#Microblog Mondays 95: Larks and Night Owls
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Josh asked me as we were going to bed well after midnight, “Are you a lark or a night owl?” If you had nowhere you had to be during the day or night, no family or friends dependent upon you, would your body rather be awake during the day or night?
I know I am a natural night owl because I once stayed back at college for the first few days of winter break in order to see a friend who was coming into town. It was Christmas, and I had nowhere I had to be until Boxing Day when we were getting together. I was very depressed during that week due to incidents that happened before break, and I decided to just do whatever I needed to do to get through those days until I could see my friend and vent.
So I rented a bunch of movies and bought a bunch of books and purchased clear root beer (remember that stuff?). Then I let myself do whatever I felt like doing, and my schedule shifted away from my normal school life schedule. I would read or watch movies during the day, and then I would start writing around 11 pm. By 4 or 5 am, I would tell myself to go to bed because it seemed like the right thing to do. And then I would sleep until 1 or 2 pm the next day.
I am married to a committed night owl, and our kids are both deep night owls who seem to come alive around 10 or 11 pm and sleep until lunch whenever we let them.
So what is your chronotype? Are you a lark or night owl?
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36 comments
I so wanted to be a night owl when I was younger! But I have come to recognise that I function better when I work with the sun. So I am more of a morning person- except I am still not an early morning person. I don’t like alarms, when I could I slept with the curtains open and woke with sunlight. Note the past tense- I am married to a night owl who cannot handle the light.
I think I can stay up at night better than waking up early in the morning !!
But I’ve always been forced to wake up early to pack lunches for my girls…sigh…am much free now 😀
I used to be a night owl in college days but now I have to get up very early to finish my work before going to office . So I am a night owl only during the weekends 🙂
I’m definitely not a lark. But not as much of a night owl to still be awake at 4 or 5 am. Perhaps I would be, but I’m married to a lark, so have to compromise.
I’m definitely a lark. And I think my husband is too. And, now that they’re a bit older, I think both of my kids are too. Funny how that works out…
I’m a lark (though He-Beat has me complete beat on this with the 5 am wake-up calls). Still, I get antsy if I’m not out the door by 9 am.
Grey is a total night owl. There are days I wonder if he’s a vampire given the hours he’d like to naturally keep. I suspect She-Beat is also a night owl.
I used to be a confirmed night owl all through my teen and early 20s. Now, close to 40, I am of the firm belief that I need a good night’s sleep in order to function well. I am up early, energised and happier 🙂
Lark-ish. I’m usually up by 7:30-8:00, when left to my own devices. But I will stay up til 1or 2 also. My work schedule is designed to have me up at 5 and at work at 7, and that is definitely my preference.
By nature I’m a night owl, and my husband and SB are, too. However, I have to admit that I really enjoy the crisp morning air when I get up early. And I’m so exhausted these days that I crash earlier – often I’d love to go to bed with SB. Mind you, this often is at 9 or 10pm, so I’m probably still not quite a lark.
I found a picture just last week that said something like, “I am not an early bird, or a night owl. I am some form of permanently exhausted pigeon.” That’s pretty much how I feel….lol
I am a lark. I have to sleep by 10.30 pm and wake up before 6 am. On school days, if I get to sleep by 9 – 9.30 pm I can easily wake up by 4.30 am and I feel fresh. On nights when a book becomes unputdownable and it gets 1 or 2 am, I look like a zombie the next day.
I saw the same picture as Lavonne (above) & thought it suited me to a T, lol. I used to tell people when I was working that I generally hit my stride around mid-morning… just in time to go for lunch, lol. My mother calls me a “morning person” & it’s true that even when I was a kid, I had my own alarm clock & could get myself out of bed & have breakfast & get ready for school without prompting. But I have never been much for conversation until I’ve had my first hit of caffeine, lol. 😉
I come from a long line of night owls — my sister & mother & my grandmother & great-aunt before them would happily prowl around at all hours. I used to stay up quite late when I was in university, reading, watching TV, partying (lol). But when we were working and commuting and having to be up at 5 a.m., I found I had to be in bed by 10 at the latest or I’d be useless the next day. Then we’d go home to visit my family — they’d want to start playing cards around 10 o’clock & together with the different time zone, I’d be falling asleep. I’d finally be getting into the groove and staying up later & then it would be time to leave & back to work again.
Even after we both lost our jobs, we found we were still going to bed around 10-10:30. I’ve noticed, though, since we moved into our condo, we’ve been staying up later & later. We were up until 11:30 last night, watching a documentary on TV. I said to dh, “My parents would be so proud of us!” lol
This is timely. I’ve known I was a night owl since childhood. But over the decades I’ve trained myself to adjust my schedule. I’ve had jobs that start at 7, 7:30, and the majority at/none later than 8. Having kids solidified my adjustment–7:30 is sleeping in, no exaggeration.
But over the past few months I’ve started going to bed later–after each kid was about 6 mo I’d go to bed by 9, which crept up to 10 after a couple years, but now it’s up to 11, which means I’m always exhausted now. And I know exactly why, duh, just go to sleep earlier! I’m not sure what my problem is–other than when I was away for a conference recently, I have no problem falling asleep if I’m in bed earlier. I just need to actually get to bed.
When I was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Nicaragua (the last time I was able to sleep to my preference) I found I generally went to bed around 9 and woke up around 7 or 8. I think I went to bed early because there was really nothing to do once the sun went down – living with limited electricity allowed me to break free from my night owl habits. When I came home, I got a quasi second shift job (I worked from 12-9) and so I would regularly go to be at 1-2 in the morning and wake up around 10. Now, with a more “regular” schedule (I start work at 8:30 am, but before I can get there I need to get three kids to their destinations), I struggle to be in bed by 11 and then to wake up by 6:30 am. I would rather return to my Nica schedule, but alas that cannot be!
I am totally a night owl and have trouble going to bed (even while pregnant) before 10 or 10:30 when I have to wake up around 6 during the work week. However, the older I get the harder it becomes to sleep in like I used to. These days if my daughter allows us to sleep until 7am I am up and ready to go.
Most of my life I’ve been a night owl. I seem to come alive about the time the dinner dishes are done. I used to be able to sleep late in the morning.
But things are shifting. For some crazy reason, I get up early now. I can’t seem to stay in bed past about 7a. Which means I do need to get to sleep earlier than I used to. I’m becoming a lark.
I am not a night owl, but I am not a lark either. When I was in college, I went to bed at 2pm and got up at 9am to go to class at 9:50. These days, I get very sleepy if I don’t sleepy at 11pm. If I can have my way, I’ll sleepy by 10:45 and get up at around 8. But we usually go to bed at 10:30 and get up at 7 to go to work. When I used to go to fitness bootcamp, I got up at 5:30. Bob still goes on M, W, F, but I have switched to yoga which doesn’t require getting up early.
Definitely not a night owl – I used to get up at 4am to finish homework rather than try to stay up past midnight. Left to my own devices, I go to bed around 10:30-11pm and get up at 7am. But, that doesn’t work well with my current schedule, so I need to go to bed at 9:30pm and get up around 5:30-6am. Sometimes I still stay up late, but that damn alarm goes off on time…..
Definitely a night owl! A lot of times it’s easier for me to get to sleep during the day than at night.
I am very much a middle of the day person – neither a strong night owl nor a strong morning person. One of the best shifts I ever worked was from 11 am to 7:30 pm – I was always awake and hitting my stride. I know for a fact I’m not a night owl as I’m generally ready to sleep by about 11 pm or midnight at the latest, but I hate getting up much earlier than 7:30 am.
I can function as a lark when necessary, but I am a life long owl. Hubby is too, and the kidlets seem to have followed our footsteps.
Growing up I believed I was a night owl. I had a hard time falling asleep. College suited me until my last semester when I was student teaching and I had to report to my placement by 7:30 am at a school thirty minutes drive away. That hurt.
Within several years, I preferred getting up early to get things done. I’m happiest when I can be in bed by 9 pm. My son hasn’t got the memo yet.
If I didn’t have to get up til 11am, I’d be as happy as a camper. My husband thinks I wake up in a bad mood. I swear I’m not in a bad mood. I’m just awake before a time I would prefer. Night owl forever.
I am more night owl, but I can function as a lark if I’ll only just crawl in bed early enough. I have to agree with the pigeons though, the description fits me well. Hubby is definitely an owl. Not sure what the kids are yet.
I’m more of a second shifter… I do my best work in the mid afternoon and I’m usually good until around midnight or 2 AM. I come from a line of larks… and that’s definitely not me. My husband is a night owl, and I’m not that either. Unfortunately, next year we get our schedule dictated by a early elementary start (bus at 7:48AM… ugh), which won’t work well for my night-owl soon-to-be kindergartener.
I’m a night owl. Always have been. I think, in another version of my life, I was a musician. This time around, I also often worked overnights.
Now, I would sleep in, but the sun is waking me. I need black out curtains, because my very best writing time is between 11 and 2.
Lark for sure. I went through a “night owl” period in early adolescence when I had stomach issues and couldn’t sleep at night because I was nauseous a lot. I read a lot of books that way. Then I would stay up all night writing my papers in university. But after university I was done with all that. Couldn’t handle it. Thank goodness the child is a good sleeper!
I also saw, and related to, that picture that says “I am not an early bird, or a night owl. I am some form of permanently exhausted pigeon.”
When I was young (teens, 20s), I was a night owl. That tendency gradually left me the older I got. Now, since having children, I can rarely sleep past 5:30 a.m. because my bladder won’t let me and I can’t go back to sleep once I’m up if the sun is up. 🙁
I used to be more of a night owl, but having to get up at 6 am 40 weeks out of the year has shifted me a bit. I can sleep in later than that, but then I feel icky. I do shift my schedule during breaks and stay up later and later, but there’s something about early mornings in the summer that makes me more of a lark than an owl. Plus I love to garden, and gardening at night is a bad idea what with the bugs and the skunks and the raccoons and the giant wolf spiders that come out at night. Lark, then…
I have never been a night owl. Even as a student. waking up wee early was my kind of thing. I love mornings, as the Sun rises, the cool breeze – it’s just beautiful in my mind 🙂
Lark, I am.
definitely a lark. i used to pull all nighters at college for papers and stuff, and it was a novel experience at the time, but not something that i could sustain regularly. am definitely happier being in sync with the sun 🙂
I am somewhere in-between. Most I’m up by 5 and not down unti midnight or so.
Every third or fourth week the body sends a message. The net result: naps on the weekends.
I love nights but also mornings so I guess that makes me ideal to work overnights.
A lark, definitely. I regularly get up before 5, and it’s my favorite time of the day. I am also super grumpy after about 9pm every night. I have always been this way – when I was in college, but I didn’t understand the people who fell asleep in their 8am classes. It’s such a nice time of the morning.
Jeff is a night owl who has been forced into early mornings by commuting schedules; he has finally figured out how to go to bed early and says he loves the early morning times, but left to his own devices he’d be up late every night. Owen seems to be a lark like me.
Definitely a lark. Look, here I am sending this to you while I’m on vacation, at 7 am! When I did shows at night for years, I thought I must be a night owl until I didn’t do them anymore and realized I wasn’t. I had friends who used to call me when we weren’t doing a show at 2 am and say: “hi! Just wanted to see what you were up to.”
Nocturnal by nature.