Why do I get all my best ideas at ungodly hours of the morning?

Not just ideas, but motivation in general. I'll waste the best part of the evening on God knows what pointless crap or other, then at around 1am everything starts coming together. A musical idea. The urge to roll my sleeves up and start mixing a track I've been putting off. A work related task I  should have done 4 hours ago. Some online research which I've been meaning to do. 

And then before you know it it's 3am and way past my bedtime. Result: not enough sleep. 

It's almost 2am and I'm measuring for shelves. What the hell is wrong with me? 

Sometimes guilty of the same.  I think some of it is that late night is much more quiet and peaceful, and perhaps I am a bit more relaxed (often end up getting to bed around 2:00 A.M. or so).

I would much rather sleep during the day and do all the other stuff at night.

I've never liked being a morning person..... I detest having to get up before my body wants to get up naturally. 
Now that I'm a bit older..... staying up at night is getting harder to do and for some reason I seem to be waking earlier. Of course, much of that may be coming from the fact that my wife is a school teacher and she gets up fairly early every day of the week. 

As far as good ideas at night..... maybe..... I've had a few where I have awakened in the middle of the night with what seemed like a really good idea for a song......but I've never felt compelled to get up and write it down in any way.  

I have, on occasion, after toking a few in my younger days... been setting with my guitar and come up with some freaking brilliant ideas AND had the recording machine ready to roll......and let it roll. After the recording, I recall thinking that I had just captured the next #1 hit song........ hoooooo boyyyy!    Time for bed and I'll get up tomorrow and refine it and get it ready.....  Next morning..... what the.....?  That's can't be the same tape.... no..... this sux........ what was I thinking? 

Bristol_Jonesey

And as one gets older they may find they need less sleep as well....

I've been waiting for this to happen for years!

No sign of it happening here - and my need for a lunchtime nap seems to grow daily (I missed a meeting on Monday because of this )

The Spanish speaking countries have it all together.... afternoon siesta..... then hang out until 1am or so... and sleep in until 10am which is "early". 


While I was in Argentina I noticed tables and chairs near the sidewalks in many of the residential neighborhoods. I asked about it. I was told this is a custom..... In Argentina, the normal dinner hour starts at 9pm.... here in the US.... we normally eat between 5pm to 7pm at the latest ..... in Argentina, the restaurants don't open their doors until 9pm.... so, back to the neighborhoods..... around 11pm, people start to gather outside near the sidewalks at the tables and chairs they have set up and they eat and drink and some will walk around and hang out with others..... kind of like a nightly block party. This gathering can last well into the early morning hours in some cases..... 3am or so.... 


Ride through a city like Raleigh NC at midnight and the streets, even in the downtown areas on week nights are deserted. Not so with Cordoba Argentina. It was like a carnival going on. Every sidewalk cafe and bistro had all of it's tables filled, people were packing the sidewalks and I even remembered seeing a juggler with flaming torches juggling in the street while we were stopped at the red light. 

Bristol_Jonesey

And as one gets older they may find they need less sleep as well....

I've been waiting for this to happen for years!

No sign of it happening here - and my need for a lunchtime nap seems to grow daily (I missed a meeting on Monday because of this )

My wife, who is about 64 is going through this now.


She goes to sleep around 10pm....gets up at 2am....


Me? chemo induced insomnia and such gets me up regardless of what time it is....

Karyn


Humans, like most animals, are designed to wake up when it gets light and go to sleep when it gets dark.  How a whole society can effectivly become nocturnal is beyond me.

Dunno...  Most of the animals I know of around here tend to sleep during the day and are up and about at night!

A lot of people work at night - take computer people, the others work during the day. But it is also bio-cycles that a person goes through also. Try moving around more to sleep better - exercise. For awhile I was getting up at 5-6AM in the morning, now that fall is coming in a couple of days, the weather has changed and back to getting up around 9AM because I am not getting to sleep until 1-2AM in the morning. Other times I stayed up till 4-5AM because of working like a 2nd shift. And anyway when young it was driven into you because you had to go to school and be there in the daytime, then college where you had to get no sleep usually because this world wants you to experience what they had to go through. Now it is different times for different shifts because managers think they run everything and they make more and only work during the day but always complain they have to work longer days and at all times - ya, they make more money also. Ya, whatever, and yes, I have been through it all it seems and still those other people want more! Blah!

I can't say I'm actually a "morning" or "night" person.  When I'm up and interested in what I'm doing, I just keep going.  Then, when I sleep, I enjoy that too and don't want to get up so I can never really predict when I'll be awake or asleep.  I also find (as mentioned before) that I don't always need to sleep a full 7.5 hours (the so-called "8 hours") at once, but I break it up into two segments.  I also find that I require far less sleep when I'm doing something I enjoy and am anxious to get back to work on.

The main thing is that I rarely force myself to stay awake when my body wants a nap and, on the flip-side, I tend not to get up before my body wants to.  This is a VERY productive behavior for me!

We must be twins separated at birth, Sharke! I fit that description exactly.

I used to have a job that was a rotating shift job as a supervisor in a factory...... I hated that part of the job. 

Then, somebody up the chain a few links decided to go to 12 hr shifts for the supervisors. 3 days on 3 days off.... 12 hrs. after 7 cycles, you swapped from days to nights and did 7 cycles before swapping again. 

That schedule was actually a bit more tolerable. It beat the rotating shift the peons workers were on. 

The neat thing was vacations ended up being 9 days off.... and, I don't know how this happened but it did.... I ended up having 42 days in a row off. Yup 42 lovely paid days off.  There was a plant shutdown for maintenance, a vacation, a company "bonding" event, and a few other things that when combined with my off time, amounted to 42 days of not having to work. All of these miscellaneous events were coincidentally scheduled by the plant management on the days I was supposed to be working.... including the company sponsored and paid for "bonding event" at Myrtle Beach SC...... I was the only one who benefited from that schedule in that manner... and this was in the first year they put us on it. 4 people in the plant had this 3/3 schedule and I was one of them. My supervisor worked the day shift 8 hrs only and I remember him shaking his head after I was back at work and he and I were talking about the fact that he hadn't seen me much in the past month and a half.  One of those things where the planets were all in alignment..... 

Anyway... it didn't last long.... I was out for my normal 3 days off and missed the "staff review" that occurs for all staff on a yearly basis. My first hour back, my supervisor told me to go see the plant VP for my review. 30 minutes later I had been fired, and escorted off the plant property...... Oh well, it was good while it lasted..... so I went home and started my own business and have never had to work an overnight shift again...or been fired.