By Kacie Svoboda
For as long as I can remember, I’ve been the black sheep of my family as the lone late sleeper. My parents have always been the quintessential earlier risers getting up around 5 a.m. every day without an alarm and have steadily risen earlier and earlier as the years have gone on. My uncle regularly starts car trips at the ungodly hour of 3 a.m. — a habit his daughter, my cousin, has also picked up. And before my grandma turned 80 and was given a pass on sleeping in, she was teased for not getting up and about until 7 a.m.
Meanwhile, I’ve always been more of a night owl, prone to trying to start deep conversations at 10:30 p.m. and capable of sleeping in until noon or later until frankly a few years ago. In college, my parents warned me against taking any morning classes, exclaiming I would never make it, and I still have to set a good four alarms to even stand a chance of getting up before 8:30 a.m.
My family doesn’t understand my different sleep schedule, regularly sighing when they find out I slept in until 9 a.m. on the weekends and questioning how it’s even possible.
As the lone night owl in my family, I was made to feel lazy and inferior because I woke up later than anyone else, missed things that happened while I was still sleeping and took longer to become fully functional. My parents had a fun time teasing me about my strange nocturnal proclivities and a.m. grumpiness. They would often lure me into the land of the living by cooking breakfast and when I emerged to the aroma of bacon, they would proclaim, “It has risen. It must feed.”
They claim “It” was an apt description because for a solid hour after waking, I wasn't “fully human.” And while my family may have earned the right to mock my late sleeping, as they had to put up with my petulance every morning, the negative connotations toward my sleeping habits didn’t stop outside the home.
We live in a society that applauds and caters to early risers. This is evidenced by the many axioms that celebrate early risers, such as “the early bird gets the worm,” and Benjamin Franklin’s adage of “early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise.”
But there are no clever sayings defending night owls — even though owls are generally considered wise. Our society assumes that night owls are the partiers and the deadbeats. It presumes that late wakers are too irresponsible to maintain a basic schedule. But that schedule was designed with early birds in mind.
A recent science and health article examined the stigma late sleepers feel in a society that endorses early risers. The science of chronobiology finds we all have an internal clock that gravitates toward a consistent sleep and wake cycle. But everyone’s clock is not the same. While most people fall in the middle of the spectrum, going to sleep at 11 p.m. and waking up at 7 a.m., about 40 percent of the population either wake and go to sleep earlier or wake and go to sleep later. I definitely fall in the latter spectrum, as I have struggled most of my life to fall asleep before 2 a.m., though recently through a concerted effort I have managed to usually go to sleep before midnight, which typically makes it easier to wake up at an earlier time.
However, research shows that battling our chronotypes may be detrimental to our health, not to mention our productivity. Researchers suggest that with technology making it easier to have alternate work schedules, late sleepers could be allowed to work during hours that fit their chronotype, which might actually make them better employees by increasing their efficiency and output as their brains are optimally alert later in the day. I think these are options that should at least be explored for those of us in the minority who have a different sleep cycle.
If you agree, please let me know … but maybe wait until after noon.
For as long as I can remember, I’ve been the black sheep of my family as the lone late sleeper. My parents have always been the quintessential earlier risers getting up around 5 a.m. every day without an alarm and have steadily risen earlier and earlier as the years have gone on. My uncle regularly starts car trips at the ungodly hour of 3 a.m. — a habit his daughter, my cousin, has also picked up. And before my grandma turned 80 and was given a pass on sleeping in, she was teased for not getting up and about until 7 a.m.
Meanwhile, I’ve always been more of a night owl, prone to trying to start deep conversations at 10:30 p.m. and capable of sleeping in until noon or later until frankly a few years ago. In college, my parents warned me against taking any morning classes, exclaiming I would never make it, and I still have to set a good four alarms to even stand a chance of getting up before 8:30 a.m.
My family doesn’t understand my different sleep schedule, regularly sighing when they find out I slept in until 9 a.m. on the weekends and questioning how it’s even possible.
As the lone night owl in my family, I was made to feel lazy and inferior because I woke up later than anyone else, missed things that happened while I was still sleeping and took longer to become fully functional. My parents had a fun time teasing me about my strange nocturnal proclivities and a.m. grumpiness. They would often lure me into the land of the living by cooking breakfast and when I emerged to the aroma of bacon, they would proclaim, “It has risen. It must feed.”
They claim “It” was an apt description because for a solid hour after waking, I wasn't “fully human.” And while my family may have earned the right to mock my late sleeping, as they had to put up with my petulance every morning, the negative connotations toward my sleeping habits didn’t stop outside the home.
We live in a society that applauds and caters to early risers. This is evidenced by the many axioms that celebrate early risers, such as “the early bird gets the worm,” and Benjamin Franklin’s adage of “early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise.”
But there are no clever sayings defending night owls — even though owls are generally considered wise. Our society assumes that night owls are the partiers and the deadbeats. It presumes that late wakers are too irresponsible to maintain a basic schedule. But that schedule was designed with early birds in mind.
A recent science and health article examined the stigma late sleepers feel in a society that endorses early risers. The science of chronobiology finds we all have an internal clock that gravitates toward a consistent sleep and wake cycle. But everyone’s clock is not the same. While most people fall in the middle of the spectrum, going to sleep at 11 p.m. and waking up at 7 a.m., about 40 percent of the population either wake and go to sleep earlier or wake and go to sleep later. I definitely fall in the latter spectrum, as I have struggled most of my life to fall asleep before 2 a.m., though recently through a concerted effort I have managed to usually go to sleep before midnight, which typically makes it easier to wake up at an earlier time.
However, research shows that battling our chronotypes may be detrimental to our health, not to mention our productivity. Researchers suggest that with technology making it easier to have alternate work schedules, late sleepers could be allowed to work during hours that fit their chronotype, which might actually make them better employees by increasing their efficiency and output as their brains are optimally alert later in the day. I think these are options that should at least be explored for those of us in the minority who have a different sleep cycle.
If you agree, please let me know … but maybe wait until after noon.