Night owl or lark?

[Popchips]

Just saw a thread about being a night owl of which I am not- I’m a lark. I like early nights and early mornings. I love being up while everyone else is still asleep. Sometimes I’m up 3-4 hours before everyone. I can get all my house work and laundry done, prep dinner, lay out breakfast ready for everyone, meal plan- do my online food shop before my husbands alarm has gone off. It massively takes the pressure off me during the day. If there’s not much housework to do I can watch a movie or read in peace and quiet.

So are you a night owl or a lark?

Night owl. I feel physically unwell when woken early and it takes me a good hour including caffeine and breakfast to start to feel normal.
Ideally I would wake up at 10, start the day at 11 and go to bed at 2am, but sadly society isn't set up that way.

Is there one that's happiest during the middle of the day? Pigeon or sparrow maybe.

Night Owl

It’s really difficult I feel like life doesn’t fit to me at all. I hate meetings in the morning. It takes me hours to feel fully awake. I get all my best work done at night.

Lockdown was fantastic - homeschooling the kids. We all got into ‘my’ hours and woke up at 9am which was brilliant for me. First time I’ve kept regular hours for ages as I sleep at 1am.

I want to be both! I think sleeping is such a waste of time.

I go to bed between 11.30 and 12.30 and am usually up by 7. Sometimes it is earlier

Have always been an extreme night owl and struggled throughout school and all 35 years of working life to get up in time. But since Covid and me being at home working I've become a natural lark. I wake without an alarm most days now at 7 ish and have no idea why this has changed. But early mornings are a revelation and I love them in the spring/summer.

Family of night owls here. We keep relatively larkish hours during term time for obvious reasons, but during school holidays we slide back into our natural owl inclinations. The last few days before back to school in September I have to set my alarm increasingly early to adjust back to term time hours.

We go to bed at 9, as my dh has to be up early. He lies down, closes his eyes and he's gone.
Me, on the other hand, reads the paper, looks on the internet, watches TV quietly and never goes to sleep until after midnight. Luckily I don't have to get up early early, (Monday and Wednesday I'll roll downstairs about 9 ish) but other days I'm downstairs about 8.
When I have done vote counting, I'm can be up until 5am, easy peasy, but getting up at 5, no way!

Why don't you just stay up then @Curlygirl06?

Owl. Apparently larks feel all perky and refreshed after sleep - who knew? I feel terrible when I first wake up. Research shows larks to be naturally happier too, the total bastards.

So he goes to bed and you stay up, Curly.

A lark in the guise of an owl at the moment. I have always been an early riser, even more so since hitting my late 50s but fostering babies means I am awake half the night now too. Our current babies are 1 (sleeps 7-6) and 15 days (Sleep? What's sleep?)

@DontCallMeBaby

Owl. Apparently larks feel all perky and refreshed after sleep - who knew? I feel terrible when I first wake up. Research shows larks to be naturally happier too, the total bastards.

@DontCallMeBaby, that's how I know I have always been an owl, even as achild and having slept well for hours nowadays, my first thought is 'Why am I awake?' If I can find any excuse to get up for necessary functions the go back to bed I will. But at night it's the opposite any excuse to stay up.

I do feel terribly guilty when I hear of people who have had terrible adverse circumstances who are grateful to wake up and seize a new day.

@GeorgieTheGorgeousGoat

Why don't you just stay up then *@Curlygirl06*?

I don't want to wake him up if I go to bed and he's asleep. I'm the clumsiest person in the world, so if I sneaked upstairs I know full well I'd trip over my feet/ hit the bed/ walk into the wall etc. He can sleep through the tv being on, but me thumping about like a baby elephant would wake the dead! It works for us this way.

Gosh you're a saint. DH is a shift worker and I'm an insomniac. We'd not cope if we hadn't learnt to sleep through each other getting up or coming to bed.

Lockdown made me realise that my natural sleep pattern is to go to bed later and get up later.

I have a theory that larks are extroverts and owls introverts.

I am an owl, but when I have tried to be a virtuous lark and gotten up early I have spent my time tiptoeing around and not being able to either get on with things or relax because other people will soon be getting up.

As an owl in my normal routine, I start to relax and feel more free to get on with things once the rest of the worlds inhabitants have gone to bed, because no one is going to disturb me.

I'm a huge extrovert and a lark. I like to party. Don't want to go to bed at 10 and fucking hate mornings.

Lark. Massive introvert.going to bed late because wine.

I wake around 6 and get coffee and peace before the kids.

Night owl, definitely. Lockdown (and the fact that I can set my own working hours from home) has helped me settle into a sleeping pattern that suits me, which is between 1am and 2am to 9:30am. I tend to have breakfast and coffee when I wake up, run any errands I have, then work from lunchtime until 8 or 9pm.

I can’t seem to get myself going work-wise before noon and I’m baffled that I managed to work 9-5 for 13 years before lockdown

Up at 6 for school run, bed around midnight but would like it to be later ideally. I think I'm more owl than lark but I'm quite 'up and at 'em' in the morning and get a lot done before the house wakes. I often feel tired early evening but there is a point where that completely changes and I feel I could stay up all night, having to force myself to go to bed. If I let myself and get into something on TV, I could be up until 3 in the morning easily. My family are all owls so I think it's what I've always known. I find it completely weird that grown adults go to bed at 9 and on the rare occasion I've gone to bed before 10, I always feel like I'm missing out (not quite sure on what).

Night owl. 100%. Hate going to bed, hate getting up in the morning. But I have 2 small children, so…..

@osbertthesyrianhamster

I'm a huge extrovert and a lark. I like to party. Don't want to go to bed at 10 and fucking hate mornings.

Do you not mean you're an owl?

I’m a night owl with natural mediterranean tendencies My natural sleep pattern is to go to sleep at 1-2am, get up at about 7 and be perky and productive, and then have a siesta at about 2-4pm (when i am completely useless to the world anyway). Then I can get up and shower and be ready for the evening. Best of both worlds - and fortunately I’m self-employed and work from home so can often engineer this set up.

I have a theory that larks are extroverts and owls introverts.

In my experience it's the total opposite.

I agree it's the opposite. The owls stay up and out late, the larks slope of early. They rise to enjoy the peace and quiet before the rabble begins.