[FDG]

Originally Posted by substitute

this is interesting... it confirms what I've previously thought of as an accidental conspiracy against night owl types.

If you go to bed early, you sleep well and have more energy the next day. So 9 to 5 works for you.

Yeah, it's true that it generally works better for me than most of my friends that are night owls. Some of them have been able to circumvent this problem by working at jobs with a more afternoon-to-evening oriented schedule (for example, with shifts or by working at a restaurant in the evening).

If I go to bed early, I lie awake, bored, frustrated, driving myself crazy and unable to sleep, through the small hours of the morning. I spend the day exhausted, somewhat spaced out, and looking forward to crashing out as soon as possible. But it never happens.

Then the same thing happens the following night, until after a week or so, eventually I'm so exhausted that I do crash out the minute the kids are quiet and watching TV, and sleep until they're pestering me to cook dinner. Then, naturally, I totally perk up at 11pm again and the cycle begins again.

I've sometimes thought that perhaps there's a link between night-owl sleeping patterns and N-ness... I sometimes wonder if the fact that the world's pretty unsympathetic to night owls, causing me to spend most of my waking daylight hours feeling tired, a little confused and not quite with it, so that my senses aren't really functioning properly, is what's forced me since childhood to rely more on intuition...??

Ahah, I understand the problem; I actually think that perceiving types are more likely to be night owls than judging types, as an overall pattern (this, imo, is also due to the fact that perceivers tend to become more effective as the deadline approaches; so if we use as deadline-measure the end of the day for doing whatever the person wanted to do (even pleasurable activities), It'd make sense that perceivers are more likely to be active during the night).

I also notice how much better I function when I've had enough sleep. But the way our society is geared gives me precious little opportunity to actually enjoy that state. During times when I'm on vacation without the kids, I do find that if I can spend a couple of weeks in what seems my biologically natural sleeping pattern, semi-nocturnal, I do have more energy and am more alert; I feel like I'm on cocaine or something, like someone who's gradually gone near-sighted over a long period and then suddenly gets given some glasses - "Woah! You mean trees have individual leaves???"

I think the only way to manage would be to have a job/general schedule that allows for a more nocturnal lifestyle. But it's not so easy, given that many services are only available during the day.