Naturally Nocturnal Humans

For your consideration...

www.lighttherapy.com.au...

More recent studys are linking teen 'nocturnalism' to lack of regular exposure to morning light. Sunlight involves UVA which stimulates activity in all animals including us.
Daylight stimulatesthe release of endorphins in the brain.
See SAD (seasonal Affective disorder)

en.wikipedia.org...

I dont think people are 'naturally' nocturnal. More an effect of our lifestyles.

Lack of morning light keeps teenagers up at night: Study

thecitizen.co.tz...

[edit on 21-3-2010 by wayaboveitall]

reply to post by gconran


Yes, I am from California, have been a night owl since a small child. Lived in Indonesia for a couple of years and....hung out with the night owls! And that close to the equator, the days and nights are about equal length!

I am nocturnal as well. Always have been. I struggled in school the whole way through, from grade school to high school, and even college.

One of my teachers in high school thought I had narcolepsy, and I kept telling her that I did not. I just told her I could not sleep at night. I could not become relaxed enough to do so.

To the OP, I hear you when it comes to it being daytime. I as well feel perfectly ready for sleep when the sun starts peaking over the horizon, and the birds are singing. Nobody has every really been able to understand why I cannot sleep at night. I have been scolded because of it, even.

Your situation fits mine perfectly. I sometimes will be able to fix it for like 2 days, but then it's just back to the same old grind. Usually I have to try and find ways to knock myself out to go to sleep at night, if necessary. I really hate having to wake up early. It sucks!

Wayaboveitall: It seems strange, then, that morning light does not help me wake up, even if I have had 8+ hours of sleep at night and wake up early in the morning. No matter how much sleep I get at night, when I do, and wake up early, I still feel incredibly sleep deprived. Walking zombie, no matter what. Autopilot.

And to the guy who asked if we nocturnal people are more sensitive to certain things. I am. I am very perceptive, and I can pick the most subtle of lies out of people.
[edit on 21-3-2010 by Fangula]

[edit on 21-3-2010 by Fangula]

[edit on 21-3-2010 by Fangula]

It would be interesting ( to me at least) to know what the majority of zodiac signs we night owls are.


Me:Scorpio (heavy) w/ Picses rising

When I started homeschooling my son, we started at 8PM.
He, like me, had always been nocturnal. My mother always worked 3rd shift, and I thought maybe it was inherited. He was always sleepy in school, but no matter how hard we tried to get him to go to bed at a decent time, he would sneak back up or just be laying in bed, wide awake.
So anyway, after the first week, we were meeting with our homeschool group, and he announced to the group "It is like, doing school, at night? It's like I have a whole 'nother brain!" (He was 8.)

There's always someone up in this house. Always. My natural bedtime is about 9am. I have restless legs wanting to dance all night if I try to sleep earlier.
I'm a Gemini - he's a Capricorn. Both total nightowls.

When we went to the big homeschooling convention, we stayed in the night owl lodge. It was neat finding out there were a lot of others like us out there.

I don't miss the morning sun - I do solar gazing and have for years - I'm always up for the rising sun. lol I've got a blue light box too. I don't think my problem is that I'm not getting light.
I also don't sleep 8 hours straight though. I sleep 2-3 hours here, 3-4 hours there. Usually about 9am-12pm and then again about 5 or 6 to 8pm.

[edit on 21-3-2010 by hadriana]

reply to post by missvicky


Leo/Actually, I've just found out I have Cancer on the Ascendant

A whole bunch of planets in Leo/Virgo...

Edit - To fix astrological errors

[edit on 21-3-2010 by Retrovertigo]

I have been this way since before I can remember.

It doesn't matter what I try.

I've been to a sleep clinic, and I've tried:

Eliminating all sources of artificial light at night.
Taking melatonin at night.
Making sure I get lots of light exposure during the day (including the early morning.)
Getting regular exercise during the day.
"Winding down" before bed, by relaxing, and reducing the amount of mental stimulation I've exposed to.

Doing this, I CAN force myself, with great effort, to sleep at night. However, during the day, I don't feel rested. I feel exhausted, sickly, and fatigued. The longer I do this (I have done it for MONTHS before, in an effort to achieve what my physicians promised would occur: "normalcy") the worse I feel, until I am just horribly sleepy all day long and finally pass out.

Left to my own devices, I fall asleep around dawn, and awake around 4 PM, after about ten hours. I then feel fit as a fiddle and full of energy all night long. The darker it is, the more awake and alert I feel.

So not only do I not sleep well at night and feel exhausted during the day, but whenever I sleep, I sleep for a long time (at least ten hours; sometimes longer.)

This is "just how I am," though I have to hypothesize that there is a reason. (Not that anyone can tell me what it is.) It isn't just delayed sleep phase syndrome, because it's quite regular.

Wow this is a crazy post! I'm the exact same way. Since I can remember when my parents would make me go to bed I would just day dream awake until the wee hours of the morning. Right now I'm posting this at 2am and don't feel the slightest bit tired. If I sleep through the night the whole next day I feel like I am in a day dream until the night falls. Always groggy (sp), sleepy, and not social. However, when evenings arrive I began to "wake up" and feel normal.

I have no alcohol or drug addiction and don't drink a whole lot of cafinated drinks. Guess I'm just a night owl. It's good to know that there are others around that are the same way.

Thanks for sharing this post.

Also, I get plenty of sunlight. Throughout the summer I'm always in the sun swimming or fishing with my shirt off. Even through the summer my bed time is around 5am and wake up is about noon.

Yea I myself usually sleep from 5 to midday. Never had a problem in school really but my parents would always have to wake me up. Alarms couldn't wake me up in the morning and I was forced to go to sleep around ten which would result in a couple of hours tossin and turnin. Didn't think about it much until now. I have been on my workshift 430 to 230am for 4 years now where everyone I talked to said I wouldn't make it because my sleeping would be horrible. Never had a better job or been better rested though. Love the thread.

You know what? Here we are again, trying to justify something so simple as sleeping a different schedule.

You know? Why? I LIKE being up at night. It is supposedly a free country, isn't it?

It flat ain't free of people passing judgment on anyone a bit different, that's for sure.

Very interesting thread! I never tought of this before.
I am a normal sleeper, but only cause work 12-16 hours a day.
When I have a holyday I keep going to bed later and later until I live at night and sleep during the day. This happens within a week.

The night is more peacefull, not to much input, mysterious. I can think better at night and some of my best art is produced at night.
The more I think about it the more this thread opened my eyes.

I always feel tired during the day. But thats maybe cause of the long workinghours.
Anyway, society can use nocturnal people, and that can be even the reason some people are programmed this way.

I think the best cure for it, if you are nocturnal but you want to fight it, is
long, hard labour during the day. In a couple of days/weeks you force your body and mind to go to sleep at night.
But maybe its better to find a night job.

I'm up on the overnight a helluva lot longer then I'm up during the day. It's less fun and more chaotic while the sun is up. Granted sunlight is great for overall skin health but I find that it's more interesting to be up on the overnight.

There is nothing the matter with anyone who prefers a nocturnal lifestyle. Just be forewarned that human contact is kept to a minimum during the overnight as roughly like 70%+ of the populous works during the day and sleeps during the overnight. Besides, while everyone's asleep someone's gotta man the ship to make sure it don't crash.

Originally posted by Kurt Turner
I feel you! I am the same way and I couldn't stay awake in school or pay attention. Then I would take adderall to stay awake even though I don't have add then I got addicted to that and it made me twacked so I smoked a lot and then got sent to rehab. I have awlays been labeled as a slacker because of it I am glad you posted this.

Yea i can relate to this... i think most people could be nocturnal, but ofcourse it is provcen that sunlight it not only good for the kin but good for the soul.. it makes you happier!

well.. the only job I could work at in the last 32 years was...a night job. seriously! Why? My sleep schedule. even as a young child being in foster home to foster home, I remember being awake at night 90% of the time. On 2 occasions, my schedule led to frieghtening experiences I will never forget and still fresh in my mind to this very minute.

My youngest daughter has the same issue, she can't go to sleep before 2am (and if she does, she litterly forces herself to stay awake to stay up 24 hrs in order to get on a day schedule to be in snyc with everyone elses schedule) even though she's taken melitonin to clam her down...dosen't work. LOL.. It didn't start till around 9th grade and she's in the 11th right now, but will have to drop out of compulsary classes for mulitple medical issues...one of which is anixiety.

So, if I understand your post corectly, there are 2 diffenrt types of human beings............................that just wierd even to think that.. and one is noturnal....

Intresting this subject is, I've been called a night owl ever since I can remember .. along with the Night Shepard, which came from east where shepards would stay awake at night to tend their flocks by night. (not sure how true that is) but, apprenatly they were the ones to arrive first at the manager of the baby Jesus whoo hoo .. ! score 1 for the nocs !! LOL for those who believe and even if those who don't, shoot your still in good company !

WHY IS THIS .. are we designed this way ?? and if so, what for?? My whole 'time schedule' is WAY off when I have to sleep durning the night.. and when I do come to bed early.. the standard question is.. "who are you! My husband doesn't come to be bed till 4am" !!!

Sometimes I wonder where my sleep rhythm falls. I always hated getting up, and having to go to school. Mornings usually make me sick. When I had to get up for work in the morning, my husband always said I was a bear to wake up.

For the longest time he would yell at me at 2 am to go to bed. Here I wondered what woke him up in the first place. Maybe it was just the fact he wanted me there with him. That changed after I got a security officer night shift.

When I first started working it did take a little getting use to to stay up until 6 or 7 am depending when the shift was over. Then when I wasn't working, my husband didn't want me to stay up all night, which really threw me off sleep wise.

Currently, he came to terms that I'm not a morning person. He gets up with the kids to see them off to school whether I have to work or not.

If I'm left to my self, I usually find I want to sleep around 2 or 3 am. Sometimes find it easy to stay up until 5am. What is weird is that if I am able to go to sleep before 11 am, I can wake up in the morning with out much problems. Morning I mean around 8 or 9 am. If I go to sleep after 11pm, then I want to stay up and and wake up late.

I guess I was never really able to let myself find and get into a natural sleep pattern. There always seems to be some external force that prevents me from doing so.

I do admit, especially in winter, that if I stay up all night and wake up late, I miss the sun light. Maybe I should be living further south. Oh well. I think right now my sleep pattern is all messed up. Maybe it will always be.

PS. My night security turned into 2 shift security from 3 to 11pm. I guess I don't have to wake up at 5am. I did have to there for awhile. I'm never really up until after 11am.

[edit on 21-3-2010 by Mystery_Lady]

I TOO HAVE BEEN LIVING A NOCTURNAL LIFE FOR MANY YEARS.

MELATONIN is the harmone released from the pineal gland when u stay awake t night.

It greatly increases your extra sensory perceptions.

But then, we must make it a point to get some sunlight exposure everyday.

the sun isnt an issue for me. i was raised in alaska and true the winters we didnt have much sun, but all summer we did, and i was still a night person. and those people who say they were forced to live a night life and hated it, now you know how we feel trying to shoe horn ourselves to your schedule.

my mother is a night breed, tho she still forces herself to live "normal" hours. when pop would go away for work she starts shifting her patterns later, then feels guilty or something. im not real sure.

i have also done the stay up for multiple days to try to "fix" my sleeping patterns in the past with the same results as most of the people who have commented on this thread.

as for not getting enough sun, now that im in the lower 48 i still get plenty. a bit before bed and depending on the time of year a decent amount after getting up.

i also have good night vision. my grandmother blinds me when i visit and am reading and the room is too dark in her opinion and flips on a light. funny to me is she says i will go blind from reading like that, and i tell her i will go blind from reading like that and having a spot light thrown on me.

i have been reading in the dark for as long as i can remember. not total dark mind you, but i dont need much. thats how i spent my time at night, as kids we were sent to bed at 8pm, and i just couldnt sleep. so i would read.

i would not say im psychic, i am somewhat sensitive to environment (noise, bright or funky lights, chemicals, smells etc) but i was a night person even when i lived in the sticks and didnt have polution. i do have a decent intuition. but thats day or night. and it isnt always right.

been eons since i looked at my chart... virgo and if i remem right virgo heavy chart. but i dont realy remember.

oh, travel. i didnt technicaly cross the date line, but i flew from alaska to sweden and stayed there for 6 months. i think i had a more "normal" schedule for a few days but i was back on nights long before i left. (sorry i cant be more specific, was too long ago.)

I'm the same like my nana "Night owl" as its called. most active from around 9pm-6am
I didnt think this was a naturally occuring thing though.

I'm a night owl too. I feel the best when I go to bed when I get sleepy (usually between 3-6 a.m.) and get up when I wake up on my own (usually between noon-1 a.m.). That's freedom, and let me tell you it feels great!! We don't have children, so we're not forced to "conform." We don't have kids we have to get up with to get ready for school and so forth, and that definitely makes it easier.

When I listen to my body and go to bed when my body tells me it's time to go to sleep and get up when my body awakens naturally, I feel energetic and my mood is positive.

I don't know why my sleep cycle is different from other people's, but it is.

I have the most energy around 4-5 p.m., and I have the most creativity after midnight. My husband is the same way.

We both work second shift, and when we go to work, it's at a time when we feel like our energy levels are at their best. We normally work around 4-midnight. We generally go to bed between 3-6 p.m. and get up between noon-1 p.m.

We have several hours to be outdoors and enjoy the sunshine before work. Years ago we used to get up, have coffee, and then play tennis from 1-3 p.m. before we went to work. We don't play tennis anymore, but sometimes we take a walk, sit on our balcony and read, or putter around at home. We also like to go to the pool in the afternoon and enjoy the sunshine. On our days off, we like to be outdoors taking photo (photography is one of our hobbies). So we get plenty of sun and both love the sun. I love feeling the sun on my face when I'm sleeping.

Overall, we both feel great when we listen to our bodies. Our bodies have a different cycle and rhythm, so we just go with the flow and give it what it wants. Screw the alarm clocks!!!



[edit on 21-3-2010 by cornblossom]