I've noticed that of my many thoughtful email correspondents, the ones who don't have to get up to a day job every morning tend to be up late at night like myself.
We are always told by well-meaning people that we should sleep only at night. But I wonder where the proof is of that. After all, nature has many, many nocturnal creatures, so it's not a demand from nature.
In fact it's at night that I hear the most birds singing, all night long.
Of course it helps that everything is more quiet. Including mental noise from outside. Which surely helps thought processes, and which might be why thoughtful people like to be up at night.
its just social conditioning, altho the whole structure of modern society, school, work, commerce is dependent on people sleeping at night, on a personal level its not necessarily beneficial or even healthy
ReplyDeleteI could be wrong but I think naturally humans have a 25 hour day cycle, which is the same as the moon, perhaps humans followed the moon at some stage, harvesting for instance is traditionally done during full moons, maybe it was done at night, before pollution it would have been very easy to work at night during a full moon, why work during the heat of the day?
ReplyDeleteIt goes back to the primal instincts. The "prey" animals would hide at night when the carnivores were on the prow.
ReplyDeleteHumans with limited night vision and relative weak body strength survived by hiding or sleeping at night. The humans that survived passed on this trait.
It took millions of years to develop these instinct and they are still deep inside all of us.
Joe
Left to my own devices, I tend towards night owl. I also need more than 8 hours of sleep too. I don't even feel productive until evening and will keep going until the wee hours.
ReplyDeleteI dunno about mental noise. I just like the absence of acoustic noise.
ReplyDeleteI've always been like cats, in love not with myself as the prejudiced like to claim, but with my peace and quiet. Shake me not.
At home, during the day, I can practically do nothing for myself. Always disturbances of one sort or another. Exasperating.
I can't become a writer in these conditions!
Suhiko,
You're not wrong. This 25 hour cycle is present in all the living world, and seems to be extremely ancient. Perhaps dating to the unfathomably old period, hundreds of million years ago, when early animal forms had to take the tides into account for their survival, feeding and reproduction. Same with the typical menstrual cycle, of 28½ days. That's the time between two full moons, and therefore between two maximal high tides.
If God created every species individually and all at the same time, he really got lazy recycling those old obsolete templates over and over again. I say we, the top of His Creation, deserved better than old designs that had already served for inferiors!
(Oh, and the Earth is flat. Burn Galileo.)
By Ragnarok, we at least deserved flight and telescopic X-ray vision, with nice capes, no? And are those dangly bits to the Lord's image? (Which ones, BTW? Those of guys or of gals?)
Joe,
There are species adapted to living in the night, and others for daytime. Each brings its own advantages and demands counterparts. At night you can't see colors, which can be vital for some fruit-eating species.
Some predators AND some prey species are nocturnal, others diurnal. In some instances, dusk and dawn are the main moments of the "day".
Epona,
If I can enjoy 12 hours of sleep a day, by Horus and by Ra I'll take them!
I've always heard the "straight-thinking educators" vilify long sleep as pure laziness. But Medicine has established the opposite beyond debate. You need the amount you need, period. And each has his/her own individual needs, because individual biology differs, and we don't all have the same brain chemistry. Sacrificing those needs in order to please the social standards of a system widely based on exploiting the hard-working class, is essentially sacrificing your own health. Mine never recovered from the madness of my last internship.
I'm never working for a hospital again. Everybody said I had great potential as a hospital practitioner, and I agree, but they steadily disgusted me from it over the years. I didn't succeed in specializing? (Even that time where they had committed to giving me a well-earned Residentship, from grades and merit and all?) Screw them. I don't want such an unpleasant life.
Probably for the best, anyway. What I do want, is a feeling of self-accomplishment.
All "hard work" in a frantic daily routine brought me, is the feeling of having wasted my time in a bitter-tasting blur. Time flies and you're not even having fun, and suddenly whole years have passed that way.
I see my "more successful" classmates today. They make a lot of money, they're constantly tired, never have time for themselves, to watch the children grow, and they're probably working themselves to an early grave.
Besides, I have a flu convalescence to take care of.
I see today the people who exalted the "good old work values" when they were trying to straighten up my juvenile education. (The whole extended family meddles, in these parts of the world.) They're exactly what I never want to become. Completely worn out. Physically, mentally, morally, and emotionally.
I was 4 when the war broke out. It stole my whole childhood, marking practically my first conscious memory. Well, I'm not ruining my WHOLE life, phase after phase, if I can have any saying in it. MY existence, MY happiness, MY bloddy standards.
Lesson-givers today (and in fact, since forever) say I'm stobborn, hopelessly. Well, it's a survival mechanism, baby. Protecting my soul, my identity. Stubbornly wanting to live for real.
If one has to choose between status-giving ridiculous wealth and ordinary happiness, then my choice is all made.
Good night, y'all, or rather, "good morning". Soon it'll be time for my shopping outing. I'm tired of staying at home for these last few weeks, if there's no bizzard at eight, I'm taking a breather. Should be a fun day of "me" time.
Eolake said...
ReplyDelete"...Of course it helps that everything is more quiet. Including mental noise from outside. Which surely helps thought processes, and which might be why thoughtful people like to be up at night."
I like this, Eo. I think you're correct: I love when it's quiet. It is like a wind-down from the *flurry* of the day. It is nice to be able to read, quietly; to think...quietly. :-) It's a *gift* that I like to give myself, much like others like to grab a newspaper and coffee.
I am very challenged to focus, when there is a lot of noise going on, during the day, and...the standard *shoulds* and *to do's* that need to get done, during the day, constantly *beckon* me! arg!
The thing that I have been learning is that our bodies naturally follow our circadian rhythm and...there are all kinds of cool hormones and processes that go on in order to wake our body up and...other hormones, etc. to *shut* us down for the day. Apparently, our body's/brain's wakeful and resting cues are also taken from the light of the sun and, of course, the lack thereof.
Epona, I am very much like you: I happen to LOVE my nights but...I always joke w/people and say that that is probably because I am living in America but...was born in DK so...I am not in my *correct* timezone for my body! :-) I will say that...after having done this *cycle* for approximately 14 years, I am finding that my health is quickly deteriorating due, I believe, to this *gift* that I have been giving to myself (peace and quiet at night). This cycle has literally deprived both my body and my brain many hours of rebuilding time that the body does during sleep. It is called Delayed Sleep Phase Syndrome (DSPS) and...it is not a very healthy thing, overall, for our bodies.
Well, being up at night is not the same thing as not sleeping.
ReplyDeletePascal said
ReplyDelete"I was 4 when the war broke out. It stole my whole childhood,...... Stubbornly wanting to live for real."
I think that we adapt to our environment when growing up. Each of us probably think of our childhood as "normal" because it is all that we know and do not have anything to compare it to.It is only when we are older that we discover there is a whole new world out there to be discovered.
Joe