Go to Bed Late! Don’t Get Up Early: 3-Step Practical Guide for Night Owls
Don’t let anyone talk you into getting up early if you are a night owl.
Matthew Walker the Neuroscientist and one of the world’s leading experts on sleep made it clear in his Masterclass:
Each of us has a personal circadian rhythm that your mind and body needs you to follow.
What’s a Circadian Rhythm?
Everyone of us has a biologic sleep-wake-rhythm that our body insists upon.
If we don’t listen, our body will make us listen.
On average this rhythm is a little bit longer than a 24h and it might be the reason why we exist as a species.
Some of us need so get to bed earlier than others and some can get up earlier than others.
The same applies to the length of sleep that our body and mind need to perform best: On average it’s about 8h, but it varies from person to person and changes with age.
The Problem with 9 to 5 Jobs
Way back when humans lived in tribes and needed to protect themselves from wild animals, some humans had to wake up early, others had to stay up late at night to defend from threats.
It would be funny to believe every human would sleep 8 hours, get up early and go to bed early. But this is exactly what 9to5 jobs are forcing people to comply to.
9to5 jobs don’t seem to be against the circadian rhythm of early birds, because they can just do stuff before going to work. Check out Regina’s 5–9 before 9–5 post about morning productivity.
9to5 jobs also comfort everyone having a circadian rhythm in the middle, who can just stand up feeling refreshed and start with the day job.
A huge problem is the 9to5 for night owls like myself. It’s so much harder to perform if you are working against your own biology.
Up to this day if I get to bed early, I can lay down for several hours before falling to sleep.
Yes, I’ve tried it all over the years:
- No screens several hours before going to bed
- Dimming the lights
- No caffeine after mid-day and also no caffeine at all for a while
- Meditation
- Relaxation and warm showers
- Reading a book in bed
- Not reading in bed
- Dawn simulator
- Light therapy with special bright lamps
It helps a little bit and for sure it helps when aligning with your individual circadian rhythm.
Struggles not following your individual Circadian Rhythm
I’ve encountered the symptoms of not following my circadian rhythm when I was a teenager already.
I was feeling tired the whole day and not performing in school. Even if I went to bed early, I could not sleep, sometimes laying down awake for hours.
In my case, I wasn’t too bad in school that anyone would be worrying enough.
When I moved from my parents house to a shared apartment for my computer science studies I discovered my own personal sleep rhythm and how my learning rhythm works.
Immediately I stopped taking the early lectures. During the nights I was running through the lecture notes and I haven’t had any issues with my exams.
What a small change can accomplish
In my exam results I can exactly see when I discovered and implemented this behavior.
Since I’ve studied in Germany the best examination result would be 1.0 and the worst one would be a 5.0 which you can’t succeed with and you have to re-take the module.
When I was still getting up early, dragging myself to the lecture hall, trying to follow the lectures I was feeling really bad. The content was interesting, but I just could not perform.
As soon as I switched working at nights and sleeping in the morning, I was immediately more active, had a clear mind, I was contributing with good questions. I’ve taken one exam a semester early, because I figured I can work through the content more quickly on my own.
Talking about examination results, they were mediocre before the switch. After the switch I was mostly getting 1.0 and 1.3 many times having the best test result of all my fellow students.
And it didn’t even feel that challenging to me anymore, because it was just fun and I was performing.
What to do with this information?
To be fair, this knowledge doesn’t help the majority of people, because they just aren’t night owls.
That said, for people who can easily work at peak performance during night and have to push themselves to get to bed early, this is a life changing advice.
1st Step: Find out if you are a night owl
Just ask yourself a few simple questions and try it out.
You have nothing to loose, but you can’t even imagine what you can win!
- Which time of day do you feel most productive?
- If you were alone by yourself without any digital media, when would you go to bed and sleep?
- At which time would you prefer having an important discussion (not an argument) with your partner?
- When would you prefer to plan your day or your next day?
If your answer to most of those questions is “late at night”, chances are you might be a night owl.
2nd Step: Find out your ideal sleep-wake-rhythm
This is very individual, but you have to listen to your body for a while.
You can’t do this on one day only, but you need to confirm it for multiple days at least.
Setup for success would be to emulate the day-night-cycle of the sun.
In winter it’s a little bit harder, because sunlight is less intense. You could help yourself in the morning with bright lights to get enough melatonin.
Go to bed and sleep as soon as you feel tired. If you can’t sleep for half an hour, get up and do some light activities until you are tired. Then try again.
During your testing period I’d highly recommend not drinking coffee after noon, not using any screens in the evening or at night, just because it can have an influence as science shows.
After the testing period I’d say at least 1h before sleeping it’s wise to not look at screens.
3rd Step: Setup your whole life around your circadian rhythm
It might seem quite challenging at first.
Consider this: Every time you ask for a favor, you will naturally give it back many times in return when you can follow your circadian rhythm.
If you are employed to to critical and highly specialized tasks and you aren’t allowed to make any failures, that’s exactly when you would benefit the most from performing at your best.
A few actions you can do right away:
- Re-plan every early meeting to a later time.
- Block your calendar in the morning e.g. between 7 and 10 and reject every meeting invitation during that time. It’s your focus time, you plan your day (or sleep a bit longer).
- Consider to-do lists and plan your day the evening before.
- Your bed is for sleep and intimacy activities only. Surely you can talk with your partner, but no screens are allowed. Don’t watch movies or play games in bed.
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