Some of us just like to howl at the moon
There has been a long running dispute between people who naturally wake up early in the morning and those of us who stay up until all hours of the night and sleep until noon. Early risers tend to stigmatize us night owls as shiftless, undisciplined, or just plain lazy with phrases like "the early bird gets the worm".
Somehow, night owls have been made to feel inferior to the early risers. It's time to set the record straight.
The truth is blow the orange cheese curl.
But First, A Word From Our Sponsor:
Top Comments recognizes the previous day's Top Mojo and strives to promote each day's outstanding comments through nominations made by Kossacks like you. Please send comments (before 9:30pm ET) by email to topcomments@gmail.com or by our KosMail message board. Just click on the Spinning Top™ to make a submission. Look for the Spinning Top™ to pop up in diaries posts around Daily Kos.
Make sure that you include the direct link to the comment (the URL), which is available by clicking on that comment's date/time. Please let us know your Daily Kos user name if you use email so we can credit you properly. If you send a writeup with the link, we can include that as well. The diarist poster reserves the right to edit all content.
Please come in. You're invited to make yourself at home! Join us beneath the doodle...
|
Both early risers and night owls are following their own genetic pattern and are doing it right.
In night owls, melatonin secretion begins very late, which makes it easy for them to stay awake (and productive) well into the night. Because of this, as quoted from Sleep: A Very Short Introduction by Steven W. Lockley and Russell:
Evening types wake earlier in their circadian "day" and are therefore more sleepy and poorer performers in the morning but do not decline as much as morning types by the end of the day.
The undeserved "lazy" stigma given to night owls comes about due to the early birds of the world never seeing you at your most productive because, ironically, they're often fast asleep by the time you get going.
Many night owls have to fight their genetically induced, later-in-the-day melatonin production in order to work. They have to get up early in the morning and try desperately to get to sleep earlier at night in order to get up early the next morning. I wonder how many sleep aids are used to try to counter-act our personal biological and biochemical clocks for our jobs. I'll bet it's a lot.
Even if you get used to the schedule of an early bird for a paycheck, it doesn't mean you're genetically an early riser or turn into one. During vacations or other times when alarm clocks aren't set, night owls reveal themselves. And when you retire and either turn the alarm clock off permanently (or use it as a door stop), some folks might just be surprised by their biological clock. Routine early risers might find that they're really night owls.
There are other ways that genetically programmed early risers and night owls can be revealed. While early risers start off with high energy levels that gradually diminish over time, night owls start off slowly with energy levels increasing during the day. All of this has to do with the release of chemicals in our bodies. Some night owls are in their most productive state after midnight.
So, early riser or night owl, it doesn't make a difference which you are. Just make sure that you're using your most productive time to the fullest. And if you're a night owl forced to be an early riser because you've got kids to take care of, feed, get off to school, or get to a job, you have my sympathies and complete understanding. I was one of you.
Now, for what you really came here to see: Top Comments, Top Mojo, and the now back and newly improved Picture Quilt from Jotter.
How incredible is this? For an explanation of How Top Mojo Works, see mik's
FAQing Top Mojo
Top Pictures for yesterday. Click any image to be taken to the full comment. Thank you jotter for the awesome image magic! And thanks for not only fixing it so it can be displayed in all it's glory, but improving it, too.