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Comment by fauigerzigerk | Hacker News Reader

I keep wondering what makes researchers doing that kind of work so confident that they have captured all the relevant variables.

It may well be that being a night owl is not just genetic but acquired by people who are unusually motivated to stay alert for longer times. Don't we all know the feeling of not wanting to stop?

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Well, in my experience, the average behavioral researcher isn't so much "confident they have captured all the relevant variables"... as "confident they have a research paradigm that will yield publishable data." —from a recovering academic

As for "Don't we all know the feeling of not wanting to stop?"... maybe us on HN.

But your comment raises a significant issue: those who do readily get into that "not wanting to stop" place are likely to end up working late because of that engagement (and hence focus).

That feeling of not wanting to stop, while responsible for most of my noteworthy accomplishments, scares a lot of people. I have had several people who have tried to "fix" me because they decided that me being up most of hte night finishing something was unhealthy. They never seem to understand the idea of ramp up time, nor do they seem to understand the fickle mistress inspiration. There was one guy, a kind of mentor to me, who tried to tell me it was a moral imperitive to get up early and get to work, to show the bosses I cared. For some reason staying late didn't show the same thing, particularly if i took advantage of the flex time and showed up around noon. Fortunately this guy was not my boss, and instead I get to be productive in the way that fits me best. Fortunately this guy broke off the mentorship after I got promoted in spite of my "terrible scheduling habits".

It's easier to observe and control for the sleep schedule and then measure alertness, rather than the other way around.

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