Given that I work a full time job during the day, and then do things like photograph bands and generally have a life late at night, it’s difficult for me to class myself as either a morning person or an evening person, but between the two, ‘nightowl’ would be my classification of choice, and it seems that Alice Wignall over at the Guardian feels the same way, in her piece ‘Morning Has Broken Me‘.
Having experimented with altered sleeping / working patterns a number of months ago, and even going so far as attempting to adopt a biphasic sleeping pattern in order to accomodate my most unsociable of working hours, I know all too well the stresses that competing sleep / work / play priorities can put on the body, and the mind. What I did discover though is that the body can manage with scarily little sleep – as low as 4.5 hours was the furthest I could go, and still feel functional, and I think that had I stuck with it, I could have kept it up, and turned it into a success. Sadly, however, it’s just not sociable. A 90 minute nap at 8pm does nothing to endear you to friends and family, who just don’t seem to understand.
Given that research released today suggests that the most creative time of day is 10:03pm, shouldn’t more people think about burning the midnight oil? Just think of what we could achieve… Mornings? Pah!
