Morning person or night person?

October 14, 2003 6:04 AM

Morning person or night person?"Scientists believe they may now know why some of us are early risers while others prefer to burn the midnight oil. ... Researchers have found that people with an extreme preference for early mornings are more likely to have a long version of [a gene called] Period 3." The article also notes "Your day or night preference is obviously a complex behavioural trait. It is not solely down to one single gene." My wife and son are morning people; I am a night person. I have often wondered if I, through force of will, could become a morning person and thus spend more quality time with them. Now I have my doubts. What success have Mefites had trying to change from one to the other mode?
posted by ZenMasterThis (56 comments total)

Just use an alarm clock, dude!
posted by mokey at 6:14 AM on October 14, 2003

I was a night person. Now I'm a morning person.
I was in school. Now I work.
Life.
posted by Outlawyr at 6:15 AM on October 14, 2003

No success whatsoever. Ten years in work, and still can't do mornings under any circumstances.
posted by bifter at 6:17 AM on October 14, 2003

ditto Outlawyr.
posted by archimago at 6:29 AM on October 14, 2003

I'm definately not a morning person. Dawns are very special to me, because I've seen so few of them. However, I'm wondering if the researchers have any tips for night people can't stop bloody waking up at 5:30 am every single day and then lie awake waiting for the alarm to go off. Can anyone else out there emphasize with the pain of not being able to sleep in on the weekends even when you want to? Regulars to #mefi may note my occasional appearence there at 7am Australian time...
posted by Jimbob at 6:31 AM on October 14, 2003

I'm a morning person, I have been all my life. I can do late nights, but I have to really push myself and then I'm tired the next day because I can't sleep late enough. My wife, on the the other hand, is a night owl. It works for us, and the occasional mornings for her or late nights for me are nothing to worry much about.

When I was younger, I worked as a security guard and mostly worked evenings/nights. I was always out of sync, for lack of a better term. I couldn't do that now as easily as I did then and I imagine the disorientation would be even worse.
posted by tommasz at 6:34 AM on October 14, 2003

From the article: In our current society, where people are working more around the clock it is probably an advantage to certain people to be able to get up early in the morning... Are we to infer, then, that it is an advantage to certain other people to stay in bed? And can I be one of them?

Also, what Outlawyr said.
posted by misteraitch at 6:39 AM on October 14, 2003

My mom worked nights for most of my childhood and she and my Grandmother (our 'sitter' while mom was at work) "trained" me and my siblings to be night people, primarily so we'd sleep later in the mornings and not be 100% awake and in need of supervision at 5:00 am (when she'd been home from work about four hours) like many toddlers do.

Of course, this came back to haunt her when we went to school -- getting us up in the morning to get on the bus was no treat.

Being a 'night person' is a trait that has stayed with me unto this very day. Oh, I can get up with the alarm clock and get to work by 8 am, but I'm not really productive until at least 11. Left to my own devises (as I was when I was unemployed or when I am on vacation), I will *always* stay up until 2 am then get up around 10-ish. Also, my MD has noted that my allergies are almost always worse when I'm forced to get up at 6 am for months on end ... and not because I'm not getting enough sleep - it just seems to be the way I'm hardwired.

Interesting stuff, ZenMasterThis - thanks for posting it.
posted by anastasiav at 6:42 AM on October 14, 2003

Jimbob, does it have any effect on your waking time if you're not waiting for the alarm to go off? I find my sleep is much worse if i have to get up for something.

Outlawyr: I too had your problem, have you considered becoming an academic?
posted by biffa at 6:48 AM on October 14, 2003

Just use an alarm clock, dude!
posted by mokey

Being a night person, I've noticed that non-night people often think we're lazy or not disciplined enough.
posted by signal at 6:49 AM on October 14, 2003

I've been a night person for as long as I can remember, very useful in my college years. Then when I started work I had to get up early on a regular basis, and as a result I'm neither a morning or a night person. Since then I've had a job where for several years I worked a night shift, and I used Melatonin to help me with the changing schedule. Given the choice, I would much rather stay up late to accomplish things than get up early...
posted by Eekacat at 6:51 AM on October 14, 2003

For my current job, I have to get up at 7 AM every morning and go to bed at 10 PM to allow for enough sleep to compensate for the overwhelming sluggishness that I feel that early in the AM. I once worked the 2-10PM shift at a bank and found that while working that shift, I was happier, healtier, my skin was clearer, I lost weight without even trying... The job just really suited my night owlishness. Unfortunately, most jobs in my current field don't take too well to people working nights.

One of my main work-related goals is to eventually have enough say in my schedule that I never have to come in before noon.

If people really are working around the clock, surely they will need professional people willing to take that evening shift.
posted by jennyb at 6:51 AM on October 14, 2003

I find that, when left to my own devices, I prefer to stay up later and sleep later. Personal preference.

My funny metabolic foible is that if I don't get up after eight hours, I can stay under more or less indefinately. (No, it's not a healthy thing.). On the other hand, I can go without sleep and stay functional. I'm no fun to be around, but I am still functional. On marathon road trips, I always seem to draw the midnight-to-eight-am shift. (Grumpy but alert is better that cheerful but sleepy, I guess).
posted by Karmakaze at 6:53 AM on October 14, 2003

I am definitely in the bifter camp. I've never been able to shake my college hours. I don't get up until ten whether my body is moving or not, and midnight has been my most alert hour of the day for ten years or so.

I expect that rather than becoming a morning person I'll just stop sleeping entirely.
posted by furiousthought at 6:56 AM on October 14, 2003

I think I'm a morning and a night person. I don't mind getting up early, and I always stay up til 1 or 2, lately. Really, I sleep when I have to. I hate sleeping in, too. It makes me feel groggy for the whole day.
posted by angry modem at 7:00 AM on October 14, 2003

what i'd like to know is how the morning people were allowed to set the 9-5 work schedule.

i guess the lawyers representing the sleep-late crowd couldn't make it on time to the 8am breakfast meeting at which that was decided and the early risers easily carried the day.
posted by callicles at 7:31 AM on October 14, 2003

Wow, most of the people describing themselves as "Night People" here don't really understand the difficulty that being an actual night person is. I have, since the day I was born, been unable to sleep until just about sunrise. I'm not saying this in exaggeration. As a kid, I was treated (with a battery of drugs) for insomnia. It is not a situation of "left to my own devices...". I naturally wake up around 5 PM, and go to sleep at about 6 or 7 AM. If I deviate much from this pattern, the effects upon me would be equal to those of any morning person attempting my internal schedule. It's not a matter of laziness; I get sick from having to operate under the schedule that most of the world prefers. This thread is rather apropos, insofar as this week I am trying to reverse my schedule to meet the demands of the rest of the world. It's not something to just brush off, Outlawyr + et. al. Many people would quickly get sick trying to live in my sleeping patterns. I didn't choose to live like this, knowing that a career that meets my skills and pays what those skills are worth is pretty much out of the question...
posted by nonreflectiveobject at 7:32 AM on October 14, 2003

I'm an afternoon person. Specifically, from about 2 to 3 or so in the afternoon. Otherwise, I'm pretty useless.
posted by snwod at 7:32 AM on October 14, 2003

Until recently, I almost never got to sleep before 3am. And then, I had a baby...and I realized I was never going to sleep again...now, I catch naps when I can...but the elusive dream of an 8 hour sleeping pattern, at any time of the day or night is gone. (Although, I'm sick right now, and I called my husband and told him I was leaving him and the baby, going to check into a nice hotel with room service and I wasn't coming out for a week. He just laughed. Silly man. To quote Lilly Van Schtup..."I need some weee...weee....wessst.")
posted by dejah420 at 7:56 AM on October 14, 2003

In my case it depends on where I am in my mood cycle (I have a mood disorder ) and/or what meds I am on. At present I am a morning person (wake up at 5 :30 more or less bright eyed and bushytailed) and at other times it practically requires a crowbar to get me out of bed. I can and do usually stay up late with little or no difficulty in the latter case: in the former I start fading about 9pm or so. I prefer being wide awake in the early morning for some sick reason.

Years ago I worked third shift: One helpful tip for those trying to adapt their sleep cycle is by getting into sunlight as much as possible during the time you need to be awake. A nd of course the opposite is true as well.
posted by konolia at 7:58 AM on October 14, 2003

"Some are born to sweet delight,
Some are born to endless night."
posted by spazzm at 7:59 AM on October 14, 2003

Being a night person, I've noticed that non-night people often think we're lazy or not disciplined enough.

Agreed.

Without alarm clocks, my waking/sleep cycle slips until I wake up in the afternoon and don't fall asleep until after midnight. My sister, on the other hand, has trouble staying awake after dark and gets up at the crack of dawn no matter what. This made family vacations sheer hell when growing up, with her awake and in a good mood all morning while I was groggy and grouchy, and the reverse situation in the evenings.
posted by moonbiter at 8:05 AM on October 14, 2003

I like to mix it up. I hate routines.
posted by rushmc at 8:18 AM on October 14, 2003

Once upon a time, I was a night person. I came alive with darkness! Now I am a morning person, and gee, I miss darkness, especially summer nights outside (when darkness comes MUCH too late).

Constant trouble getting to places (jobs or classes) in the morning made me learn new habits. Now, my best productive time is from waking running about 6 hours.

Now, if I stay up late, I will likely have trouble sleeping in (although in the past 2 years this has gotten better). I almost never need an alarm, I tend to wake 10 minutes before my desired time. I only use an alarm for being extra early, and still usually wake up and turn it off before it hits. I love getting up! (weird, I know)
posted by Goofyy at 8:20 AM on October 14, 2003

I just don't get it, really.

I can sleep anytime I want to - and I mean any time. So my sleeping schedule is usually due to whatever committments or interests I have, which currently consists of WORK. Absent the need to work, I'd probably be a mixed-sleeping person: sleep from about 2 a.m. to 5 a.m., and 1 p.m. to 5 p.m.

I like being awake at night because it is quieter, cooler in the summer, and there's fewer people up and about. Might as well sleep away the afternoon when it is hot in the summer, and really just too f-ing bright outside for my scandihoovian skin. Some daytime wakefulness is necessary for doing things like going to stores that aren't open 24 hours, putzing in the garden, mowing the lawn, etc.
posted by yesster at 8:32 AM on October 14, 2003

I vote that we slow down the earth's rotation. Nevermind the huge biological and environmental implications -- I think a 30 hour day would suit my sleep schedule perfectly.

Once awake and engaged, I'm up for up for the long haul. I still need about eight hours sleep, though. So if I don't watch myself, I'll stay up later and later every night until I'm completely out of sync with everyone around me.
posted by crumbly at 9:12 AM on October 14, 2003

Wherezzz mie goddamn coffeee 't?!

I've recently switched to a morning schedule and I do not like it at all. Luckily, it's temporary. I like staying up till 2 or 3am and rsing after 10.
posted by elwoodwiles at 9:23 AM on October 14, 2003

I sometimes wish I could rearrange my life more conveniently for me so that I could sleep in a bed opposite east-facing windows and wake naturally to sunlight. And none of this up-at-six nonsense to get my son to school at the appointed hour.
posted by alumshubby at 9:30 AM on October 14, 2003

Last year I realized that my ideal day includes not being conscious during the afternoon and being up both late at night and early in the morning. I guess that makes me both a morning and an night person, although maybe I'm more of an anti-afternoon person. Afternoons suck for me; after lunch until about six or seven, I feel drained relative to other times.
posted by realityblurred at 9:56 AM on October 14, 2003

I used to be a night person, but now I have a low stress life and get plenty of sleep I can be night or morning doesn't matter. I can be up at 5am, or I can stay up to 5am. A well rested healthy person with proper nutrition these things are not an issue IMO.
posted by stbalbach at 10:06 AM on October 14, 2003

I used to be a night person and now, out of necessity (depending upon energy levels and activities) and with day job, I'm a switch hitter. Some nights I will stay up and work on something until 4 AM. Some mornings, I will bolt out of bed at the same ungodly hour and begin the Routine That Goes Down If I Wake Up (But Will Go Down At Some Point That Day), meaning around two to three hours of writing, answering emails, coordinating projects and at least an hour and a half of reading. If I don't wake up, then I defer that routine towards later in the day. What matters is that I get several hours of work in at some point. If I have something else going on in addition to all this, which is often, then that means getting to bed at around 1 and waking up at 5 or 6 to fit it all in. Probably a silly form of discipline. But it seems to work for me. Somehow, I even find time to socialize.

I probably couldn't do all this without coffee or, in rare, dire situations, Red Bull.
posted by ed at 10:11 AM on October 14, 2003

Human circadian rhythms tend to cycle longer than 24 hours and to dip around 2 am and 2 pm, so what some of you are saying makes physiological sense.
posted by rushmc at 10:31 AM on October 14, 2003

Like Outlawyr, I used to be a night person but lately I've been shifting to being a morning person.

Maybe my lifestyle has caused massive genetic damage to my period 3 gene?.
posted by troutfishing at 10:46 AM on October 14, 2003

I'm definitely a night person. Left to my own devices, I will go to sleep later and later, until I'm nocturnal, unless I have to wake up at a specific time for something (i'm a freelancer, so I usually don't).

I've tried getting "back on schedule" and I find myself to be incredibly unproductive before noon no matter what I do. My father's an extreme morning person, but my mother is the opposite, so I guess I know whose gene I have.
posted by condour75 at 11:09 AM on October 14, 2003

My wife is a night owl - likes to stay up till 3 in the morning. Being a morning person myself - 7:00 a.m. is sleeping in for me - this causes me no end of distress. Not so much that I think there's anything wrong with her (although I sleep better when we fall asleep together) but because she's responsible for getting the kids up and moving. I'm out of the house no later than 6:15, and commonly 5:15 because I've got leave work at 3:30 in order to pick them up on time.
posted by Irontom at 11:37 AM on October 14, 2003

Passed out by 10pm normally, though I can stay up if I need to. On the other hand, it is impossible for me to remain asleep past 5am, regardless of the time I went to bed. Been this way for years.

Unfortunately, as I get older, I find I suffer from insomnia that sometimes lasts for days. That makes the 5am wake-up call really painful. Oooog.
posted by elendil71 at 12:03 PM on October 14, 2003

Yesterday I installed artificial dawn in my bedroom.

It's a full-spectrum bulb on a timer that kicks in at 6 a.m. just before the alarm goes off.

The goal is to defeat a 26-hour circadian rhythm. In the summer, it's all fine. I go to bed late, rise early, and never feel heavy eyelids, or the siren-call of the pillow. I feed off the sun's energy, like Superman, so I am doubly alive during the longer days of summer. My eyes bring sun to my brain, where relays are triggered, and chemicals are released which keep my perky and alive.

But in the winter—and even now when the days are not yet as short as they will be—the gears and levers of the internal clock slip and gap, and I slowly begin to go to bed later, until one day, in January, it will be three a.m. and I'll be awake in the kitchen heating corn tortillas and making salsa for dinner.

The one consistency about my wake-sleep patterns is that because I am light-sensitive, I am at my best at roughly the same time every day: just after dawn and for about three hours beyond. The longer nights force that moment further and further into the daypart, and my schedule drags later and later into the night.

So the artificial dawn is to convince my body it is still the end of June, and that those best, greatest hours should happen earlier rather than later. We'll see if it works.
posted by Mo Nickels at 12:05 PM on October 14, 2003

I was a night person for about 20 years who stayed up to 3 or 4 in the morning. I lived with a morning person who was leaving for work just as I was going to bed. I always knew something seemed wrong with that scenario. I'm pretty sure of it now after I left the morning person for a night person. Gradually we have both turned into morning people. I used to hate the mornings but now I love them.
posted by oh posey at 12:21 PM on October 14, 2003

Night Owls now have a more official-sounding name for their condition: Delayed Sleep-Phase Syndrome
posted by joquarky at 2:07 PM on October 14, 2003

I'm a night person, and sixteen months of getting up at 5 a.m. hasn't dented that one bit. I've acclimated to the timing enough that I stir around five, before my alarm goes off, but it's not a rested sort of stirring, even after eight hours of sleep; if I roll over and wake up at seven thirty, then, okay, sure.

I miss irresponsibility.
posted by cortex at 4:02 PM on October 14, 2003

Jimbob, I totally feel your pain. Saturdays and Sundays for me often start at 6:30 a.m., even if I've gone to bed at 3 a.m. The allure of Friday and Saturday to me is that college implanted in my brain the idea that the night hours are inexhaustible ... that when the day runs out, you've got however long you want to do whatever you want, and you can just sleep as late as you want the next day. Unfortunately, my internal clock is wired to wake me up at ass o'clock. I've taken to consuming a sleeping tablet on Sundays right after I wake up, so I can get in a few more hours (I've tried so many tricks to help me get back to sleep, and nothing works).

Also, getting to bed is often a problem. My problem is I'm just generally wakeful. Yet I function best on 8+ hours of sleep. I think my ideal cycle would be to go sleep at 1-2 a.m. and wake up at 10 a.m.
posted by grrarrgh00 at 7:47 PM on October 14, 2003

What success have Mefites had trying to change from one to the other mode?

None. Absolutely none whatsoever. And I've given up trying.

I'm with grrarrgh00. Late to bed and late to rise, makes a man happy, wealthy and wise.
posted by five fresh fish at 8:04 PM on October 14, 2003

I was a night person. Now I'm a morning person.
I was in school. Now I work.
Life.

If you are implying that those of us who are night people should just grow up, get jobs, and become morning people like you, you are showing a certain amount of ignorance.

Delayed sleep phase is extremely common in the teen and college years. However, most people grow out of that kind of delayed sleep phase. Probably, that is what happened to you. As you got older, your sleep phase naturally shifted backward. You didn't make yourself a morning person; you would have become one anyway, most likely. (This applies to many people posting in this thread, I suspect.)

But for a certain percentage of people, the delayed phase doesn't go away. (And some people were born with it, as well -- parents of people with DSPS often report that the kid just seemed to be "born a night owl".) Some folks with DSPS have only a minor delay, and they usually can adjust to a morning schedule. Others have a severe delay, such as falling asleep at 7am every morning. This can make it extremely difficult to function in society. It is a serious problem, if you have it.

Important points to realize about DSPS:

* You can't just "get up early today and it will make you sleepy enough to go to sleep early tonight." If only that worked. Instead, though your body will be tired, you can't sleep until your body feels that it's time. Circadian rhythms are awfully strong; if the body wants to be awake, it's gonna be awake. (There is some evidence, also, that people with phase-shift are less able to adapt to different sleep times than those who are "normal." And, incidentally, people with DSPS are more likely to be unable to nap, and so wouldn't be able to just take a quick nap when tired. Odd, huh? I couldn't nap even when I was a kid and my mom would just tell me I had to stay in my room to play during "naptime.")

* Most DSPS people are far from lazy, and have spent years beating themselves up for falling asleep at work, not hearing the alarm clock ring, etc. Most have tried seeing many doctors, taking lots of medications that didn't do any good, self-medicating with caffeine, etc. (Caffeine doesn't work on me so I can't even do that.) DSPS people are the ones who work hard late at night to make the deadlines that morning people are too tired to meet. DSPS people are the ones who volunteer for the night shift because they enjoy it, and work their asses off to bring you coffee at Denny's. If a night owl is lazy, he would be lazy as a morning person too.

* There is no known permanent cure for sleep phase problems. People have experimented with melatonin, light therapy, chronotherapy, but in general nothing works consistently. People with chronic sleep phase shift (that is, not the people who grow out of it in their 20s) will almost always revert back. So for many people, the best way to deal with it is to not try to be a morning person. But this often means not working to one's financial potential, etc. Some people even choose not to have children because of the difficulty of dealing with their sleep phase.

* Delayed Sleep Phase Syndrome is not the only phase shift problem. Advanced Sleep Phase Syndrome is probably rarer, but quite similar -- instead of staying up late and waking late, the ASPS person falls asleep at 5 or 6 pm and wakes up at 3 or 4 am. ASPS folks are more hidden than night owls are, because their sleep phase is more culturally acceptable. They are the ones who are always early for work at 7am... because they might as well be, they're up already! But many of them are as frustrated by their ASPS as other are by their DSPS. If you have severe ASPS, you might be unable to attend concerts or other evening events you'd like to participate in. Both syndromes come with a certain amount of social isolation, though the ASPS people have it a little easier.

Researchers at the University of Utah have also been investigating sleep phase disorders, and they are currently doing a study on DSPS. Many people on the niteowl mailing list are participating.

Speaking of the niteowl list, this is a self-link but it seems appropriate here: you can find out how to subscribe to the niteowl list at the Circadian Sleep Disorders Association site. CSDA is a group that exists to support those affected by circadian sleep disorders, and to provide information on the disorders to the general public. At this point the only real activity of the group is the niteowl mailing list, but there are also some links on the topic at the site for those who are interested. The best site by far about DSPS is Su-Laine Yeo's DSPS site.

If you have normal sleep patterns and can't identify with any of this, feel lucky, not smug. I wouldn't wish a screwed-up sleep phase on anyone.
posted by litlnemo at 8:08 PM on October 14, 2003 [1 favorite]

And here it is, something like 2:30AM, and I'm bolt awake. I did sleep really well for a few hours -- probably because I was up until 2AM the night before and had an early AM appointment six hours later, so I couldn't sleep in.

Part of what had me awake this early was thinking about light therapy. I got to thinking about those compact florescent lightbulbs, some of which aren't at all compact and put out enough light to do a grow operation (I think that's what they're built fo).

Struck me that with a couple times, I could probably build a dawn simulator for real cheap. Kick in one low-watt CF at 5:30, another at 5:45, and then start kicking in progressively larger ones over the next 45 minutes. By the end of the cycle, it'd be bright as day in the bedroom.

Or maybe I'll move to sunny Barbados. Besides, they have rum. Waittasec. I've got rum, too.

Well, this was a worthwhile bit of chat. I'm now going to drug myself to sleep. Goodnight, all!
posted by five fresh fish at 2:51 AM on October 15, 2003

Great post, litlnemo!
posted by ZenMasterThis at 5:37 AM on October 15, 2003

It is a good post, but I can't be the only one who's disgusted to have an acronym attached to my quirk. Yay me, I have a "syndrome." Goddamn morning people.
posted by furiousthought at 7:13 AM on October 15, 2003

Yeah, I also mistrust the tendency to make everything that's not completely vanilla-normal a syndrome or condition of some sort. But in the case of DSPS, it's rather empowering for a lot of people to find out there might be an actual physical cause for their late hours (at least, current research looks like that's the case) -- they can stop blaming themselves for something they can't completely control, and get on with learning to deal with it as it is.

Plus, DSPS is quick to type. ;)

Goddamn morning people.

I certainly second that. Though, actually, some of those morning people have ASPS and I guess they have to deal with a lot too.

I tried chronotherapy a few months ago -- where you push your schedule forward 3 hours every day until you've wrapped around the clock to a morning schedule, and for a couple of days I was on an ASPS schedule. That was extremely disconcerting. It was nice to be awake for morning things, but then I would just pass out in the afternoon, and my day was over. So I would be asleep before my husband was home from work, etc. It was really weird.
posted by litlnemo at 2:50 PM on October 15, 2003

Naps. Naps are good.
posted by five fresh fish at 3:52 PM on October 15, 2003

I should probably expand on that:

The siesta is a great idea that should be institutionalized. Everyone should, at some time between 2ish and 4ish, be able to catch a half-hour snooze. It would make a walloping difference to almost all aspects of life: people would be happier, more easy-going, more alert, more tolerant, more productive, and so on.

It is completely unnatural to spend sixteen straight hours wide awake. We should get with the program and start behaving like our bodies want us to behave: a solid nightly rest and a mid-day break to prepare for the remainder of the day.
posted by five fresh fish at 3:55 PM on October 15, 2003

I've never been able to nap. Even when I was a small child, I couldn't do it. It's weird. If I fall asleep, I have to sleep for hours. And it takes me a long time to fall asleep. So a 30 or 60 minute nap is just out of the question for me. Very strange, but it seems to be relatively common among DSPS people.

I do get the tiredness after lunch (which is later than most people's lunchtime), but generally can't sleep then. I can only nap when I'm sick.
posted by litlnemo at 4:07 PM on October 15, 2003

I've been a night owl since infancy. According to my parents, instead of going to sleep at 8 like a normal baby I'd just quietly babble and suck my toes through the tonight show, and be conked out until 8 or 9 am. I made them so happy. That and my incredible cuteness led them to believe all their progeny would be so easy. So they had another. My sister is a morning person and the difference between us has always been marked. In school, I was reading under the covers every night and being forced out of bed at the last minute, and she would wake up at 5 in the morning and do her homework then. Yet I was the family joke because I stayed up late doing it and was so "lazy" in the mornings. Night people unite! Like the army says, we get more done by 6am than most people do all day. It's just that we actually have it done at 2, whereupon we go to bed.
posted by dness2 at 5:26 PM on October 15, 2003

Agree %100 five fresh fish. Studies show we are naturally meant to nap. We get tired in the afternoon for a reason. If your tired - sleep.
posted by stbalbach at 8:43 PM on October 15, 2003

I used to be unable to nap. I don't think I can pull it off now merely because I'm heading towards the big 4-0 (but years away yet!). It's because I got serious about getting well-rested, and made an effort to learn to nap.

Did I mention that I hate winter?

I hate winter. Fucking darkness.
posted by five fresh fish at 10:07 PM on October 15, 2003

How many people are actually able to just sleep when they are tired? In American culture, at least, it's not easy.

It would be cool if we had siesta time here, and then stayed up late for dinner. But I have read that even in Spain the siesta is disappearing, so businesses there can be more competitive.

What dness2 said.
posted by litlnemo at 11:18 PM on October 15, 2003

Insomnia is on Cinemax right now. Perfect.
posted by homunculus at 12:32 AM on October 16, 2003

The siesta is disappearing not because it's healthier for people, not because people want to be rid of it, but strictly because businesses are greedily focused on profit. It's a short-term attitude, as seems to be the case in all commerical activities these days: rather than offering an environment which keeps employees healthier and happier, they're going to grab the quick buck.
posted by five fresh fish at 10:10 AM on October 16, 2003