Lark or owl? Or something else altogether?
Keeping to a regular sleep schedule has always been a titanic struggle for me. I go through cycles where I start out needing maybe 4 hours tops, but these hours have to start at 10 or 11 pm, and then by the end of the month I’m sleeping 12 or more hours, because I start feeling sleepy only when I see the sun.
Having to go to work with this sort of nonsense happening is, I can assure you, Not Fun.
The standard response (and accompanying attitude) is that such issues are a measure of how disciplined I am. Nowadays these discussions about sleep also come with a bracing side of scientific data and reasoning: we hear of circadian rhythms and how they change over time , we read articles commiserating with night owls on how they’re in effect, being forced to function at hours they’re just not made for, and we even have exciting sci-fi sounding words like “chronotype” to play with. (Doesn’t Chronotype sound like the first of a trilogy of dystopian novels? YA, I think.)
But I had a revelation this morning. It was one of those mornings where I wake at 3 am and actually tick some things off my To Do list by 10 am. And I watched the sun rise and thought—whoever put the labels “lark” and “owl” in my head did me no favours.
I understand there’s research being done which suggests different people are naturally more inclined to different sleep patterns—but there’s also evidence that sleep patterns change over time. There’s also a growing body of articles—many somewhat suspect because they’re clearly trying to sell assessments or programmes—encouraging us to find ways to work with our specific chronotypes.
So really, the idea that you’re either a “lark” (early riser) or an “owl” (active during the night) is, like all binaries, an oversimplification. But it’s not just that: if you think about it, the very idea that I have to classify my habits and almost “choose” times of day I prefer to work in is crazy.
If we really get down to it, we can’t even really say there are 24 hours in a day—observations about the external world give us the awareness of time passing, and I suppose internally, we do sense time passing in our own ways—but “second/minutes/hours” are an arbitrary construct, just one we’ve all happened to agree to live by.
When we say we’re “early risers,” or “vampires,” or that we “love the day/night time,” what are we really saying?
I know there’s a movement out there which valorises waking up early, and getting things done before others have even woken up. This looks like a productivity-minded effort, but I cannot help but catch a whiff of competitiveness, even competitive suffering. But then it also strikes me, that maybe these people don’t love the morning, or waking up early—they love the feeling of being “productive,” or being ahead of others. (Or they have no choice because they need to fetch their children to school.)
I’ve always, always told people I love the night. This is not strictly true, I realise that now. I love the muted colours of the night, which literally make my eyes water less, but also make everything look so much more romantic. I especially love the expansive feeling of having few or no people around. I love the coolness. I love the secretive quiet, especially that special electric feeling the quiet takes on at around 3 or 4 am—when the air is strangely pregnant with possibility and it feels like anything could happen. (If you’ve ever been in a busy school or mall after it’s closed for the day, you know what I mean.)
And of course, it doesn’t hurt that a lot of my favourite reading valorises the night and all that the night symbolises. That’s why I always thought of myself as a “vampire”—I genuinely felt like I came alive as the sun set. But now, I’m realising, that’s not entirely true either. I was coming alive only when the sun set—but that’s also because the evening is when I get to decide what to do with my time. I have more control over who I talk to, who talks to me, what I do, etc. (Revenge bedtime procrastination exists. Read all about it here.) But again my point is, I don’t really love the night per se. I love the feeling of being in control that, because of the way society structures our time, happens to fall into night time.
And really, just thinking about things from an aesthetic standpoint—aren’t things just more beautiful at night? Living in a city, especially, surely predisposes us to prefer how things look at night? Walk along the Marina Bay area and look at the lighted windows glowing like jewels, and see the reflection of the cityscape in the water. In the darkness every lighted window becomes a story just waiting to happen, a moment when life is not mundane, but beautiful and exiting. That’s just cooler than the same area during the day. And this time, it’s not my misanthropy talking! There are just as many people strolling, laughing, cycling, and rollerblading around the area at night as in the day. Except, even the people look better at night—they take on a tinge of glamour and mystery that no one has in the day.
Plus, their rollerblades light up, and for a brief moment I can imagine I’m in a cyberpunk thriller.
So, clearly, I’ve always identified with the things which night time have come to stand for: romance, mystery, intrigue, rest, and control. That’s why I’ve always labelled myself an “owl.”
But this means that I’ve never fully realised, that sometimes I enjoy being up early too. I’m reminded of the morning after prom. Our class rented a room at the Swissotel, lucked out because the desk gave us a really high floor, and so we stayed up all night hoping to catch the sunrise the next day. We didn’t, because no one realised we were facing the wrong direction, but there was still a pathetic beauty about watching the streets come to life. To my mind, watching the sun set and the colours disappear has something more majestic in it, but the dawn has a kind of fragile beauty of its own.
And there’s no getting away from the basic build of the human body, I guess. There’s a particular crispy alertness which comes with getting the right number of hours’ sleep, and then waking early in the day, which I’ve not experienced ever when waking later in the day, even if I’ve slept like Snorlax. It’s not about being productive, either. The body just feels refreshed, like an apple which just came off the truck and which you’ve just bought and just washed.
It’s taken me thirty-odd years. But now I’m realising that… I’m the person navigating this space and this time. I shouldn’t have to justify how I use my space and my time. I shouldn’t have to feel guilty for sleeping at 6 am and rising at 12 pm. I shouldn’t have to jump through hoops (“minimise screen use 2 hours before bedtime”; “keep the bedroom cool”; “develop a night time routine”—oh no wait, this one does help) in order to force myself to sleep at 10 pm. The watch face is arbitrary. The numbers on the screen are arbitrary. The labels “lark” and “owl” are merely metaphors, shorthand to be used in the right contexts.
I am both the lark and the owl, and I am so much more besides. We all are.
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