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?

If you lie in til 11 am that's 4 hours asleep that you could have been doing stuff, imv, so going to bed at 12 is adding an hour or two to the day, not 4 hours. And are the late risers really busy doing stuff in the evening, maybe they are just watching tv. So the early risers achieve more.

The moralistic larks really get on my nerves. Dh is like this.

If you lie in til 11 am that's 4 hours asleep that you could have been doing stuff

So 7am is the official getting up time?

And what If you don't have "stuff" to do? What do the 7am risers do when they've finished all their "stuff"?

And are the late risers really busy doing stuff in the evening, maybe they are just watching tv. So the early risers achieve more
The early risers could be watching TV too. Are they really busy in the morning?

7am Possibly is the official getting up time if you go to bed before 12 which most people do

But what does it matter if someone goes to bed at 2am and has their 8hours sleep?

So what? How does it affect you so much Edwina that you feel the need to critique others doing it?

Going to Uni forced me into getting up at the arse crack of dawn, I have to drop DC at two separate places and then haul my ass across the city to Uni for 9am.

I hate every second of it, but the holidays allow me some balance

im 100% a night owl, i always have been and i always will be. Im terrible early on, i just cant function properly and ive tried to train myself to be an early bird. the only reason im up now is because i havent been to bed at all! i get fed up of people telling me im wasting the day, im not, i just function better later on and thats just how my body clock is, nothing ive ever tried has changed that

Who needs to write a whole post, this is 100% me too. Night owl through and through, nothing has changed it, not even having dd, instead i got her sleeping later lol
She now 10 and will happily sleep till 11am on weekends, her early weekend is 9am but she don't wake me usually lol

No moral high ground here. When the kids were little and 5am starts were the norm it was a pita when stbexh stayed in bed until 11 and came to bed gone midnight, but that was a husband issue.

Ironically now hes gone and children are bit older my days start at around 8 and I go to bed around midnight. I used to struggle to stay awake past 9pm!!

@Bawdrip I've been recommending it to everyone! I hear you on the afternoon nap – I don't tend to sleep but I do now recognise that dip in productivity, and that it's ok to chill on the sofa for a little bit rather than try to push through.

I burn the candle at both ends, I'm always an early bird but I can also often be a night owl. I'm quite a nervy energetic person and also do not need more than 6 hours sleep.

I do like an afternoon power nap though

DPotter: You're falling into the trap of confounding being a night owl and being late all the time

Sorry, only just spotted this - actually I didn't mean to imply this. It was meant to follow the qualification "if you genuinely are procrastinating by getting up late" earlier in the paragraph. I do agree that if you intend to get up at 9 or 10 or whatever and you actually do so, you're following whatever routine you've planned and may well be just as organised! Because I'm better in the morning I also prefer to do things like make packed lunches then (really can't face it in the evening) whereas a night owl may well have done it before going to bed. It's just that most of the night owls I know are simply pretty bad at getting up at any consistent time and just don't drag themselves out of bed until they have no choice, then faff as well.

I hate the people who say ‘wasting the day’ it really bugs me

Same!

Me and DH are night owls so when we had a baby it was much more of a shock to our system

I can't sleep for more than a few hours at a time and my sleep pattern means I get 2 'days' in every 24 hrs. I wake around 5am and work from around 6am till 12/1pm have a nap at 2ish till 5pm and I'm up again for the evening usually doing house stuff cleaning/gardening and I don't go to sleep till at least 1am.

And are the late risers really busy doing stuff in the evening, maybe they are just watching tv. So the early risers achieve more

Well according to the larks on this thread they get up to 'potter, have a leisurely breakfast, watch tv, walk, chill, go to the gym, have quiet time while everyone's asleep' which doesn't sound like they've solved world peace or achieved much more that is owls get done in the evening?

I agree with a pp - I think it is a lot to do with a pre -electricity world when most of your work had to be done in the daylight, as gas/candle/firelight simply wasn't bright enough to allow tasks to be done well. And thus, "up with the sun" was the right way to live, and those who wasted daylight hours by sleeping during them were not pulling their weight.

The world has moved on, but we do still have this outdated notion that daytime is for working, evenings are for leisure and night time for sleeping.

Hissy & EdwinaMay

That's already Hissy.

There's a lot of pressure on night owls to conform to early riser hours. As someone else mentioned, forcing a change to your circadian rhythm is bad for one's health. I am capable to getting up at 7am, or even earlier - but I'm grumpy, out of sorts, forgetful and woe betide you if you ask a question. So it can seem we're a bunch of disorganised grumps if we're up before our bodies are ready. I just ask you to imagine how you would feel if you were expected, everyday, to be up and actively working until 3.30am as I was this morning. I felt fine, but would you be grumpy, working efficiently ?

DPotter

No, that 3.30 a.m. bedtime sounds like absolute hell to me! Put like that - if what seems a "normal" daily pattern feels so unnatural to you - I'm amazed you can even function. The other way around would drive me nuts. Respect!

They say it because most people start work at 9 or earlier and finish at 5 ish. Obviously everyone has different working patterns but this is usually the most common working day schedule. People are used to getting up early to go to work hence it’s on their mind that they have to get up early.

I think it’s really that simple and don’t think it has anything to do with class or farming.

I'm built for the night. I work permanent nights and used to feel like death if I had to do early shifts- there was no amount of sleep could help me get up at 05.30. Conversely I'll happily work 14+ hours if they start after 20.00 I'm not built for day hours, and do everything necessary like a bat at night.......

I’m 100% with you OP! I just don’t get it.
I’ve always eaten dinner late, gone to bed late, and I’m never good in the morning even if I have got plenty of sleep.

DH and I did a (his) family Zoom recently at 11.15am and MIL & FIL were all cat’s-bum-mouthed at the fact I was in pyjamas and we’d just eaten a leisurely weekend breakfast.
When FIL said “It’s not breakfast time, it’s lunch time” I only just stopped myself shouting “FUCK OFF”

I’m like you OP. I’m by no means a night owl these days (definitely when I was younger) but I get up and get out basically. Go to work hair like wire wool and sleep marks on my face.... I couldn’t care less 😂

In some ways I agree with you - nearly everyone judges someone who is an early bird as better than a night owl even if they sleep the same number of hours. I think it is partly to do with ‘seizing the day’ by starting early.

The other important thing though is on average, early birds are much healthier than night owls. The risk of illnesses such as diabetes, high blood pressure etc. is much higher in those who are night owls than early birds because every hour of sleep before midnight is worth twice the regenerative value than every hour after midnight. It’s to do with the active times for each organ etc. and there’s advantages health-wise to early breakfast and not having a late dinner

I’m a fellow night owl myself but I do know it’s much healthier to be an early bird. Morally, I agree there’s no real benefit either way and it’s unfair to deem night owls as lazy and undisciplined compared to early birds.

I’m definitely a night owl, I find there is something magical in the late evening and early hours of the morning. It’s my absolute favourite part of the day and I’m at my most alert and productive at this time, too.

I don’t understand why larks seem to think that their tendency to get up early is somehow morally superior, either! 🙄 I regularly have to deal with barbed comments from my parents on my sleeping habits when they call me to chat - ‘Oh, you’re up then? Wasn’t sure if you’d still be in bed at this time! (2pm)’ or ‘You weren’t in bed were you?!’ every time they ring me. My Dad even referred to me as a Vampire the other day because apparently I’m ‘up all night and I wither in the daylight‘! 🙄

My DH is a lark, can’t stay in bed much after 8/9am on his days off, drives me mad because he can’t understand why I like to lay in and stay up later- he often says things like, “If you went to bed earlier you wouldn’t be so tired in the mornings!”. I don’t say things to him, like ‘If you didn’t get up so early you could stay up later!’ 🙄 I agree with a pp, as long as you can achieve everything you set out to do, why does it matter which part of the day you get things done?! 🤷🏻‍♀️