Lark or Owl?

[Paul Whybrow]

This interesting Guardian article is sure to spark a debate:

The lark advantage: why naturally early risers are happier than night owls

By nature, I’m a night owl. When writing a novel, I’ll research facts and edit my WIP during the afternoon, before turning to creative writing in the evening for about four hours. I stop working when my brain cries “Enough!”

I go to bed at midnight, reading for an hour before turning the light out. I rise at 8.30.

Over the last three months, my energy level has been sapped by, I think, the first AstraZeneca vaccination. I’ve been sleeping OK, but constantly feel lethargic and tired enough to nap for half an hour in the afternoon. People who’ve had the jab speak of brain fog:



My brain feels more like it’s been coated with sludge. I’m due to have the second vaccination tomorrow, which I’m concerned about, as I currently have the temperament of a hibernating squirrel!

Vaccination side effects aside, which creature are you—a morning lark or a night owl?

Carl Vilhelm Holsøe: Asleep

 

[Hannah F]

That's a very odd article, the way it's written. Also, a bias in this research is the chicken and egg scenario. It is well known that people suffering from depression will tend to rise later (why get up when there's nothing to get up for?), so if they tick depression and tick getting up late, which came first?

There is other research that says your biological clock varies throughout your life. Young children tend to have a wake up early (or mega-early) biological clock. Teenagers' clocks shift to mid-morning or even later. The school 8.30am start time is in line with primary/early secondary biological clocks but not to the 13+. Twenty to fifty year olds tend to have to regulate to working hour timetables, but left to their own devices (e.g. holidays) they tend to revert to later waking times (there are, of course, exceptions). Then, as a person ages, their biological clock shifts again to earlier.

My personal theory is, if you can regulate your active hours with your biological clock, you're likely to be happier. My ideal seems to be to wake up about 7am and go to sleep about midnight. If I don't get home until after 10pm though, I take a long time to wind down so am likely to shift to 1am sleep, 8am wake. I wouldn't like to sleep long enough to wake up at the crack of dawn mid-winter. Here in Scotland, that would be after 9am! If I wake at a summer dawn, I will enjoy it, but relish my 7am waking the next day. I am generally a happy person and certainly an optimist.

There is also plenty of evidence that hours of sleep affect your health and well-being. You should mostly get 7-9 hours sleep a night to rest and recoup your body and brain. People who burn the candle at both ends are going to burn out.

 

[CageSage]

Maybe it's the way we habituate ourselves after the teenage years of coping with the sudden and dramatic uptake of hormonal change? For children and adolescents (and into 30-ish for some and those with children or pregnant), the changes to sleep pattern are related to the hormonal shifts in the body (and the 50+ menopausal changes in women; don't know about men, but it's also possible that they have hormonal changes post 50).

Those sweet years between the manic changes in the body and the slowing down with age are the years we habituate ourselves.
I worked on a farm and had a second/third job in town. I got up early, did the farm work, went into town, did the early job, then the evening job, then drove home and did more farm work, slept a few hours, then got up at sparrow-fart (we don't have larks here), and did it all again.

These days, I wake at 0400, work at the writing until 0700, feed the dog and the nonagenarians, then go back to the computer. Afternoons, as I sit in the chair with one eye on the oldies, I fiddle with scene outlines or whatever work I have planned for the next day. It's a habit now, but I like the peaceful times in the morning, no phones, no tv, no radio (the oldies are deaf, so their noise level is high), and no traffic noises outside. At night, I read a few hours before I go to sleep.

 

[RK Wallis]

Good luck with your second vaccination @Paul Whybrow!

I agree, that article is written weird @Hannah F.

I have no choice but to be a night owl, my carers don't start until 8am, so I tend to find I'm up till 3-4am, and get up 10.0/10.30, depending on my therapies. But I've always been a night owl and never found it's affected my mood.

 

[Robinne Weiss]

I can count on one hand the times in the past 51 years that I've gotten up later than 6.30 am--they were all times I was extremely sick. Haven't set an alarm in decades. I tend to be up at 5--feed the beasties, get some writing done, then head to the day job around 7. Home again by 5.30pm for dinner, a walk, and whatever stuff needs to get done around the house (gardening, baking, harvesting, ...). I'm often in bed by 9.30, but read until my husband comes to bed around 11. I rarely get more than 6-7 hours of sleep a night. Don't seem to need it.

 

[James Marinero]

I believe that the body can be trained. For many years I was a milkman and Monday mornings I was up at 1 am, 2-2.30 the rest of the week. I was forever short of sleep, but boy was I fit! Years after that I was up at 5am for a daily commute into London, slept on the train. Nowadays I'm awake at about 6am. But staying up late at night I find very difficult - I look forward to a book in bed. I have read stories about shortage of sleep being unhealthy as others have written here, but I belive that in most things metabolical it is unwise to generalise - some people can smoke all their lives without ill effect (my father did) an so on. One day maybe we will be able to determine from DNA what is good and what is bad for a particular individual, but until then - Cheers!

 

[Paul Whybrow]

I believe that the body can be trained. For many years I was a milkman and Monday mornings I was up at 1 am, 2-2.30 the rest of the week. I was forever short of sleep, but boy was I fit! Years after that I was up at 5am for a daily commute into London, slept on the train. Nowadays I'm awake at about 6am. But staying up late at night I find very difficult - I look forward to a book in bed. I have read stories about shortage of sleep being unhealthy as others have written here, but I belive that in most things metabolical it is unwise to generalise - some people can smoke all their lives without ill effect (my father did) an so on. One day maybe we will be able to determine from DNA what is good and what is bad for a particular individual, but until then - Cheers!

I worked as a milkman! Up at 4.30 for breakfast, then down to the depot to load the milk float and hit the road by 5.30 am. It was job and finish, so I ran the route, becoming very fit! Back home by 2.00 pm for a few hours napping, before welcoming my partner home. In bed by 10.00 pm. The first dairy I worked for was called Seaman's Cream!...which caused a few giggles.

 

[Paul Whybrow]

I've had my second vaccination, which has made me feel nauseous, as the first one did. I mentioned the side-effect of lethargy to the pharmacist, and he said it was a common reaction, but that it shouldn't be so bad this time. I hope not, as the last three months have been the least productive since I returned to creative writing in 2013.

Good luck with your second vaccination @Paul Whybrow!

I agree, that article is written weird @Hannah F.

I have no choice but to be a night owl, my carers don't start until 8am, so I tend to find I'm up till 3-4am, and get up 10.0/10.30, depending on my therapies. But I've always been a night owl and never found it's affected my mood.

 

[Catherine Le Bars]

I've had my second vaccination, which has made me feel nauseous, as the first one did. I mentioned the side-effect of lethargy to the pharmacist, and he said it was a common reaction, but that it shouldn't be so bad this time. I hope not, as the last three months have been the least productive since I returned to creative writing in 2013.

Hope you're doing okay today. I was sick as a dog for 24 hours after my first AZ jab and took a whole afternoon off work, which horrified the staff. Then two weeks of fatigue and a sore arm. I gather the second AZ jab is rarely as bad.
I'm a lark btw, always have been.

 

[Paul Whybrow]

Hope you're doing okay today. I was sick as a dog for 24 hours after my first AZ jab and took a whole afternoon off work, which horrified the staff. Then two weeks of fatigue and a sore arm. I gather the second AZ jab is rarely as bad.
I'm a lark btw, always have been.

I'm feeling fine, better than in ages, almost as if the second jab was the antidote to the first. For a brief period, I felt energetic and full of ideas, which made me wonder if the second vaccination contained cocaine!

 

[KateESal]

I've read about studies suggesting a shot of AZ might help alleviate Long Covid in some patients, so maybe your 2nd jab is having some sort of nullifying effect on the side-effects of the first. Who knows?!

Interestingly, husband and I are being given our second shot of the Pfizer vaccine, having had the AZ for our first. I'll keep you posted on how it goes... (don't have the appointment date yet, but will be in the last week or so of this month).

As for sleep and stuff...I find my brain gets more creative as the day wears on. I find I'm better able to get on with non-creative tasks and those involving some sort of physical activity earlier in the day and more cerebral tasks later on. That said, I'm capable of being creative in the mornings, I just need to kick myself into action to do it. Later on, it seems to come more naturally.

I quite often wake naturally between 0600 and 0700 at weekends. However, my husband likes me to stay in bed for drowsy cuddling (he's 11 years younger, so wakes a bit later)...as a result, I often find it a good time for getting ideas and mentally working them through (multi-tasking). Thus, when I get around to applying myself to the writing machine later on, the material is waiting to be set down.

 

[Hannah F]

I'm a bit the same. My logical brain works better in the morning, my creative brain in the evening, so I like using the mornings to edit or critique (or find glaring loopholes in my structure ) and spend the afternoon/evening (when I get the chance with paid work being a necessity again) creating and writing or just writing.