I am very much a night owl. I quite like being up at night.
For one thing, it's quiet.
There's no one to bother me. If I want to watch television and vegetate, I can just do that.
If I want to do some work, I can get my work done without interruptions. It's pretty sweet.
Nothing particularly scary has ever happened either... yet. My fingers are crossed.
But others haven't exactly been so lucky.
They told us their stories after Redditor citric_acid asked the online community:
"What is the scariest thing you’ve witnessed in the middle of the night?"
"Driving through an abandoned section..."
"Driving through an abandoned section of Baltimore at 3 in the morning, my CB radio turned itself on and crackled for a bit. Out of nowhere some voice over the radio said in a deep southern drawl, 'I ain't got no panties on.'"
"I could see up and down the interstate for miles and saw not one set of headlights..."
THREEkoalas
What in the world?
No, thank you.
"It was a bright moonlit night..."
"I stepped in and fell over a cow carcass on a night hike. It was a bright moonlit night but I didn't see it in the shadows. Thankfully it was mostly dry."
Phantomtastic
I would not want to stumble into that late at night!
No thanks.
"Turns out..."
"When I was around 8 I woke up to hear my parents whisper yelling. Turns out someone was beating on the back sliding glass door with a baseball bat. Turns out he was drunk and mistook our place for his ex's."
cigarmanga
Imagine something like this happening to you because you're just in the wrong place at the wrong time.
"I cut down a tree..."
"I cut down a tree in my backyard one afternoon. The tree was in front of my backyard slider so at night there was a lot more light coming in from the neighbors lights and street lights."
"I get up the next morning before sunrise to make my coffee and I saw a shadowy figure down the hall. I yelled what the f**k?!"
"At the moment I didn't realize that now more light was being let in by the lack of tree it cast my shadow on the wall. So basically I was a 37 year old dude that was scared of my own shadow."
lookssharp
It happens to the best of us.
Fear of the unknown still gets us, no matter how old we are!
"Don't know who it was..."
"When I was in high school I was out late (around 2-3am) with a friend chilling in a park. We are just chatting on a bench and after about an hour there I noticed a silhouette in the distance move slightly."
"To my horror I realized there had been a person staring at us from the same spot for almost half an hour or more. As I told my friend and we started to run back to their place, they started chasing us."
"Don’t know who it was or what they were planning but probably the most freaked out I’ve been in my life."
Skytorn7
This is horrifying.
Thankfully you got away!
"Last week..."
"Last week I saw a shooting in the middle of the street while having a pint outside a bar, probably that."
Much_Committee_9355
That is terrifying.
Hopefully you've been able to see someone after seeing something so horrific.
"She had her own nightmare..."
"I once woke up from a nightmare about a demonic little girl to my little sister hovering above my bed. I freaked out and punched her in the nose."
"My sister had her own nightmare and was standing over me because she was debating whether or not to wake me up. I have a history of waking violently so she was weighing whether it was worth it or not. We spent the rest of the night watching Disney movies."
lizzyote
You must have been sleeping very deeply!
But Disney cures all ills.
"Remind you of a movie?"
"My daughter, 4 years old, black hair, pale skin, came into our bedroom in the middle of the night. Hair in her face. Middle of the bed by our feet. And started climbing up towards me and my spouse. Remind you of a movie?"
mutalisken
I've definitely seen this movie before.
Has your daughter ever emerged from a television?
"The police banging my door..."
"The police banging my door at 3am looking for a missing teenage girl... even though I knew my daughter was safe in her room. It still freaked me out."
Wshrig
Terrifying!
Thankfully she was okay and hopefully you were able to rest easy.
"Thought he was drunk..."
"My downstairs neighbour walked into my apartment at 1:30 a,m. I was only dressed in underwear and didn’t have my glasses on. Thought he was drunk and managed to convince him he was in the wrong apartment. He backed his way out, closed the door and went down the hall carrying something."
"A week later I run into him downstairs and laugh about how drunk he must’ve been. Turned out he’d been away. That wasn’t my neighbour who’d walked in."
tangcameo
This would creep me the hell out.
The last thing I want is anyone uninvited in my space.
I think I'm just going to lock my doors and never leave the house after reading these.
Or maybe not stay up so late. Not be a night owl.
What I don't know won't hurt me.
Have some stories of your own? Feel free to tell us more in the comments below!
Former Night Owls Offer Tips For Becoming A Morning Person
[rebelmouse-image 18349719 is_animated_gif=A healthy sleep schedule can be paramount to success and is essential for maintaining overall well-being. Many people, however, find themselves trapped in erratic cycles, resulting in lost productivity and constant exhaustion. If you're a night owl looking for ways to improve your sleep, this thread is for you.
thissideup124 asked, Night owls of Reddit who became morning people, what tips and tricks would you recommend for making the adjustment?
Submissions have been edited for clarity, context, and profanity.
Great advice. Also, keep your alarm across the room.
[rebelmouse-image 18349720 is_animated_gif=I've been both, and still can be both depending on what I need to accomplish.
Never hit the snooze button ever again. Never. As soon as that alarm goes off sit up and get moving. Drink a glass of water (or orange juice) and have a shower.
If you wake up 5 minutes before the alarm goes off, get up. This ties in with the snooze button but anything less than 30 minutes of sleep is useless and makes it harder to get up.
Dogs have owners, cats have staff. Either way, you can't sleep in.
[rebelmouse-image 18349721 is_animated_gif=Have pets with strong opinions.
I wake up at 6:30 every day because the animals are ready for breakfast. They do not understand concepts like weekends or holidays, so even if I don't set an alarm, someone will be meowing or licking me awake.
Expend calories during the day. Lots of calories.
[rebelmouse-image 18349722 is_animated_gif=Exercise twice as much as you use to. This will make you tired and want to sleep earlier. Then keep track of when you sleep and when you wake up. Keep sleeping ten to fifteen minutes earlier until the problem is solved.
Yeah... no. Do people really get up before noon?
[rebelmouse-image 18347135 is_animated_gif=Go to bed early. Do not consume any caffeine past noon, including chocolate or tea. Do this every day, regardless of whether or not you have obligations in the morning or not.
I've done this, it works.
[rebelmouse-image 18349723 is_animated_gif=My bedroom window faces east. In order to wake up with enough time to properly get ready for work, I stopped sleeping with the curtains closed. Now that they're open, I wake up with the sun. At first, it was a difficult transition but now I find myself walking up naturally early on weekends, even if the curtains are closed.
Sleeping pills au naturale.
[rebelmouse-image 18349724 is_animated_gif=Melatonin supplements are great for getting to bed a reasonable time.
Like a Bandaid, make it quick.
[rebelmouse-image 18349725 is_animated_gif=I used to get up every single morning at 5:30 in the morning to work out before school, so I can speak to this. I think an important thing to note is that "morning" people (especially people getting up before 7:00 am) are not skipping out of bed alert and chipper. Months into waking up at 5:30 am, you will STILL be miserable getting up, and it will feel like hell and you want to go back to bed desperately EVERY SINGLE TIME. The difference is that the momentum and power of your habit overcome that dread and longing to stay in your bed and hit the snooze button and you rise out of bed like a machine to go splash some cold water on your face. It is not easy, and it likely will never be! But habits are a powerful thing, so if you want to be a morning person you just have to do it. Don't ever expect that getting out of bed really early in the morning to be a fun thing to do.
Your work schedule can determine your sleeping habits.
[rebelmouse-image 18349726 is_animated_gif=Until I got myself a job where I had to be at work at 4 in the morning, I was a total night owl. I'd go to bed at 2 or 3 and sleep until noon. Now, I'm just the opposite. It's rare I'm up past midnight and always awake before 8 in the morning. I was forced into it and now if I stay up too late, I get blinding headaches.
This seems so... tranquil.
[rebelmouse-image 18349728 is_animated_gif=I have to wake up at 5:30 to get ready for work, I used to go to sleep at 3/4am.
I set my alarm for 5. I get up, I turn the heating on for a shower, I make a cup of tea and I get back in bed to drink the tea and browse the internet. Once I finish my tea, the boiler has heated the water so I can shower and get ready. Then I eat breakfast.
The desire to stay up late never goes away.
[rebelmouse-image 18349729 is_animated_gif=I was a night owl and then got a 9-5 job. I had the motivation to do it and just started getting up earlier. It was definitely a tough adjustment because I generally wasn't tired when I knew I had to go to bed but you gradually get used to it. The most important thing was to just set a time to go to sleep and stick to it. After a couple of months, as long as I had gotten enough sleep I was wide awake in the morning. Now I actually get more work done before lunch than after on most days! I still want to just stay up until 3 am and play video games sometimes though.
Being a night owl could be genetic, says science.
[rebelmouse-image 18349730 is_animated_gif=Some scientists believe that people are genetically set to be night or morning people or something in between.
This makes sense if you think about the way different peoples lived way back in the day. Some people were agrarian, meaning they generally stay in one place, have a regular schedule for eating and sleeping and tend to crops/livestock. I imagine these would be early risers.
Then you had nomadic tribes, whose diet and sleep schedule depended on resources in whatever area they were in. Being constantly on the move, one can imagine that they'd need to be on high alert to guard against theft or predators at night. It would serve someone well back then to be able to stay up well past dark for these reasons. Warriors would have this type of schedule as well. Perhaps they'd take turns taking naps etc. Sleep habits like these form epigenetic traits that are passed down from your ancestors.
Anyway, to answer your question (i'm an extreme night owl) whenever I've had to set myself an early schedule I set my alarm for the target time and keep an orange or something refreshing to eat right as the alarm rings. After a couple of days, you'll start waking up at this time more easily as your stomach signals food intake to your brain as the start of a new day. Or so I've read. Works for me.
Having a kid means NO sleep.
[rebelmouse-image 18349731 is_animated_gif=Honestly, for me, having a kid was the ultimate switch. But seriously, take a shower as soon as you get up and don't hesitate to get out of bed as soon as you open your eyes.
Goals. Single af.
[rebelmouse-image 18349732 is_animated_gif=I made the switch only when I had something I really looked forward to every morning. I met someone who was an early bird and was giddy looking forward to texts from him when he woke up. It just stuck after that.
This method of self-torture is actually quite effective.
[rebelmouse-image 18349733 is_animated_gif=I have two alarms, one is set for an hour before I actually need to get up. It breaks me out of my deep sleep and leaves me with another hour to rest. It takes a bit of getting used to in the beginning, but nowadays I actually wake up feeling good and not groggy!
We night owls do have routines... of bad habits.
[rebelmouse-image 18349734 is_animated_gif=Routine routine routine. I can not stress this enough. People get into bad habits sleep wise because they do not have a routine. Doesn't matter if you go to bed at 4 am or 10 pm. You need to do it consistently. You're impacting your health of you vary your sleep time every other day.
Daylight Saving Time for sleep? How novel.
[rebelmouse-image 18349736 is_animated_gif=I switched from night owl to morning person because I wanted to be able to work on some of my hobbies before work because I was always too tired/cranky afterward. So my no. 1 tip would be:
- Have a reason to get up early. Literally, something to get you out of bed. For me, it's drawing while listening to music and enjoying a cup of coffee or tea.
- Do some light reading before your new bedtime. Try to avoid your TV, computer, and phone. Even just 30 minutes of reading can make a big difference and helps quiet down your brain. Music works too, or something like meditation.
As for the actual process, I made the switch the weekend DST ended. It gives you that extra hour to help with the adjustment.
I need to buy some blue lights.
[rebelmouse-image 18349738 is_animated_gif=I'll assume you already know about basic sleep hygiene.
Some seriously effective way for shifting your sleep cycle is through light therapy. You'll need a bit of equipment or the opportunity to be outside in clear weather in the morning.
The recommended protocol is:
Day 1. Wake up and rise at your natural time. Immediately get as much light exposure as you can through a 10000 lux lamp or sunlight. Get to bed at a reasonable time with good sleep hygiene.
Day 2 wake up one hour earlier than day 1. Immediately get as much light exposure as you can through a 10000 lux lamp or sunlight. Get to bed at a reasonable time with good sleep hygiene.
Day 3 wake up one hour earlier than day 2. Immediately get as much light exposure as you can through a 10000 lux lamp or sunlight. Get to bed at a reasonable time with good sleep hygiene.
In addition, you might use glasses blocking blue light in the evening before sleep. They will stimulate melatonin production and help shift your sleep cycle. There are some medically certified brands, but the orange Uvex Skyper glasses are a cheaper option that does work just as well. Wear them from about 12 hours prior to waking up.
(Sources: I'm a resident doctor with special interest in sleep, have worked with leading sleep researchers and dated younger sleep researchers. To lazy to paste any links right now)
Well, that's one way to be woken up early.
[rebelmouse-image 18349739 is_animated_gif=I joined the military, that did the trick.
Spoiler alert: some of us kids are always needy.
[rebelmouse-image 18349741 is_animated_gif=Having small children. By the time you're able to sleep in again, they've trained you out of it.
This is great advice. Naps are amazing, but they'll keep you up at night.
[rebelmouse-image 18347426 is_animated_gif=Do not take naps during the day. Ever. You'll have trouble sleeping that night, then getting up the following morning.