Why is being an early bird seen as somehow morally preferable?

[Wrongdissection]

DH is an early bird, he’s up by 6am latest every single morning, exercising and pottering about before work, catching up on tv, sticking washing in and just general DOING early doors. He regularly falls asleep on the sofa by 8.30pm. Making it to 10pm is an achievement we comment on (unless special occasion and we’re out and about!).

I am not an early bird. I set my alarm for 15 minutes before I’m due to start work (homeworker before all this anyway) and struggle when I have to do it earlier. I do my pottering and exercising after work, I catch up on tv and am usually ready to go to bed between 10 and midnight.

So why does everyone seem to say things like ‘if you went to bed earlier you’d be able to get up earlier’ or ‘you’re tired because you stay up late’ and yet no one ever suggests to DH that he’d be able to stay up later if he stayed in bed longer in the morning? Why is getting up early somehow morally superior and to be aspired to?! We’re awake for pretty much the same amount of hours per day so why is one better than the other?

The best thing about lockdown and working from home is that I can go to sleep at 4am and get up at midday and, so long as I do everything I have committed to during the hours I am awake, nobody can say anything.

This is my natural body clock and has been all my life. I am now mid-40s. Trying to adapt to a chrononormative (it's a real word, I promise!) schedule has made me ill.

I'm definitely a night owl, the small hours are just as peaceful as the early morning hours. No one disturbs me... It's great.

My partner is an early bird, sort of. He's almost never asleep past 8am and he's always asleep before midnight, whereas I cannot for the life of me remember the last time I went to bed before then.

Isn't there something with circadian rhythms? Or is that Facebook bullshit?

I 100% get this OP. I'm not a morning person, never have been. I much prefer staying up later, watching TV, having a drink to relax, reading etc. Getting up before 8am feels like torture.

Oh yes, the shit the bed snidey comments from the office larks who do fuck all til you turn up and leave earlier. More productive my arse

I'm an "early bird" I don't class it as early I get up at 5:45 for work. STBXH would moan endlessly over this as he'd go to sleep at 3am ...

I'm a lark, my dh is more of an owl but he has to get up early for work and it would suit our lifestyle better if he was a lark. I jump out of bed at 5, run 5km, shower and I'm full of beans where as he forces himself up at 545 ready to leave for work at 6 and is usually grumpy all morning. The kids (5 &2) get up at 6 so at weekends our days still start early and dh usually has to fit a nap or two in. I do feel sorry for him, the kids and I are raring to go at and he will be wishing he was still sleeping . Sometimes he'll squeeze a nap in midweek to at 530pm and they stay up until 11/12.

Oh yes, the shit the bed snidey comments from the office larks who do fuck all til you turn up and leave earlier. More productive my arse hmm

Haha ain't that the truth. In my old job we had to have coverage from 7am until 7pm, when I was due in early it was always the same faces taking about an hour to turn on their computers, warm up their porridge, have a brew and a catch up, and then start work when everyone else started appearing. The joys of Flexi.

My body likes consistency, but it's not too fussed on whether it's on an earlier or later setting.

Lockdown has made me later than usual. For the first time in a decade, my routines are not being controlled by pregnancy/ nightfeeds/ young children or work. DH has changed his patterns (particularly due to a panic buy of TV for our bedroom) and that's pushing me to bed later.

DH tends to be a night owl. Generally I'm live and let live about it, but the number of weekends he pissed me off when I woke easily due to young children, and then after hours of mooching bored shitless while he loafed in bed, the sun would go in and my motivation for the day had evaporated. That's when it's a waste. Otherwise there's nothing superior about being up earlier, and it's a PITA when people crumble for bed by the time you're done with the day and ready to relax and make phone calls or head out for a drink.

I did always think there was a gap in the market for baby/ toddler groups at 7am!

I just got up a couple of hours ago, I work through the nifht, I've had so many comments about sleeping through the day being lazy/ridiculous I'm sleeping the same amount of hours as you just at a different time!

I naturally awaken around 8 am then happily snooze until 9 am, I’m self-employed and work from home so there's no rush for me. OH will occasionally get up at 5 am then slide off for an afternoon nap but will try to tell me that I should have been up earlier as I've missed the best of the day.

@Bawdrip I came to say the same thing, Why We Sleep is amazing. Forcing people to work against their natural rhythms literally kills, and the damage we do to teenagers in forcing them off to school at the crack of dawn does a lifetime of damage to their mental and physical health.

@user3274826's point about tribes is covered in the book too. I think it's that a third of people are larks, a third owls and a third sort of flexible, meaning there'd only be a few hours a night where the group is vulnerable to predators/attacks.

To answer your question OP, anyone who thinks they're morally superior by waking early is actually intellectually challenged!

DH & I are early birds, always up between 5-6am, it’s not a superior thing at all, just the time we naturally wake. Our DS’s are up much later!

And yet I’ve not met a night owl yet who tries to convince a lark that they’re wasting their evening by sleeping.

DH tells me regularly I shouldn't be so tired in the evening. I'm currently getting up at 4.30am to do an early shift at work then he does a late shift. I'm up 3 hours before him, is it really any surprise I get tired earlier? Trouble is the night owls in the family (DH and DD1) are bloody loud as they chat at 10pm when I need to sleep.

Ughhhhhhhhhhhh It drives me mad. I’m a night owl, sometimes I don’t even get in from work until after 11pm but I live with an early bird who always throws up in our faces that “I’VE BEEN ON THE GO SINCE 5am. I HAD DONE THREE LOADS OF WASHING AND TIDIED THE KITCHEN BEFORE YOU EVEN GOT UP!!!” They also lock themselves in the bathroom dead on 7am when the rest of us need in despite having “BEEN ON THE GO SINCE 5AM”. They start falling asleep from 6.30pm onwards.

It’s honestly pathetic. Fine get up when you want but don’t act like it automatically makes you a better person. It doesn’t.

They also start washing up dishes and pans before eating the beautiful meals I lovingly prepare and then throw up “I WASHED ALL THE PANS” in my face. I think it’s the height of bloody rudeness to let a prepared meal go cold because you are so desperate to get one up on the rest of the household who are just trying to eat their food while it’s still hot.

Other people have referred to the industrial revolution being a factor in how we are forced now to organise our time around the standard working day. I would assume that if we were peasants working the land we would be more sensitive to sunlight hours, or at least wake early and sleep late in summer through to harvest time, then in winter sleep longer hours. In pre historic times it would have made sense to have some night owls to keep watch.

I'm glad others have mentioned that being forced to ignore your natural circadian rhythm makes you Ill. I will be forcing DH to read this. He doesn't seem to understand. I've really suffered having to force myself up at 5am. I'm tetchy, anxious, tired, constipated, loose my appetite, my hair thins and I have zero energy. He gets up with me at 5 and starts talking and moving about as soon as he opens his eyes. I'm struggling 2 hrs later. My natural wake time is 7 am, and I wake at this time irrespective of what time I went to sleep, and I can easily survive on 4hrs sleep. So many nights I've pushed myself to go to sleep earlier because of getting up at 5, only to find I'm still awake at 3am and going to work 14hr day on 2hrs sleep. Lockdown has been bliss.

Argh I feel like I’m neither! I’m great between about 10am and 2pm?!

I read an article and there is a third category a ‘bear’ who basically just needs loads of sleep!

I think with kids/ work maybe I’m forced to get up earlier than I am suited to and therefore am tired in the evening (but also morning). I go to bed at 10.30ish but can’t get to sleep for at least an hour. Alarm goes about 7.15 but still feel tired.

Naturally I guess 11.30-8.30 would suit me. But that’s a good 9 hours. That I never get as I’m a crap sleeper and wake up constantly all night.

I am definitely a night owl. I always went back to bed after school drop off and could sleep until 11. I have always worked afternoon/ evening shifts as a reg nurse . I cannot bare the world until at least 10am .

HissyFitz2020
On the other hand, the quiet, composed quality you’re likely to experience in your mornings if you’re an early riser is also quite gratifying; no one appears at their best when flying around like a headless chicken because they’re late.

You're falling into the trap of confounding being a night owl and being late all the time. I'm a night owl; my earliest start time during normal service is 9.30am when I have a 2 min commute. I am never late. I also have evenings sessions where I don't finish work until 9.30pm and then have 30 min commute, which many early risers wouldn't be able to do if they are all in bed by 8.30pm.

I like to get up early and get to the gym, get some washing in, watch breakfast tv, etc. but don't have a problem with the rest of my household getting up later. In fact when they get up early, it really annoys me! 😉

I could not be doing with someone who starts nodding off on the sofa by 8pm though, whether they've been up since the crack of sparrows or not. Bedtime is 11ish for us so the thought of someone heading up much earlier than that is alien to me! 😮

I hear you OP.
I'm a night owl and have heard it for decades. Those who get up early (as a rule - I'm sure there are exceptions) seem to think it is morally superior.
I'm a 'live and let live' person - live your life at whatever hours suit you. BUT, there is nothing "better" about getting up early and missing half the wonderfully productive evening hours.

Having been a classic night owl through my twenties, I have had an abrupt about turn in the last few years.

I quite like it, given that my hobby is writing, and my husband - - won't shut the fuck up- - chats a lot.

I'm worried I'm turning into my mum, who's a "made six batches of jam before you woke up" kind of person. She got up and made everyone breakfast after giving birth to me at midnight before.

(Which makes my dad sound bad, but trust me, she'd have managed to get up earlier than him whatever the circumstances - in fact, I never really thought of parenthood making you tired, because as a child, she was always waking up the whole household to go to her schedule!)

@AtLeastThreeDrinks it's so interesting isn't it? I'm not a big caffeine drinker anyway but it totally put me off caffeinated drinks. I'm also a big fan of a 20 min afternoon nap but interestingly haven't needed one much since stopping all caffeine. It's awful the damage that we do to teenagers when you read about the incredible results they can achieve with just a little bit longer in bed in the mornings. Highly recommend the book. It's by Matthew walker

Hear hear @dpotter. If my day starts at 9.30 I'm not 'running round like a headless chicken because I'm late' I'm perfectly on time. The difference is I come in, sit down and get on with it. In comparison the early shirleys seem to need two hours in the office to get to that stage given they all seem to be chatting, making coffee, assembling breakfasts, eating it, reading the paper, having more chats until they finally start work.

One guy made a big fuss about coming in early. Turns out he pitched up in his gym gear at the crack of dawn. Logged on, sent a team email so we could all see how early he started then he'd fuck off to the gym for an hour. He'd still leave early though.

Another group of three used to get in early, log on and then nip over the road for a coffee and a chat for an hour.

I also used to work in a place which did a proper clock in/out flexitime system. You could rack up overtime and take additional holiday when it got to over two days. One fella used to turn up and clock in at 7am but only actually start doing work at 9am. He'd then stay until 5 meaning he was racking up 2 hours extra a day which is 1.5 days off a week! He used to boast about it until he was pulled up when his balance hit 30 extra days and one of the junior staff dobbed him in saying he'd watched him spend two hours making breakfast and watching American Football on his phone.

Obviously this is clear evidence that all larks are not to be trusted!