Being an early riser AND a sports fan on the east coast is a difficult proposition - must be frigging nice to watch a full live-broadcast NBA game and hit the pillow for a fifth-grade bedtime out there in Fancy Land pacific time. You guys don’t know how good you have it.
You should read "When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing" by Daniel Pink. It's a good read and a fairly rigorous yet accessible look at all the ways you're wrong.
You can be a 4:30 AM guy. The rest of us, it varies and it has little to do with routine or power of will.
I have a grade-school aged child, so early mornings are a painful necessity in my life. In a world where I can wake up at 10:30 AM every day? I'd feel every bit as productive as you feel waking at 4:30 AM. That is my natural cadence. I'm hyper productive as my brain is cooling off around midnight and the rest of my world is off doing other things. I'm more of an outlier, but there are indeed a large number of people who will always feel better if they wake up later than the average person.
Many people could probably get more done by going to sleep and waking an hour earlier than they currently do. And maybe that would leave them feeling more fulfilled. But for others, it would just leave them feeling tired.
Edit/PS - I realize you did a little bit to say this might not be for everyone and 4:30 is an arbitrary time. But my feelings are directed toward your overall view that nothing good is happening late at night and that waking earlier is pretty universally better.
Unfortunately this is a challenge for the Eastern (& Central) time sports fan. Sunday night football starting around 8:15, west coast NBA games at 10:00. If I get up at 4:30/5:00 and want to shoot for 6-8 hours of sleep I miss the most important part of the football game and basically all of the late basketball games. Pacific (& Mountain) time is the best place to mix sports fandom and healthy life habits.
4:30 can be great but remember the juice is from the change not from the early wakeup. It's why people cycle through fitness gimmicks -- jazzercise, tae-bo, crossfit, pilates.
Weston Price and Mark Sisson of the Primal Blurprint and evolutionary type influencers have a good point: how did our ancestors live and work, for hundreds of thousands of years, until the rapid 20th Century shifts? Maybe our bodies are telling us things, inherently.
Ethan, just so you know, almonds are a lot healthier than junk food, but they are high in fat and calories. Especially if you're eating flavored almonds that are palatable, that almond snack can quickly add up to a lot of calories.
I realized after a few years of parenting that if I woke up before my kids, I had a chance to have a happy and productive day. If my kids woke me up, it was almost a lock that I'd be cranky and feel like I'm underwater all day. I can generally roll with 1030 to 530 for sleep. Pushing it to 430 might be a problem for me.
My kid is young enough that help getting ready is still a necessity. So I try to always wake up first. The challenge is outside of school days, there's not a reliable wakeup time. I'd love to plan my morning around getting a coffee and doing a little reading before my child is up, but those plans so often get foiled by a surprise pattering of little feet at 6:30 AM.
For me it's not worth getting up so early to guarantee I get that coffee time. No amount of sleep makes me feel good at those hours before the sun is up.
Yeah i basically had to give up on MNF. SNF I can sometimes do if the game is good enough. Its real tough for anything that goes really late like NCAAF championship game, NBA Finals, etc. I'll usually stay up for big games like that but it kind of sucks.
I’ve had jobs that started at 4am, and let me tell you, sometimes you can’t change if you’re a morning person or not. After six months of doing that and feeling like a zombie, I was overjoyed to move to a 12pm-10pm shift.
From elementary school into every early morning job I’ve ever had, I’m absolutely useless before 8am. No matter how much sleep I actually get, that’s the cutoff; whether it’s six hours or (somehow) ten hours, waking up before that feels like the same groggy mess. I’m the type of person who gets some of my best work done late at night, after the morning people are in bed, with several family members who have independently said the same thing. Unless I’m unbelievably exhausted or dead drunk, I’ll get a second wind around 10pm. I’ve tried changing that through sheer willpower (mind just races in bed), normal exercise (same), and melatonin (horrifying, vivid nightmares). I’m going to call it a failure before bringing narcotic adjacent substances into it.
The major stigma that seems to be thrown at the night owls, even in this piece, is that it’s pure laziness. To be fair, it does take a degree of discipline to continue to work after the early risers have clocked out for the day and are enjoying happy hour. Just because you’re not starting at 5am doesn’t mean you’re living the life of a college student on break.
I guess my main, rambling point is that there isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach. Sometimes it would be best to recognize that instead of force everyone into the same category.
I'm a 4am guy. I have always naturally been a morning person, never needed coffee. I'm useless after 6pm. I like that I get to get out and get things done before there are cars on the road, it saves me a lot of time.
There are cons and downsides. Im the guy yawning at 8pm when I'm out with friends. During certain times of the year it is really dark at 4am and really light outside when trying to go to bed at 8pm.
But I do hate the assumption that people who wake up early are better and more productive. We all have natural sleep cycles, it's dumb to think someone is better than others because they are a morning person.
Being an early riser AND a sports fan on the east coast is a difficult proposition - must be frigging nice to watch a full live-broadcast NBA game and hit the pillow for a fifth-grade bedtime out there in Fancy Land pacific time. You guys don’t know how good you have it.
Agreed. I grew up on the west coast but live east now. I never knew watching the Super Bowl was a nighttime thing
I’m a west coaster who moved to the east coast and watching sports is literally my #1 complaint about it. Truly ridiculous.
Haha. I was thinking, as a midwesterner, how can Ethan watch ball AND wake up so early? Yeah West Coast games all end by 10pm.
You should read "When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing" by Daniel Pink. It's a good read and a fairly rigorous yet accessible look at all the ways you're wrong.
You can be a 4:30 AM guy. The rest of us, it varies and it has little to do with routine or power of will.
I have a grade-school aged child, so early mornings are a painful necessity in my life. In a world where I can wake up at 10:30 AM every day? I'd feel every bit as productive as you feel waking at 4:30 AM. That is my natural cadence. I'm hyper productive as my brain is cooling off around midnight and the rest of my world is off doing other things. I'm more of an outlier, but there are indeed a large number of people who will always feel better if they wake up later than the average person.
Many people could probably get more done by going to sleep and waking an hour earlier than they currently do. And maybe that would leave them feeling more fulfilled. But for others, it would just leave them feeling tired.
Edit/PS - I realize you did a little bit to say this might not be for everyone and 4:30 is an arbitrary time. But my feelings are directed toward your overall view that nothing good is happening late at night and that waking earlier is pretty universally better.
Unfortunately this is a challenge for the Eastern (& Central) time sports fan. Sunday night football starting around 8:15, west coast NBA games at 10:00. If I get up at 4:30/5:00 and want to shoot for 6-8 hours of sleep I miss the most important part of the football game and basically all of the late basketball games. Pacific (& Mountain) time is the best place to mix sports fandom and healthy life habits.
4:30 can be great but remember the juice is from the change not from the early wakeup. It's why people cycle through fitness gimmicks -- jazzercise, tae-bo, crossfit, pilates.
Weston Price and Mark Sisson of the Primal Blurprint and evolutionary type influencers have a good point: how did our ancestors live and work, for hundreds of thousands of years, until the rapid 20th Century shifts? Maybe our bodies are telling us things, inherently.
You are a married man with young kids and you still have “friends”?
Ethan, just so you know, almonds are a lot healthier than junk food, but they are high in fat and calories. Especially if you're eating flavored almonds that are palatable, that almond snack can quickly add up to a lot of calories.
I realized after a few years of parenting that if I woke up before my kids, I had a chance to have a happy and productive day. If my kids woke me up, it was almost a lock that I'd be cranky and feel like I'm underwater all day. I can generally roll with 1030 to 530 for sleep. Pushing it to 430 might be a problem for me.
My kid is young enough that help getting ready is still a necessity. So I try to always wake up first. The challenge is outside of school days, there's not a reliable wakeup time. I'd love to plan my morning around getting a coffee and doing a little reading before my child is up, but those plans so often get foiled by a surprise pattering of little feet at 6:30 AM.
For me it's not worth getting up so early to guarantee I get that coffee time. No amount of sleep makes me feel good at those hours before the sun is up.
Yeah i basically had to give up on MNF. SNF I can sometimes do if the game is good enough. Its real tough for anything that goes really late like NCAAF championship game, NBA Finals, etc. I'll usually stay up for big games like that but it kind of sucks.
Same. I stopped watching late-night sports. I miss it but the decision has improved my quality of life. I make exceptions for certain playoff games.
You might have responded to yourself by mistake.
I sure did
But I'm going to stick with it because that's the kind of guy I am this week
But who cuts Ethan’s citrus and cucumber for his 431am ice water face plunge?
This is the way! Made the switch myself a couple years ago.
Will say this, though.
Baby No. 3 arrival coupled with Baby No. 2 swapping pull-ups for underpants at night has made for some rough nights at Go Long HQ.
I’ve had jobs that started at 4am, and let me tell you, sometimes you can’t change if you’re a morning person or not. After six months of doing that and feeling like a zombie, I was overjoyed to move to a 12pm-10pm shift.
From elementary school into every early morning job I’ve ever had, I’m absolutely useless before 8am. No matter how much sleep I actually get, that’s the cutoff; whether it’s six hours or (somehow) ten hours, waking up before that feels like the same groggy mess. I’m the type of person who gets some of my best work done late at night, after the morning people are in bed, with several family members who have independently said the same thing. Unless I’m unbelievably exhausted or dead drunk, I’ll get a second wind around 10pm. I’ve tried changing that through sheer willpower (mind just races in bed), normal exercise (same), and melatonin (horrifying, vivid nightmares). I’m going to call it a failure before bringing narcotic adjacent substances into it.
The major stigma that seems to be thrown at the night owls, even in this piece, is that it’s pure laziness. To be fair, it does take a degree of discipline to continue to work after the early risers have clocked out for the day and are enjoying happy hour. Just because you’re not starting at 5am doesn’t mean you’re living the life of a college student on break.
I guess my main, rambling point is that there isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach. Sometimes it would be best to recognize that instead of force everyone into the same category.
Ok I’ll do it
I've shifted to being a late night owl - until 2 or 3am so that I would wake up with the sun. I love it.
I'm a 4am guy. I have always naturally been a morning person, never needed coffee. I'm useless after 6pm. I like that I get to get out and get things done before there are cars on the road, it saves me a lot of time.
There are cons and downsides. Im the guy yawning at 8pm when I'm out with friends. During certain times of the year it is really dark at 4am and really light outside when trying to go to bed at 8pm.
But I do hate the assumption that people who wake up early are better and more productive. We all have natural sleep cycles, it's dumb to think someone is better than others because they are a morning person.