Brain in 2nd Gear

December 14, 2007 2:45 PM

I'm awake by 7 AM, but don't feel truly mentally "awake" and in the "zone" till the afternoon. Caffeine and exercise early in the morning help a little, but mainly they seem to affect my physical energy more than my mental energy. Does anyone else feel this way, and what can I do to get my brain up to speed earlier in the day?
posted by parallax7d to Health & Fitness (29 answers total)

Yes, I do. Try cutting out sugar, sometimes it might be a sugar hangover.

Also-- I accept the fact I am a night owl. Morning people are not superior but our culture seems to support that myth. I am getting worse as I age and so I look for employment situations that don't require me to be alert much before noon.
posted by 45moore45 at 2:53 PM on December 14, 2007 [1 favorite]

you're just not a morning person. try to eat better -- and less, and earlier -- at night, get yourself checked for respiratory problems (sleep apnea, etc), but there's not much else to do
posted by matteo at 3:01 PM on December 14, 2007

It's probably just your natural circadian rhythm. Young people tend to want to naturally go to sleep later and get up later and as you get older, you naturally start to wake up earlier and go to sleep earlier. Of course, I'm talking pretty broadly here. I don't believe there is much you can do to change it.
posted by whoaali at 3:03 PM on December 14, 2007

Thirding 'you aren't a morning person'.

Even going to the gym in the morning doesn't wake me up. Some of us are just that way, and want to shoot the people that tell us we aren't eating right, or should go to bed earlier.
posted by bh at 3:04 PM on December 14, 2007 [2 favorites]

You may be dehydrated in the morning which causes lethargy and zaps mental energy. Try drinking a glass or two of water when you wake up and see if that helps.
posted by MaryDellamorte at 3:21 PM on December 14, 2007

Most people isolated from all timing cues settle into 24-25 hour days; a few develop a 48-49 hour 'free-running circadian rhythm', instead.

If you were one of those few, I'd find your question less remarkable than if you were not.
posted by jamjam at 3:28 PM on December 14, 2007

Some of us are just that way, and want to shoot the people that tell us we aren't eating right, or should go to bed earlier.

A-friggin'-men to that!

I'm not a morning person either, unless I've been camping for the last two weeks. I suffer - badly - for the first two weeks of daylight saving every year.

For me, it's all about the light. I find that if I'm not using an alarm clock, I wake up feeling refreshed and ready to go about two to three hours after first illumination by sunlight. Perhaps you could set up some timers to start turning lights on in your bedroom a couple hours before you need to be up.

But really, if you're a night owl, just try to arrange to do stuff at night. It's the only long term solution.
posted by flabdablet at 3:33 PM on December 14, 2007 [2 favorites]

It may not even be 'morning person'... I tend to do the 28 hour day 6 days a week thing but I'm still not very functional until I've been awake for 4 hours or so. Doesn't matter what time of the day it is, it's just a function of how long I've been out of bed.
posted by zengargoyle at 3:34 PM on December 14, 2007

parallax7d gets that s/he isn't a morning person, and asks how best, as a nonmorning person, to "get up to speed earlier in the day" mentally, exclusive of exercise and caffeine.

My suggestion: Vacation in a way to restore your relationship to the cycle of the day. Even just three or four days spent outdoors without artificial light, entertaining gadgets, communications devices, or anything around which you typically construct obsessive behaviors will help you do that. No need for rigorous hikes, dehydrated food, or any special equipment. Just get to a lovely outdoor place, with enough stuff packed to keep yourself comfortable, but nothing to distract you from the cycle of the real day (books, wine, iPods), and stay there for a few days. Experience each day as a day.

The more hideous and/or impossible doing this seems to you, the more you are likely to be astonished by how much you benefit from it.
posted by gum at 3:44 PM on December 14, 2007

Are you eating anything?

You mentioned caffeine, but a cup o' joe does not a breakfast make.

If you last eat at 10PM, and then wake up it has been 9 hours since you last threw some fuel on the fire. Maybe that is why you feel mentally awake in the afternoon (after lunch).

If you are eating breakfast what are you eating? If you don't have any fat or protein (especially) with breakfast those carbs are just going to cause a sugar crash and lethargy. Coupled with the inevitable caffeine crash this could make for a groggy morning.

Not eating could also undermine the effects you get from exercising for a variety of reasons.
posted by munchingzombie at 3:55 PM on December 14, 2007

Much has been written about how the modern lifestyle does not allow for adequate rest. You may not be getting enough sleep at night; try going to bed earlier. According to Stanford U., eight hours a night is a minimum, and it can be hard for many people to get even that.
posted by TedW at 4:02 PM on December 14, 2007

I hear you say that exercise does NOT wake you up mentally. Are you doing aerobic (running etc) ...I am wondering if practicing yoga would help....along with waking up to the light of the day (or in cases of winter dark mornings, a lightbox of some sort to 'phase you in' to the morning)...Alas, this is all sounding like new-age claptrap to you, I suspect. If so, I would then go with the other suggestions and a)drink more water in the morning b)cut out caffeine --try to be merciful though...diluting with decaf until you don't drink it regularly c)try cutting down on sugar and high-glycemic foods like pasta, white flour, white rice. d)Multivitamins C and Super B complex. e)go to bed at regular times as much as possible getting 8 hours..

An SSRi may help....not to imply you have depression...Cymbalta is a new drug that is good in the serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRi) department and is energyzing...And no, I am not remotely saying you have depression...and no, I am not remotely a doctor nor want to toss meds at you that you may not need.

If all this seems too hard, just become Catholic. That path may be easier than all these dogmatic steps I laid out for you. Keep us posted. I am really interested in what you find to work for you. Best of luck.
posted by snap_dragon at 4:28 PM on December 14, 2007

In the past, I've gone to bed at 8 and gotten up at 4 (instead of bed at 10 and up at 6) which, although I'm not a morning person, let me be ready to go when I had to leave for work. Not good if you like to go out late though.
posted by IndigoRain at 4:30 PM on December 14, 2007

How bad is it? If youre experiencing excessive daytime sleepiness regardless of how much sleep you have then you might have sleep apnea. Has your bed partner ever reported you not sounding like you are breathing or do you wake up in a the middle of a loud snore or choke? If so you better see a doctor about this as sa increases your chance for a stroke.
posted by damn dirty ape at 4:43 PM on December 14, 2007

I get like that in the mornings after eating food late at night (whether it be full meals or snacks). Any time I finish dinner earlier in the evening (say, 6:00 at the latest) and don't eat a thing afterwards, I feel completely awake and lucid the minute my alarm goes off in the morning. YMMV of course.

And I full heartedly agree with 45moore45's sugar advice.
posted by zippity at 4:50 PM on December 14, 2007 [1 favorite]

It took me about 1.5 years to get used to getting up at 6:30... I'm not sure if it took me that long to acclimate, or if I just got older and naturally became more interested in getting up early. Now, I'm awake (but possible groggy) by 7:15 or so. Before, I had that feeling of sluggishness and nausea telling me IT'S TOO EARLY until 10:30 or so.
posted by rxrfrx at 4:53 PM on December 14, 2007

i find that eating an early dinner helps me be more alert in the morning (i'm not a morning person either). have dinner at 5 or 6, maybe a dessert or snack at 7, then nothing else for the night (water, tea, a glass of wine would be okay, but nothing that has a lot of sugar or requires a lot of digesting). you'll be hungry when you wake up; eating a good breakfast seems to perk me right up. otherwise, i'm a zombie.
posted by thinkingwoman at 4:54 PM on December 14, 2007

Seconding what I said earlier. If you really are a night person, you can ignore almost everything here. The morning people just don't get it, and they never will.
posted by bh at 5:24 PM on December 14, 2007

Now, I am apnic, mind you, but I am the textbook definition of a night person. In fact, about everyone that knows me agrees.

And I have exactly the same symptoms. My girlfriend says she finds it incredibly cute.

Unfortunately, the breakfast solution doesn't work, as my stomach seems unable to handle food for at least one to one and a half hours after waking up.

Best I can do is usually try to throw some cerebral input in as soon as possible after waking up, that way I get the little gray cells ticking away.

Other than that, I've just gotten used to no one expecting anything out of me for a while after I get up. (grin)

As an ex-polysomnographic technician who's run plenty of studies, as well as being an apnea sufferer on CPAP therapy (trying to talk a concentrator out of a friend to experiment with), I do recommend a good sleep study, also. It can make a world of difference, especially as prolonged sleep deprivation can cause a host of symptoms like weight gain, chronic fatigue, quasi-narcolepsy, depression, and irritability.

Feel free to drop me a line if I can answer any questions.
posted by Samizdata at 6:40 PM on December 14, 2007

If you really are a night person, you can ignore almost everything here.

I respectfully disagree. All through college I was definitely a night person; regularly staying up all night studying, closing down bars on weekends, never taking classes before 10 AM if I could avoid it, and so on. Then I started a career that required me to be at work by 6:30-7:00. I adjusted and now I have a hard time sleeping past 6AM, even when I have to stay up past midnight (although I usually go to bed between 9 and 11 PM). In other words, I transitioned successfully from night to morning person, so it can be done.
posted by TedW at 7:21 PM on December 14, 2007 [1 favorite]

I would actually try cutting out caffeine. It only helps short term--and usually just to get back to a normal state (because after a bit of frequent caffeine use, one is addicted, and so the "pick-me-up" affects are really just alleviating withdrawal symptoms). Also, what's your diet like? Certain foods are naturally better for waking up, like fruits. You might also try meditation at various points in the day.
posted by fjardt at 7:29 PM on December 14, 2007

I suggest buying a lightbox from Apollo Health.

I spent a long time on a free-running circadian rhythm where I'd keep falling asleep and getting up later and later until it was a hassle to get anything done during the day. I've been using the lightbox for 30 minutes a day in the morning for about a month, and since the first 3-4 days I've been consistently sleeping through the night and waking at the desired (early) time with no alarm. Waking up feels completely natural and I don't feel groggy or that I'm struggling to get up at all.

I don't believe that people are just stuck in the category of either night person or morning person. I think the human circadian rhythm works mostly the same for everyone at the most fundamental level. The problem is most people experience a fairly constant level of light throughout the day, and only direct sunlight or other very bright light is enough to reset your circadian rhythm properly. (Any kind of ordinary indoor lighting is nowhere near bright enough.)

I'm surprised these things aren't more popular, actually. I paid $300 for mine (I bought the old school model), but it was such an easy and completely effective solution to the problem that it was well worth it.
posted by dixie flatline at 10:50 PM on December 14, 2007 [1 favorite]

It is possible to buy an alarm clock that has a light on top. The light is a special bulb that mimics natural sunlight, and it gradually glows brighter in the morning, until the alarm finally goes off. It's supposed to mimic dawn, with the sun rising.
posted by Rabulah at 2:31 AM on December 15, 2007

Wikipedia's Night Owl entry. I remember reading an article about night owls several years ago but couldn't find an online source. The basic upshot of the article was that it's mainly brain chemistry, not just circadian related. That is to say, even if you went with your naturally preferred sleep cycle and got up at 4pm, there would still be a period of time before you felt fully alert mentally. IOW it's largely an internal hardwired thing.

You could also try Melatonin.
posted by yoga at 5:36 AM on December 15, 2007

I'm a night person, but am better able to cope with mornings if I get plenty of sleep and get up at the same time every day, including weekends. I still require coffee to get the neurons firing, but 8 hours of sleep is a big help.
posted by theora55 at 10:32 AM on December 15, 2007

I have the exact same problem, and numerous attempts to reset by getting up earlier have done approximately jack for me. The only thing that's ever worked for me is, as flabdablet suggested, camping.

As an alternative diagnosis to sleep apnea and all that, you might want to check out Delayed Sleep Phase Syndrome. I match the criteria perfectly, and I'm finally buckling down to go in to see a professional. Samizdata, I'd be interested in hearing more about the sleep study process and what all can be done, if you'd like to share.
posted by McBearclaw at 4:52 PM on December 15, 2007

I also match those criteria perfectly, but I don't feel the least bit disordered. It seems to me that this is just how my body works. It further seems to me that labelling this as a disorder is on a par with labelling left-handedness as a disorder. Screw you, morning-person doctor types!
posted by flabdablet at 6:45 PM on December 15, 2007

The only thing that's ever worked for me is ... camping.

Not to belabor the point, but I'm pretty sure the reason this works is that it's the only time in your life that you're consistently exposed to direct sunlight immediately upon waking. This leads me to believe that light therapy would be effective as well.

Somehow as a result of reading this thread I wound up checking out some of the archives of the Niteowl mailing list. It seems that many people on there have accepted DSPS as a lifelong debilitating condition, yet few of them seem to be applying light therapy on a consistent basis, which seems strange to me.

I would also agree that DSPS is not so much a disorder as the body's natural response to living in modern society. But I'm pretty convinced that it's easy to adjust the circadian rhythm if you want to and that most people just don't know how.
posted by dixie flatline at 6:52 PM on December 15, 2007

Light therapy in the mornings is all very well, but what makes camping work for me is the lack of light after sunset as well as the abundance of it at dawn (and the fact that a tent gets uncomfortably hot once the sun has been on it for a few hours). It usually takes me about a week of camping before I'm ready to start my days two hours after sunrise, and if I'm camping in a group and somebody has brought a gas lamp, the resetting doesn't ever really happen. I fall asleep about two hours after lights-out, or at about 3am, whichever is earlier.

In these Modern Times, it's damn near impossible to live with other people and not have bright light available right up to bedtime; and under those conditions, I'm pretty much fated to operate as a night owl.

When I'm camping, I will generally be ready to sleep a couple of hours after sunset, come half awake at dawn, be ready to get up and face the day a couple hours after dawn, and be alert all day. In civilization, if I let myself follow my natural rhythms, I'll be ready to sleep by about 2am, drowsily half awake by about 9am, ready to rise by 11-ish, and not really productive until about 2pm.

I drove taxis on night shift (4pm start, 4am finish) for a while, and found that a very very easy pattern to adapt to provided I didn't try to get up before about 1pm.

The years I spent programming, I was way more productive at night than during the day. I did have some arguments with my employer after drifting into a pattern of arriving about 1pm and leaving about 2am, and I still feel pretty bad about the one where I had to dig my heels in and tell John that this was just the way things were and that any attempt to change them just wouldn't stick, but the facts were the facts and the only way I could even get close to making deadlines was to work that way.

This is not a disorder, or debilitating, or in any way negative. This is just how some people are. If it's the way you are, it's my long-considered opinion that the best thing you can do is organize your working pattern to fit in with your alertness pattern to the greatest extent possible. In my experience, trying to do it the other way around is a constant and unrewarding struggle, and I completely agree with bh about the extent to which people who don't work this way will fail to understand the experience of those who do.
posted by flabdablet at 8:02 PM on December 15, 2007 [2 favorites]