vacations, I find that I can get to sleep real fast come morning. At night, no matter how hard I try, I just can't fall asleep. It's those times that I'm happier and productive. For about a year I was living with my parents and all that time I was up at evening and night, asleep early in the day. And it worked out great.

I appreciate what you're saying here, but it is possible to shift your circadian rhythm. If you moved to a time zone that is 12 hours different (as though there were more than one), then you would probably find yourself still awake at night.

What Klockan might be trying to say, is that if you simply allow yourself to make the change, it might be possible. And one of those steps is to "bore yourself to sleep."

A successful technique? I don't know.

 

[HeLiXe]

I am a night owl,

I thought of Evo immediately as I saw this topic.

Late sleepers are misunderstood as oversleepers. Recently I had to take my car to get serviced at the ungodly hour of 9:00 a.m. I was yawning over and over again and the mechanic smiled at me and said, "You're tired? I've been here since 6 a.m.!" That morning I went to sleep at 6:30 a.m. lol, so I said to him, "That was about the time I was going to sleep." He totally freaked out

 

[drizzle]

I'm one, and I don't know what it is that I'm not happy about, being a night owl or not being able to adjust my working hrs to suit my madness.

 

[Newai]

I appreciate what you're saying here, but it is possible to shift your circadian rhythm. If you moved to a time zone that is 12 hours different (as though there were more than one), then you would probably find yourself still awake at night.

What Klockan might be trying to say, is that if you simply allow yourself to make the change, it might be possible. And one of those steps is to "bore yourself to sleep."

A successful technique? I don't know.

For the last three years, I've been trying to do that at work. I wanted to be alert and comfortable, but it wouldn't happen. Three years. I was able to function and and do what I had to do what everyone else did, but my body never took to it. Compare the other year when I incidentally lived at nighttime, there were no problems.

 

[DaveC426913]

I recall that the human's natural circadian rhythm is actually closer to 25 hours, but is set to 24 hours by day/night cycles.

I go to bed late and get up late. My wife goes to bed early and gets up early.

I have always theorized that my circadian rhythm is ~25 hours, causing me to try to stay up a little to try to match it, whereas hers is ~23 hours, causing her to go to bed earlier to try to match hers.

 

[HeLiXe]

I recall that the human's natural circadian rhythm is actually closer to 25 hours, but is set to 24 hours by day/night cycles.

Yep, I learned that in psych class last semester. I think it's pretty cool.

 

[dimensional]

I have lived with chronic insomnia for just about as long as I can remember. This condition very negatively impacted my academic performance during childhood and adolescence as I am unable to properly shut my mental activity down for sleeping. I've tried a lot of behavioral changes so it isn't like I haven't approached the issue which I've been battling for about 15 years now. Due to my insomnia I am most often wide awake at night as well.

My mother suffers through the same condition but hers is far worse. I would love to go to a sleep lab and be examined thoroughly to find out more behind my sleep situation.

Most of my own productive work happens at night as well, I've noticed the others saying that. I can compose and record maybe 5 minutes of a completed work in a night but during the day I'm like a zombie, heheh.

 

[mugaliens]

I happened upon this and was a little stunned how accurate it described what I was going through. While I'm not exactly interested in organizing against this perceived sleep discrimination, I was surprised at the effect this was having on my life, why I've been struggling so hard at work:

http://www.nightworkers.com/discrimation.html

Outstanding link, Newai. Thanks for finding/sharing it!

I hadn't taken this night owl in me seriously, cutting it down to poor self discipline.

We humans largely accept/adopt the perceptions of others, even when there's something gnawing at the back of our minds saying, "Not true!"

Now I'm not so sure. I noticed that it was always at night I've been more comfortable, creative, happy. So it looks like I'm going to work on adjusting my life.

Good for you. Many companies these days are offering flex time, both to accommodate the various schedules of their workers, as well as to better utilize office space, which in more traditionally-scheduled firms sits empty 2/3 of the time. That's the key question to ask a company, long before you submit a resume' or do an interview: "Does your company support flex time, and if so, how?"

Any night owls in the house? What's your life like?

Right now I'm a self-employed freelance technical writer and novelist, so I simply tell people to call between Noon and 8pm. Sometimes I'm a night owl, and sometimes I'm a morning person.

Other than what time I naturally arise from slumber (I hate alarm clocks), I'm not sure what really determines that. I think part of it is whether or not I'm crunching on a project or not. If not, I'll tend to quit around 4pm, enjoy a leisurely dinner, perhaps meet with friends, read a book, and go to bed earlier. When the fires are burning hot, however, it's go-go-go, often until 1 or 2 am, and at that point I'm usually wired enough that I can't go to sleep until sometime between 3 and 5 in the morning, so I'll relax with a late night of message foruming on PF or another couple of boards.

If I'm not careful, however, and allow that to happen a couple of nights in a row, my schedule is toast for several days as I try to re-synch it with the rest of the world.

India has a lot of night owls, the folks who do tech and customer service support for Americans and Europeans. :)