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Comment by ronyeh | Hacker News Reader

In the book "Why We Sleep" the author writes about how some people are naturally night owls and it damages their health to be forced into a morning routine (e.g., waking up early for school).

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/25/style/sleep-problem-late-...

According to Dr. Walker, about 40 percent of the population are morning people, 30 percent are evening people, and the remainder land somewhere in between. “Night owls are not owls by choice,” he writes. “They are bound to a delayed schedule by unavoidable DNA hard wiring. It is not their conscious fault, but rather their genetic fate.”

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That book actually put me on the track to taking this idea seriously. I'm absolutely a natural night owl and I felt like my whole life I've been considered lazy by other people because I'm not bright eyed and bushy tailed in the morning, even though I think I have far more productive output that most of my peers - I just do it all in the hours while they're sleeping. Finding out that there's an actual cause besides thinking that I'm just a lazy person was a real revelation for me.

Is it too much to ask for to wake up naturally, exercise a bit, have a solid meal, then get down to business when I'm ready for it rather than having a stressed out mad scramble every single morning?

I'd rather be cautious with such assessments like "absolutely a natural night owl" – at least until we're able to tell that from the genome directly, haha.

I'm a night owl myself, but around 10 years ago I've accidentally switched to the 10pm-5am sleep pattern and those were happiest and most productive months of my life. I was waking up without alarm and was jumping out of bed, quite literally. I dream to return to that pattern again and have been trying to do so since then (no luck so far).

Studies have identified genetic markers associated with self-reported "morningness" near genes known to affect circadian rhythm.

I'm neither. I just need 6-9 hours of sleep regularly (going to bed at the same time). It takes 3 to 4 days to adjust to an other schedule (with difficulties during that period). So going out on weekends means I can't wake up early during week days.

And daylight savings only makes this worse.

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