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Comment by kbart | Hacker News Reader

"Getting up early" advice definitely doesn't work for all people. I, for example, am more productive at evenings/nights and my brain doesn't work at until 9-10am despite of how much did I sleep a night before. The better advice would be "adjust the routine to your natural rhythm".

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Has there been any scientific evidence suggesting this is the case?

In college I struggled to wake up in time for 8am classes (that I had no interest in taking). Not surprisingly, a big part of the problem is that I was staying up until 11, or 2, or 4 every night. My typical schedule now (29 years old) is asleep around 9, up at 4:30 and gym 5-6:30 or so. Weekends are only an hour or so later than that, and it's been that way since about 3 years ago.

My point is I think it is as much why you're waking up early as it is a "natural rhythm" or something like that. I would much rather go to the gym at 5:30 than to a liberal arts gen ed class at 8:00. Yes it's possible my circadian clock shifted I suppose, but I think it's as much desire or habit as anything else.

I can get up early and do things, but I feel best when going to bed at 2-3am and getting up at 10-11am. By "natural" cycle I meant that if woken up without an alarm clock and go to bed when feeling sleepy (i.e. during lazy holidays) I tent to align to the mentioned hours.

Has there been any scientific evidence suggesting this is the case?

Can't find it after quick googling, but I've read about a study which claims that there are no such things as "night owl persons", but it didn't convince me as it was talking about extreme cases as staying up all night long and sleep during the whole day.

But yes, I remember reading in science journals regarding the natural rhythm of averagely around 10-11 o'clock in the morning. As the person mentioned before it was naturally for him to wake up later, or it was harder for him to wake up, until he god used to the unnatural rhythm.

But there was also some evidence regarding the era before modern technology and electricity about the time when people go to sleep naturally. which is actually surprisingly due to instead of spending time on screens they spent it socially or with other activities and still ended up in bed quite a bit later

One great advantage by staying up late rather than waking early is the amount of people active. More people are outside, or want to communicate with you, traffic is louder and so on. In the night after 12-01 those things calm down

Unless you're young and everyone is on the same schedule - I still get a lot of friends poking me at like 11:30 before I go to bed.

> Has there been any scientific evidence suggesting this is the case?

Yes. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/science-news/1185131...

Before the age of 55, the circadian rhythms of adults are completely out of sync with normal 9-to-5 working hours, which poses a "serious threat" to performance, mood and mental health.

Dr Paul Kelley, of Oxford University, said there was a need for a huge societal change to move work and school starting times to fit with the natural body clock of humans.

Experiments studying circadian rhythms have shown that the average 10-year-old will not start focussing properly for academic work before 8.30am. Similarly, a 16-year-old should start at 10am for best results and university students should start at 11am.

I thought I was a night owl as well for years. I even had insomnia through college.

But we're all wired to sleep at night. Once I started going to bed early, waking up early got easier first, and enjoyable later.

So no, I think I would still recommend people to try and sleep early to wake up early.

I thought the same until I started a job that required an early start. Even after years of extreme night-owl scheduling I didn't find it difficult after a the first month or so.

Well, my work starts at 8am for more than 5 years now, still can't get used to that.

Go to bed earlier.

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