For as long as I remember I don't sleep according to societies' standard schedule. While we are told 'early birds have the day' and it's pretty easy to find articles on 'how to become a morning person', I feel more like this:
- I hate waking up before 10 AM
- I sleep 9 hours easily
- I love being awake at 2-3 AM - being hugged by darkness I feel most alone, most focused, and most creative
- I am not hungry in the morning
- I am only feeling 'sharp' and hyper productive right about 3-4 PM - right when everyone is starting to think about ending the day
Photo by Thomas Bonometti on Unsplash
It took me only a few years working in different offices to realize this isn't for me. From back pains to neck pains to terrible I-want-to-kill-myself headaches - every job slowly took from my body, left me helpless, hopeless and incredibly unhappy.
After a year of headaches that only recovered every Sunday Afternoon, 12 hours before my next work week would start, I decided: no more. An old colleague of mine didn't know she had presented me a lifeline when she phoned and offered me a job as a freelancer instead of an office worker. I took it. Deciding my own hours? Yes, please. No more leaving the house at 07:00, feeling with every inch of my body this isn't right I want to puke.
I wrote a quite honest and vulnerable e-mail to my colleagues and boss when I resigned, ending with: "I'd rather work 30% of the hours at 100% capacity than 100% of the hours at my current 30% capacity." Just a few days ago I had told my two bosses of my year long torture, and I had kept it to myself for so long my throat was barely able to produce the words.
I was told thank you for my honesty and at least one other colleague decided to change her life after my, what she called, eye-opening example. It's why I will always be a little more vulnerable than some think is comfortable. Vulnerability touches other peoples lives.
I worked as a freelancer and it went so well, I decided this was the perfect time to go on a sabbatical. I received a new challenge: a broken bone in my foot that will never heal and made me have to rethink some things - again.
As I was traveling, and 'at home' working as a photographer, two of my main activities were not a very viable option anymore. It took me a huge while to figure things out, and I found Steem after 2 years of trying to solve the puzzle. I wrote when I wanted, I was social when I wanted, and no boss was expecting me to make a deadline. And most of all, bringing us back to the topic I wanted to discuss: I slept when I wanted.
Apparently, if you leave me without an office job for 3 years my schedule ends up like this: sleep till 11 AM, stay up until 2 AM, sleep at 3 AM. Work all non-sleep hours.
It's perfectly okay, no-one is telling me to do things differently, but...
I often end up feeling guilty after waking up late, and even though my head is super fuzzy those first few hours I end up going downstairs, drink a coffee while watching a Netflix episode, and open up my laptop so I can start doing stuff. Because, yeah, everyone else is already working for hours, right? And here I am being lazy and slow and fuzzy, damn you Rosa!
In the end I worked more hours than I did ever before, and also more days in a week (basically seven out of seven), working away my 'guilt' for sleeping these weird hours and somehow trying to compensate for lost time - time from sleeping, time from recovering from my physical accident thanks to which I earned nothing for quite some time...
Until last week when I was frustrated that I couldn't seem to finish an assignment
I went to my favourite lunch restaurant with good coffee, determined to finish the assignment once and for all. I decided to grab a psychology magazine from the communal table while waiting for my order to arrive. It had one of those tests in it which I never fill out, heck, I'm a psychologist and probably know a better version of that test anyway, but this one was about sleep, and it was 1 PM and my head was still fuzzy... I got my coffee from the waitress and decided to take the test, just for fun.
And there it was, the result, very unsurprising after reading the description: I am a WOLF.
Wolves are one of the four Sleep Chronotypes defined through research, expanding on the binary 'morning person' and 'evening person'. About 15% of society is a wolf, and this Chronotype clashes pretty badly with society. A wolf never goes to sleep before midnight, a wolf always wakes up late (and certainly should not be expected anywhere before 9 AM!), is not hungry in the morning, is not really bright and shiny right after waking up, should only do some routine tasks from 2 PM till 4 PM (as they're awake then, but not at their sharpest yet), and is on their best between 4 PM and 7 PM - which is when their creative brains can produce great presentations or brainstorms with colleagues.
I recognized myself, of course, and read some of the tips:
- Set two alarms, one for waking up, and one for getting out of bed. Make voice memos in between because creative thoughts pop-up in these 20 minutes.
- Start the day with some water and a walk outside - The article stated I would hate the world a little less thanks to that
As sleep influences through hormones everything from when insuline levels are high and low, when the brain is fully 'awake' and when sex and hunger hormones thrive, there were some more specific tips, like don't take coffee immediately as it would disturb my brain from waking up, and not eat breakfast in the first hours either.
You won't believe the relief I felt when I realized there's a whole group of people struggling with the same thing as me
Which is funny, because I'm a psychologist, and this is what it's all about right? We're all unique but we're all part of some sort of group that's basically pretty similar. Once you've found your group that has the same 'deviation from normal' as you do, you can start talking with and learning from each other.
But here I am, feeling less alone, feeling more accepted (mostly by myself :P), and finally finding some 'rules' I can live by that actually optimize my day for my specific Chronotype, instead of fighting it constantly.
So what has changed for me?
Mostly I have accepted to not do much 'brain stuff' the first 2 or even 3 hours after waking up. I slowly read up on some posts, I get out of bed, I go for a short walk as that helps me wake up my brain, I eat only when I start getting hungry, I accept that I shouldn't expect my best working hours to happen before 4 PM, and therefore only do some routine tasks until then.
Having insights about habits and thought processes that go on for years or decades is always pretty powerful - we tend to get stuck in how we believe we should live, but tweaking life towards your own body, mind and soul should be our ultimate goals. And no, that's not always easy.
Since I read the article I have been doing things I always suspected I should do but never did because tiny voices were telling me otherwise - it's pretty impressive how much society can influence your behaviour by making you believe you're going it wrong.
I'm a thousand times more kind to my own deviation from the norm, and this will probably mean I'll find more productivity and health as I will adapt my daily routines according to what works best for my kind, my fellow Wolves.
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