(Arlo & Janis via GoComics.com)
As a lifelong night owl (and the offspring of two night owls), I endorse the new research described in the New Yorker by Maria Konnikova in “No, Mornings Don’t Make You Moral“:
The idea of the virtuous early bird goes back at least to Aristotle, who wrote, in his Economics, that “Rising before daylight is … to be commended; it is a healthy habit.”…
In last January’s issue of Psychological Science, Maryam Kouchaki and Isaac Smith took that theory even further, proposing what they called the morning morality effect, which posits that people behave better earlier in the day. Their research caught the attention of Sunita Sah, a behavioral scientist at Georgetown University and a professed night owl. For the previous five years, Sah had been studying how different situations influence ethical behavior. “You always hear these sweeping statements: morning is saintly, evening is bad; early to bed, early to rise,” she told me recently. A former physician, she found it plausible that something with such profound health consequences as time of day might also have a moral dimension. But she wondered how strong the effect really was. Were people like her—principled late risers—the exception to the rule? To test the limits of Kouchaki and Smith’s findings, Sah and her colleagues began by looking at the underlying biology…
*****
Some people did cheat less in the morning, Sah found, but only if they were early birds to begin with. The opposite was also true: night owls cheated less in the evening. Time of day had less effect on honesty, the group concluded, than did the synchronicity between person and environment. “Our results should really dissipate those stereotypes of morning people being more saintly,” Sah says. “The important thing is the match.” Early birds aren’t ethically superior. And, to the extent that other research suggests that they are, it may just be that they are luckier: modern society, for the most part, is built around their preferences. We are expected to function well early in the morning. We can’t just wake up when our bodies tell us to and work when we feel at our peak…
Further details at the link. To be honest, what suprised me most was an offhand comment that “about forty per cent of people” are natural night owls — I’d assumed from experience that ‘our’ percentage would be about half that, with a somewhat higher proportion among my fellow geeks/nerds/sf misfits. Guess that’s early-bird propaganda warping my presumptions!
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And now, I’m off to bed — see you again in the mid-afternoon… Meanwhile, what’s on the agenda for the day?
sm*t cl*de
Apparently night people are monsters. I give you the 2014 Ignobel Prize winner for psychology, “Creatures of the Night”.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0191886913001918
Anne Laurie
@sm*t cl*de: More early-bird propaganda!
Mustang Bobby
I get up at 3:00 a.m. to write and go to work at 5:00 a.m., so technically that makes me an early bird, but I sure don’t feel morally superior to anyone. Well, except Ted Cruz.
BillinGlendaleCA
My best coding work is always done at night, no matter what time I woke up. It’s one reason that I’ve used 10amla as a nym for years.
NotMax
Really only come fully awake after midnight. Twas ever thus.
Morzer
I’ve always found that the night hours were the most creative ones, especially when the rest of the world is sleeping and the city is quiet and mysterious.
Baud
I’m a morning person now, but that’s only because I have to go to work.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Morzer: Pictures of your current locale are flashing on my digital photo frame right now.
Morzer
@BillinGlendaleCA:
You and the NSA? I feel honored!
BillinGlendaleCA
@Morzer: Pictures from my first trip to Korea in ’89.
currants
@Baud: Yes– and I think that explains ALs presumptions.
I’m not an early bird and never have been, but having to be in a classroom to teach at 7:15 am (when it was high school, insane) or 8:00 am (when community college) has meant I get up and function, but can’t stay up late either. So my night owl is perpetually suppressed and I never feel like I’m ‘on’ or operating at my fullest capacity. Except during vacation times, which means the first week or two back at school is a brutal readjustment again.
Hillary Rettig
well, there’s also the research about second/segmented sleep, and in many (most? all?) cultures people traditionally took a siesta after lunch, so the old saw about waking early seems pretty reductive even on its own merits
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Segmented_sleep
arranging my life and career so I have been mostly able to wake up at my natural time has been one of my great achievements and pleasures. past tense because the dogs nuked it :-/ they wake up 7 am OMG STARVING FEED ME NOW AND WALK ME INSTANTLY I DON’T CARE IF IT’S 0 DEGREES YOU’LL REGRET IT IF YOU DON’T
currants
@currants: (I think what I’m trying to say is that 40% of us have to live in the other 60%’s world, so it’s not necessarily apparent which is which.)
Geeno
I’ve always been a natural night owl, but work and my children having to go to school has forced me off my natural rhythms.
Now I get home from work exhausted and end up dropping off early to repeat the process the next day.
Geeno
It’s all like the old saying “If you want to really impress your boss with out actually doing anything, just be to work before him every day.” It’s amazing how effective that really is.
Botsplainer
A couple of years ago during the spring/summer/fall after my middle daughter explosively washed out of the college that she wanted (her high school best friend having been her roommate), she stayed awake all night, slept all day and refused to get a job, clean her room, pitch in to household chores, go to counseling or go back to school. She did, however, inform me that her mom and I were boring morning larks who are too into materialism, and that all the really creative people whose ideas will transform the world are up at night, networking and collaborating on their brilliance (I guess from their parents’ basements).
Woodrowfan
@currants: I am the same way. I write best at night, generally between 8 pm and 11 pm. My body’s natural wake-up time is 9 am and natural go-to sleep time is midnight. But I like teaching early morning classes. (I have an 8:00 today). It’s quiet. I get my choice of parking spaces in the faculty lot, traffic is light, and I get my classes out of the way early so I can work at my own pace and schedule the rest of the day, including my afternoon nap.
greennotGreen
I was a night owl as a teen, spent many years as an early morning person ( I do love the sunrise,) but now that I’m being aggressively courted by AARP, I find I’m becoming a night owl again. When I retire completely in four months, we’ll see whether I value the sun more than sleep.
BTW, you know what’s immoral? Making teenagers go to school at the crack of dawn. Way to make sure they dont succeed at school.
raven
@Geeno: I forward “The Chronicle” to my boss and his boss every morning @ 5:30. Since I work from home I always feel like that give me that jump.
Baud
I spent years impressing bosses without getting recognized for it. Don’t play that game anymore.
satby
I’m a bit more in the segmented sleep camp. I can’t sleep well if it’s light so I wake with the dawn whenever it is, get sleepy in late afternoon or early evening, then am wide awake until midnight again. I basically have slept 6 hours a night for my whole life. Used to drive my poor parents nuts.
debbie
@Geeno:
My boss liked to be the first in the office, but I couldn’t stand walking into chaos. I started coming in earlier so I could at least be settled in before he showed up. He tried coming in even earlier, but since he was a bus commuter from southern New Jersey, I easily won that competition — even though it meant I was up at 5am.
GHayduke (formerly lojasmo)
I just took a new job (same hospital, same division) with less pay for “better hours” (no nights or evenings) and though I am more or less a morning person, I am cringing at the thought of a 5 AM wakeup…not so much for the early day, as for going to bed by 10 in order to get a decent ammount of sleep.
Randy P
I’m not sure how to classify myself. Mostly morning person I guess. I never liked sleeping past 7, too much of the day gone. In my current schedule I start work about 7:15 and the 2 hours before most people arrive are the best and most productive part of the day. The down side is that I have to wake up at 4:30. That’s too early for my preference. But I’ve always enjoyed waking up at sunrise.
On the other hand, I’ve always enjoyed being up past midnight.
Those two things are not compatible with human physiology. The body wants to sleep. I resent the time lost to sleep. And as I age (I’m in my 50s) the body is getting more insistent, and taking more time to recover from several days of 4 hrs sleep. And then I end up sleeping till 9 or 10 on Saturday, which I hate.
On the plus side, catching up always includes the most amazing dreams. On the minus side, it also includes something like sleepwalking, where my arms and legs are actually performing the actions they are in the dream. Some of these dreams are like action movies, so you can imagine this is not pleasant for the wife.
I’m a natural napper and used to go a long time on catnaps. In retirement I may find my natural rhythm is something like 6 hrs at night and 2 during the day. I look forward to the experiment.
WereBear
I’ve spent the last six months on a mostly successful strategy to fix my horrible insomnia (I was getting 4 hours on a bad night and 6 on a good one.)
It’s hard to tell what my “natural” pattern is because I don’t believe I’ve ever been turned loose to experience it. But I have a usual in bed by 10, up at 6:30 or 7 going now that my sleep is a pretty consistent 8-9 hours a night. And such quality! I’ve never slept like this, ever.
It was 90% Caveperson Light Strategies. Amber sunglasses after sundown and sleeping with a light mask.
Sherparick
There is a reason that Chris Christie will never get through the Republican primaries that is not mentioned. All his opponents will need is a TV ad showing Obama and Christie on this post-Sandy tour of the Jersey shore. They won’t have to say anything, but just run this visual. Christie would have a better chance if he became a Democrat. https://video.search.yahoo.com/video/play;_ylt=A0LEVjiQcvBUxfMAnbknnIlQ;_ylu=X3oDMTB0b2ZrZmU3BHNlYwNzYwRjb2xvA2JmMQR2dGlkA1lIUzAwMl8x?p=Christie+and+Obama+post+Sandy&tnr=21&vid=70A2CE07AD918CC68A1A70A2CE07AD918CC68A1A&l=95&turl=http%3A%2F%2Fts4.mm.bing.net%2Fth%3Fid%3DUN.608021989243225927%26pid%3D15.1&sigi=11r4shsc0&rurl=http%3A%2F%2Fabcnews.go.com%2FPolitics%2Fvideo%2Fobama-christie-tour-superstorm-sandy-rebuilding-efforts-19272558&sigr=135cbn0rf&tt=b&tit=Obama%2C+Christie+Tour+Superstorm+Sandy+Rebuilding+Efforts&sigt=11oad6tjv&back=https%3A%2F%2Fsearch.yahoo.com%2Fyhs%2Fsearch%3Fp%3DChristie%2Band%2BObama%2Bpost%2BSandy%26ei%3DUTF-8%26hsimp%3Dyhs-001%26hspart%3Dmozilla&sigb=1397s382v&hspart=mozilla&hsimp=yhs-001
maurinsky
I’ve always been a burn the candle at both ends kind of person – up early in the morning, stay up late at night, but as I get older, I can only do one or the other on a regular basis, and morning wins because that’s when work starts.
Hunter
I’ve been both — at one point, I would get up about 11 am, have breakfast, do errands, and go to work at 4 pm, and usually turn in around 4 am.
These days, I get up at 4 am and am pretty much finished for the day by 9 pm.
And somehow, through it all, I’ve been ethically superior — although I do have to say, I’m a lot easier to deal with now. (Although I’ve gotten terribly mood-driven and undisciplined, but that may just be the result of having no outside demands.)
Mart
Forty percent are like me? I thought I was the only one. Working at home has been a blessing. Allows me to get up between 10AM to 1PM. Some evenings I will take a nap. Peak work time is after wife goes to bed around 10PM. I will go till 1 to 3AM depending on mood. Hated the office jobs. I would be the last one in, and the last one out. Never any credit for staying late, always with the why are you rolling in at (to me the crazy early time) of 9AM? Only problem now is when I visit facilities. They will say we start at 7AM. I will say I need to check email in the morning, is 9 OK. It kills me geting up at 7:30.
Viperbuck
The early bird may get the worm, but it’s the 2nd mouse that gets the cheese.
Ajabu
I’ve spent my entire life in the music business (and many years off finishing work at 2am.and sleeping from about 4am to noon) Now that I’ve hit retirement age – without the benefit of actually being able to retire due to poor financial planning as a young musician – I have a really erratic schedule. I never take a gig that goes past 11pm, I frequently teach classes that start at 9am and just recently had to take an Airport gig that started at 6am (up at 4:30 for that).
However, I remain a night person biologically and operate on automatic pilot for anything prior to 11am. And I can – and do – easily stay up till 3am if I don’t have to be up the next day. Working till you die is no fun but it bets hell out of the other option available to me. Stay broke. I love what I do but sometimes wish I didn’t have to do it out of necessity. Who’s got that damn Obama time machine, anyway?
Quaker in a Basement
If I could get paid every time I had to put up with the smug condescension of a morning person, I’d never have to work again.
Felixmoronia
@Anne Laurie: Earlybird propaganda is right, especially coming from someone who lives on the bottom(dark half) of the planet and where they believe today is tomorrow!