The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Community => Coffee Lounge => Topic started by: Fleecewife on January 19, 2014, 12:25:56 pm
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I found this very interesting on the Beeb news:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-25777978 (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-25777978)
The article points out that it is our genes - mostly chromosome 2 - which govern whether we stay up late at night or like to be bouncing around with the dawn chorus. And the fact that teenagers tend to sleep late is also part of the genetic pattern. Apparently, different mutations give us a longer or shorter circadian day length, which is reset each day according to daylight length. Or something. But read the article - I thought it was appropriate to smallholders, some of whom, like me, can struggle with early mornings but thrive on night lambing.
I feel vindicated - as a lifelong night owl I've always been made to feel I'm lazy and the only righteous way to live is 'early to bed and early to rise'. It also explains why shift work was so difficult and I was constantly tired. Now I know it's all my parents fault (well, my Mum's as she was the night owl of the two) ;D
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I'm a lark and my OH is an owl. We're like ships passing in the night.
At the weekends, by the time I bring him his morning cup of tea in bed, I've been for a run with the dogs, fed the rams, fed the ewes, let the chickens out and fed the dogs.
I'm rarely awake when he comes to bed but I sleep on his side so it's warm when he gets in…….
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I'm a lark and my OH is an owl. We're like ships passing in the night.
At the weekends, by the time I bring him his morning cup of tea in bed, I've been for a run with the dogs, fed the rams, fed the ewes, let the chickens out and fed the dogs.
I'm rarely awake when he comes to bed but I sleep on his side so it's warm when he gets in…….
How good are you !!!
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i am definitely an owl...
[/size]God did not put me on this earth to ever see any time before 7am and ideally 8 unfortunately 2 of my kids are currently very Lark orientated!!![size=78%]
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Definitely a night owl - can't get to sleep before midnight not matter how hard I try - so it's more usually 1 ish, and I need my full 8 hours, so quite often it's 8.30 9 am before I surface, especially if it's dreich like today.
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Lark....... normally up around 5/6am for work then same when i'm off
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I'm not sure what I am my system is so messed up.
I worked a night shift for 10 years, for the first 4 years starting at 11pm and then starting at 4am. After that I went onto a shift for a year where I started at 2pm.
These days if I can get a lie in I grab it ;D
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Night owl .
After my smash i had insomnia for 5 years or so . No sleep for days then doze like a corpse for 2 or 3 minutes then awake for days again , i was like the walking dead .
I now am back to more or less my normal sleep patern , go to bed between 1am and 2am and get up about 9am .
Still like a zombie till about 11 am though , not much different the rest of the time mind !
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I'm a lark for sure. Up 5-6am since the day I was born but find me snoring by 10pm. Fell asleep at many a teen party ;D
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How good are you !!!
Ah - well - he has to do it all week so I get the weekend slots.
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I'm an owl in lark's clothing, or, at the moment, a lark in owl's clothing.
When I am at my best, fittest, happiest, most active and most productive, I am in bed by 10pm at the latest, and up not long after 5am. Particularly wonderful in the summer, when one has the dawn world all to oneself and all the non-human creatures :)
However I can also operate, and have spent most of my life operating, at the other extreme - finding it hard to get to bed before 2am and then difficult to get up and going early enough for the demands of my life, be it office or farm.
Mum is a night owl, for sure, so it's her fault I have a tendency in that direction. I'm currently trying to kick myself back into the lark pattern - but this usually hits a problem when we have calvers and I get up and check them in the night, then it starts to feel easier just to stay up until I do the late-night check... and pretty soon I'm back to being an owl again. ::)
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Lark or owl type is probabley a propensity gene related to our exposure to blue light each morning. Given that many ( shift workers and those living in an urban 24/7 lifestyle) do not get this time cue or other time cues ( zeitgebers) then we can expect difficulties with sleep, vitality and mood.
Smallholders probabley have more time cues than townies as we adopt our animals time cues and need to have pretty regular routines. Light, meals, activity, inactivity etc are all times clues and feed the 240 or so circadian rhythms. SO - regardless of whether you are an owl or lark we can all entrain our ciradian rhythms by regular routines. Some may need help with early morning light therapy ( there are alarm clocks that also stimulate sunrise in your bedroom). However there is also evidence to support that a shifting ciradian rhythm lineked to the seasonal change in the light dark cycle also improves wellbeing and longevity.
I would suggest that smallholders, who are not trying to juggle looking after animals with a 9-5 job, may adopt routines with strong time clues and ( asuming we don't play with TV or other technologies at silly night hours) enjoy the benefits of a lifestyle and sleep wake cycle that our ancestors enjoyed pre eletric light bulb, TV, mobile or PC. Simply put - sleep when it is dark and wake when it is light with your wake period structured against strong routines and time clues.
There - soap box lecture over ;D -
There is a lot of evidence to support the above but if in doubt then look up morbidity and mortality related to shiftworkers who do not have a sleep wake cyle related to light and the other time clues that we can entrain our rhythms to.
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Owl for sure - and daylight doesn't work on me MAK - I sleep under a big window with the curtains drawn back so I get full exposure to the sun - but it doesn't get me up any sooner unless it's summer and I'm getting too hot.
Trouble is the fox has leaned my habits and comes snooping around the coop at dawn - so my expensive VSB pop-hole opener is useless as I have to shut the chooks in 'til I'm up anyway. ::)
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lark-always have been. mum and dad always had to leave parties early when I was wee because I'd be asleep on the floor by 10.30pm and am still the same. I have usually let out dog, chickens, mucked out horses, fed everyone, let everyone out, fed dog and had two coffees before I take OH one. I do find it slightly harder to get up these days than I did but still up by 7am even in depths of winter. 8am is a long lie and very uncommon. I am useless after 9pm and find it hard to study/work past then-I sometimes have to convince myself to stay up until 9pm ;D
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Cant decide what I am ::) I can be up at 2 or 3 in the morning after a couple of hours sleep then go back to sleep for a couple of hours and be up at 6 ready to start the day :-\ Its gone from being the odd night having a bad nights sleep with my pain to becoming a habit where I cant sleep
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I'm definitely an owl but my mum is a lark. I assume my dad must have been the owl but he always did get up fairly early. Must have been because of work. He used to always take Mum a cup of tea first thing while he was fit enough.
My natural waking up time seems to be around 9am and that is not affected by whether it is dreight outside or bright sunshine streaming in through my thin curtains. Unfortunately, I usually have to get up earlier so my OH can help me shower and dress before he goes out. It's now almost 11.30 and I'm wide awake. Probably won't go to bed for another couple of hours and then will read for a bit.
I wish I was a lark so I could enjoy the early mornings but, even if I got up at 6.30am (which I used to when I was working) I am still not compos mentis for another couple of hours. I used to do the 50 minute drive to work on autopilot.
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I'm a lark, always been a lark. When I was working full time I was up at 5am to drive to the rented fields to do animals before work and was almost always in by 8am to avoid the traffic, get parked conveniently, and be well underway before the 9-5 started. I was in bed by 10pm other than brief periods in life where I had a social life, but they were brief!
Now I have problems getting to sleep when anxious or overstimulated, problems staying asleep in the early hours (often needing to get up and go to the bathroom or wander about the garden before I can settle again) and I'm still usually up around 6, no later than 730 if I've been awake 3+ hours during the night.
Summer is hard as I also struggle to get to sleep at all when it's daylight outside - I keep saying I must get blackout curtains but there is always something more urgently needed when I have any spare cash! I'm fine with overnight foaling checks for a few nights, but getting up every hour or so for a sick one for 3 weeks had me pretty shattered, just as well I don't have a day job any more but I also fall into bed at 830pm in winter if I need to, no pride left where sleep opportunities in darkness are concerned!