Breaking news: Scientists discover night owls and how modern society enforces destructive day/night cycles on them.
I've been somewhat of a nightowl my entire life. I thought that was just how i was and it was in my genetics. There's also some correlation with adhd there according to some studies.
However i managed to be a morning person without strain when i wasn't working for a while and decided to focus on not letting too much light in my eyes in the evening, didn't drink much coffee and went for morning jogs.
It felt like without strain i woke up automatically in the morning and was a real eyeopener.
Sadly it's still a modern society issues feels hard to avoid screens when i have to work and do so much else during the day. Also big seasonal light changes at this lattitude means morning jogs would be in the dark right now if they have to precede work.
My cause: Basic training. Spend a few months waking up in a panic at 0400 and that time gets ingrained. I never had an issue before joining the military and now, more than decade later, it remains like a scar on my brain.
I had been a night owl since a teen, and yet here I was waking up naturally at around 7 am feeling refreshed. I realized a lot of what had kept me up at night was the freedom and silence. Once I moved on my own, there was nothing to escape so to speak. So I just stopped the caffeine and stopped avoiding bed.
My wife often goes to bed shortly before I get up in the morning, and doesn’t rise until mid afternoon - exhausted, pissed off, tearful, all of it.
There’s zero pressure on her to conform to any particular day/night cycle. By the time she gets up my day is half over, the housework is done, the meals prepared, the business for the day concluded, the kid at school, who I’ll pick up later.
I used to be a night owl, but as she has become more and more nocturnal over the years, I’ve adapted to live on 5 hours of sleep and became an early riser, so I actually get to spend some time with her in the evenings, and am up and ready to deal with the day so she doesn’t have to.
So. I don’t think it’s society. Sure, it’s a sample of precisely 1, but this phenomenon seems to be largely internally driven.
Right now, I’m rolling with her hypothesis that it’s purely environmental, and finish our intercontinental move next week.
Honestly, I don’t hold out hope, but at least our destination country is one with a good cultural attitude to mental health, which I’m hoping may rub off on her. And me - I come from the “keep calm and carry on” school, often to my detriment.
I come from a faith culture where seeking mental healthcare is both a sign of weakness and lack of faith. Instead you must first pray it away. Meanwhile I'm surrounded by so many "professional" faith based councilors that it's hard to find providers who take religious trauma seriously.
No one pushes her, she has troubles sleeping, you let her sleep, you do the household etc.
Tbh. doesn't sound healthy at all.
I'm sorry, but you did it first. I mean, being able to show correlation between variables in a formal, peer-reviewed study is something? What else do you expect scientists to do? This is how science works. You take an assumption, gather data supporting the assumption and establish facts from the assumption. You can't expect researchers to go by anecdotes and vibes when coming up with treatments, can you?