How to Change Your Sleep Patterns
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It’s humbling to realize that other people may live the majority of their life at entirely different hours than you do. If you’re a morning person, you’re sleeping through the joys, crises, snacks, arguments, and laughs of many night owls—and vice versa.
Morning people and night people can feel like warring species, and each will jump at the chance to tell you why their way is the better one. But responsibilities and schedules sometimes necessitate changing our habits, and even the most dedicated morning person can find themselves needing to stay up late. For the writer Liz Krieger, moments of connection with her daughters made staying up a little later worth it: “I know I’ll never be someone who comes alive at midnight, but I am learning to stretch the boundaries of my days to let a little of the night in,” she wrote recently. Today’s newsletter explores sleep habits, and what happens when we try to change them.
On Sleep Habits
The Social Cost of Being a Morning Person
By Liz Krieger
Rising early is great for my productivity—and hard on my relationships.
The False Promise of Morning Routines
By Marina Koren
Why everyone’s mornings seem more productive than yours (From 2019)
The Nocturnals
By Faith Hill
While most people are fast asleep, some ultra-introverts are going about their lives, reveling in the quiet and solitude. They challenge a core assumption of psychology: that all humans need social connection. (From 2022)
Still Curious?
- The logic of the “9 to 5” is creeping into the rest of the day: How free time gets conscripted into the service of work
- The life of a person who wakes up really, really early: “Extreme larks” get up naturally when some people have hardly gone to bed. (From 2019)
Other Diversions
PS
I recently asked readers to share a photo of something that sparks their sense of awe in the world. “I've seen double rainbows before, but never with a view of both ends,” Lesley Grant, 60, in St. John’s, Newfoundland, writes.
I’ll continue to feature your responses in the coming weeks.
— Isabel