Comment by zeta0134 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by zeta0134 | Hacker News Reader

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I also stayed up until 1-2am, regularly, starting around junior high. I performed a great many tasks, mostly teaching myself various programming languages, always at the relative expense of my concentration in the next day's classes. Two things were the primary motivating factors in developing this habit:

- My parents wouldn't leave me alone for very long in the evenings, so I felt like I wouldn't get a chance to really concentrate until they were off to bed - My brain gets tired around 10pm like a normal person, but then it gets a "second wind" and is up happily until 3-4am, with intensely increased clarity of focus.

The first trait was obviously correctable and probably circumstantial, but the second feels far more innate. I just focus better right after the sun goes down, and I'm not really sure why. It's like all the stress from the day melts away, and I get a chance to finally be myself for a few hours. So, I work an evening shift (my work day starts at noon and gets out quite late) and I couldn't be happier for it.

It's a shame that this combination is both common, and regarded as lazy by society at large, because it seems to be quite the opposite. I get my best work done in the evenings, and so do lots of other people. I wish that we were generally more accepting of these traits, because if I hadn't had the good fortune to stumble into a job with such a well-aligned shift, I would still be struggling to sleep properly most nights.

> My brain gets tired around 10pm like a normal person, but then it gets a "second wind" and is up happily until 3-4am, with intensely increased clarity of focus.

Not saying this isn't your natural predisposition, but FWIW this is pretty much exactly what happens to everyone with a disrupted sleep schedule. Or any disrupted normal cycle, really[1]. Probably the large majority of people have experienced this.

[1]: Fasting is one example- you will be starving by lunch or dinner, but if you wait a few hours longer the hunger will go away pretty much entirely. You may feel sluggish and slow when you're hungry, but once your brain realizes you aren't going to eat you will feel lighter and more energetic. If your body needs to go past its normal cycles, your brain will give you the resources to do so. The hunger and tiredness you feel normally are more like periodic maintenance reminders.

In high school, this is probably what it was. My body wanted to fall asleep well after hours due to timing but I still had to get up at 7am for school. Being shorted on sleep sucks.

My current adult strategy is to simply plan for 7.5 hours of sleep each night; this gets me well rested consistently and doesn't appear to have any negative side effects. So long as I get the sleep in at some point, it doesn't seem to matter all that much when in the day it is. I could shift to mornings (and worked retail this way for years), but it's harder to maintain; 2am just feels "normal" to me. So, given the choice, I'll start the day later and wake up rested.

> I get my best work done in the evenings, and so do lots of other people.

Have you ever tried shifting to mornings? I used to think as you and started getting up early (and going to bed earlier), and was much more productive. My focus in particular was much higher because there so much fewer distractions.

Not saying this is you, but I had an old boss who thought he did his best work at night. Except, I had to come in every morning and fix all the bugs he introduced during his late night coding sessions. Being tired made him think he was making better decisions than he was which is inline with the adage that driving tired is like driving under the influence.

Not OP, but I had a very similar high school experience. I basically have two "stable" sleep rhythms: Go to sleep at 4 am, wake up at ~1 pm (the "lazy person" cycle), or got to sleep at 6 pm, wake up at ~3 am (the "I can't categorize this" cycle) - unfortunately, neither are very compatible with normal people. The second one is alright for work, but tends to kill every last bit of your social life for obvious reasons. So I'm kinda stuck with a daily ritual of trying to fall asleep at 11 pm and trying to somehow get out of bed after an hour long struggle at 8 am. Also I'm about 3 times as productive at work after 2 pm, because before that, I just feel like a zombie.

On the plus side, if something has to get done, I don't mind staying until 10 pm too much.

The same is true for me, however, I'm also quite productive early mornings. My "down" time is 2-10pm, so I often feel like it's a shame I have to sleep at all.

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