Greetings and Salutations, Blog Readers!

Today, let’s talk about sleep cycles. Namely, those of us who find peace in the evening and night, and prefer to sleep in the day.

The Night Owls.

Wise, normally caffeine addicted, and occasionally seen hissing at the sun, night owls prefer to get work done, to be awake, to exist, at night, or, at very least, they tend to stay up late.

I have always been this way, a night owl, since I was born. I was born late at night, just before midnight, and I haven’t ever wanted to be awake in the day time, ever since. My grandma used to tell me that the biggest struggle she had was keeping me from slipping into a nocturnal schedule when I didn’t have school to wake up for, because even when she could get me to bed on time, I would want to sleep all day.

Or, as I did all throughout my childhood, I got out of bed and played quietly or read a book, not ready to sleep. In the wee hours of the morning, I would fall asleep, and sleep as long as grown ups would let me.

As an adult, little has changed.

The first chance I get, I will stay up late and sleep in late. Hell, any time I don’t force myself to bed at a reasonable hour, I will stay up late, and sleep in. I have never been a morning person, and I have always preferred the night.

It drives me nuts, these chipper morning people, able to rise early, have some healthy breakfast, go for a run, and also manage to be at work early…when I am crawling in clutching my coffee for all it is worth, wondering how the fuck morning came so early AGAIN.

All the successful people seemed to get up early, and despite my best efforts, even when getting more than enough sleep…I couldn’t quite master getting up and being so perfectly ready and “up and at em” like my morning bird friends…and I saw successful people everywhere, all being morning people.

Even when I successfully get up early, with enough sleep, I am normally quite grump about it.

For years, I have wondered if this means I will never be as successful as the people who are up with the sun, but I think in this day and age, it means I simply need to make excellent use of my evening time, and make sure I am well prepared to conquer the day when I do wake up.

Also important is not oversleeping, which I am definitely guilty of doing. I hate alarm clocks, but also generally lack the desire to get out of a comfy bed, but I am working on being more mindful of the good things in my life to kind of hype myself to get out of bed when the alarm rings telling me I have achieved my 7.5 hours. I do still believe getting enough sleep is important, as every study that comes out lately indicates that getting 7.5 hours of sleep is the best way to maintain a good mental state and healthy body.

I also understand that during the week I can’t always hit 7.5, and even with my goal of 6 hours, I tend to only get four and a half or so, if I do everything I want to do in the evening.

As my life continues on and I slowly find more and more ways to work from home, however, I will be able to become more nocturnal. My goal is, of course, to not get too norctural, because as much as I love staying awake until at least 4:20 AM, smoking a goodnight bowl at 4:20, and being asleep by 5:00 AM or so..and waking up around noon, it isn’t always conducive to participating in the world around me. Will I always be able to stay up that late? If I am willing to compromise on sleep, maybe. But, I don’t want to short my sleep, when I already do plenty of things that are bad for my health, so, I know moving forward, even if I don’t have to get up, I will need to be mindful of how late I allow myself to sleep in.

And even if I can do it most days, I should be aware of the world around me. Things like scheduling my blog post to go up with the morning crowd, to make better use of the reading times people get on, or just to post in the morning to get my day started while I am in bed, as is my norm, to allow for a sneak evening post if and when possible. (I have plans to drop more than one blog a day when I go full time at home) I can be aware that not everyone wants to chat at three in the morning either, although some do.

I have to be aware that just because I am a night owl, doesn’t mean that others aren’t morning birds. We can all coexist too, with the night owls keeping watch at night, and the early birds maintaining the morning, everyone wins.

I use this logic in Flake City, and some characters end up really appreciating each others true differences. Differences in when you prefer to sleep aren’t bad at all when you need someone guarding the door.

And in life, we are all basically guarding the door from whatever the “zombie” happens to be that day.

So, instead of being mad at myself for being a night owl, or being angry with chipper morning people, I can appreciate our differences. I can realize that for now, I can’t be up all night, and so it will be hard for me to wake up and be chipper. And my early bird friends know they can count on me to stay upbeat and happy as the night grows later and later, and they just want to go to bed.

But…it can be lonely so…Any other Night Owls out there?

Thanks for Reading!

❤️

Abbi