In praise of early rising

Well, Robert, you nailed this one right on the sweet spot!

What you describe, describes my life, including the waking, early motivation, naps when the body asks for them, and most importantly, the brainwork at night when it is assigned a problem to solve.

I wish I had a dollar for each time I have wakened in the night and grabbed a pen and written “the answer” down — and gone back to sleep. Next morning I know EXACTLY what to do, and the solutions that burble up at those times are better than any others I conjure up during the intense scrubbing away during the day.

We are marvelously made, we humans, and we work so very well when we get out of our own way!

Glad to find myself in good company! Susan

I loved this edition!!! I wonder if there’s an acronym for people like me who go to bed extremely late (unless forced to do otherwise) AND get up extremely early (and gladly). My core sleeping time is about 4 hours, no matter what time I go to bed at night. But I am also a fortywinker. I can basically sleep anywhere, but not for very long! And for me taking a siesta when I need one is actually part of the creative process(ing). I gererally leave unsolved problems for next morning. I have great confidence in my subconscious.

But the people who get mails from me dated 2 a.m. or so are usually perplexed. When do you sleep? they ask me. Now and again, I reply.

I understand that Margaret Thatcher survived and presumably thrived on 4 hours sleep a night.

My sleep requirements are so modest that I don’t even have a bedroom. A decent bed and a table for my reading light and radio in a corner of my studio are perfectly adequate and mean that I have more easel space in my modest apartment.

Maybe that’s one of the biggest advantages of living alone (with my cats). They don’t mind activity at the crack of dawn. They don’t object to my picking up a paintbrush at midnight for that inspired session that eluded me during normal waking hours.

Vacations are a bit gruelling if I visit people who keep normal hours. I have friends in the north of England who – like so many in the UK – are completely burglar-proofed. When these friends go to bed (never later than 11 p.m.) I am banned to my bedroom with only the few steps to the bathroom not under surveillance. Last time I stayed there for a week or so I think I painted about 10 watercolours under cover of darkness in the solitude of my little cell. The early mornings were devoted to working on my laptop until a cup of tea arrived round about 8 a.m., long after my breakfast time. Long live what they called my insomnia and I call the rhythm of life!

Dear Robert (Yawn),

Here it is, 2:54 A.M. and I am up (yawn, again). But not awake(?). As an early riser, this is unusual, for it’s before my time.

I would guess that reading your article this morning was meant to be. The topic fits my “owlish” situation. It’s 3:01 A,M, and I’m waking up! Two large mugs of coffee help me sustain this state of mind.

In regard to rising early, I think that I get bored with my endless dreams, trailing one after the other. They, unfortunately, have nothing to do with art. So I get out of bed and start my day (or night, as the case may be).

I don’t, at this point, have the luxury of a studio. Where I paint is mostly inaccessible, so I must turn on/turn off my creative processes. My work seems to be exuberant no matter what the time. As long as I have painted, I can put my pajamas on and “hit the rack”.

Nitey night…

PS. You’re right about those dreams, Kristina. Dreams seem to be an endless trail of relatives, enemies or complete strangers doing silly things and hogging useful brain-time.

I have a studio INSTEAD OF a bedroom. The small additional bedroom (where kids are normally caged) serves as dressing room (no wardrobe, just hanging space and a chest of drawers), houses most art materials stacked on metal IKEA shelves (very practical), canvases and paintings, and even holds my food reserves. My argument is: Why have a well-lit room reserved for 4 hours a night when you could be using it all the time? For small-space dwellers it’s legitimate argument:-))))

Hello fellow mutants, Here I am wide awake and reading Robert’s latest at 4 am. I’m already looking forward to my 2 pm delta sleep in my good old lazy boy.

Faith is speaking for me.

I think there is something to the genetics of prowling. All of my life my father “prowled”. During the day he would cat nap, from a few minutes to an hour. Now, during the senior age in the life game, I prowl. “You need to take a guilt-free nap any time you need one”, is your best advice ever, Robert.

I’ve been a night owl since childhood. I sincerely think the habit was established watching the northern lights from my bed looking out my window in Alaska. I’d lay there half the night mesmerized. I don’t think my Dad slept more than four hours a night his whole life. As I get older I’m still going to bed at 12-2a, but rising about 4-6a. I want to see a study done on the benefits of insomnia, if that is what us night owls have.

I do “head work” in the early mornings. Research, study, write, those things I can do sitting with a cup of coffee. But to paint? Can’t do it. Being physically active in the early hours literally makes me ill.

I’ve read about the benefits of early risers and tried for years to change but could not. Now I go with what works with my own internal clock. Not having to be at work or school at a specific hour is one of the great luxuries of life.

Author Ellswyth Thane wrote in one of her novels, “Early risers are so self-righteous.” I laughed when I read that line; as if getting out of bed at 10a is a character flaw.

As with everything, whatever works for you, including sleep and work patterns.

At last, a group of people who understand the delights of waking long before those who consider themselves ‘normal’ stray from their beds. I LOVE early mornings (sometimes considered the middle of the night by others). I agree too with Kristina – dreams (at least at this age where sugar plums don’t exist) are full of people that cause me worry and abouthing I might have done, or forgot to do, or wasn’t doing enough etc etc .

And as for problem solving – that’s the time for me! Whenever needed, I know my brain is chugging along waiting for me to go to sleep and stop interfering with the problem solving process that needs to happen. I do, it does it’s magnificent work – and when I wake refreshed, the solution is normally at hand (or at least the ‘wolf of insecurity’ is once again at bay).

My friend sent me the link to Robert’s letters a couple of months ago and I can’t thank her enough – or you Robert Genn for giving us this space to talk to others. I can hardly wait to receive the books I ordered. Imagine being able to go back and read ten years worth of these trusty insights. I feel like I already have a new good friend ready to arrive at my door.

Have a great day everyone!

Robert! And all you mutants out there, I love it! Now I can stop feeling weird (though secretly delighted to have extra quiet time for writing and painting) most of my life for being an early riser–the 4:30 or 5 a.m. variety. I once saw the light in the attic of a graphic artist friend of mine who lived nearby. I knew he was painting and fixing the place up. It was about 1:30 a.m. Next day when I mentioned how how late he was working, he said he was just starting his day. Now that’s early! Mostly for me it’s just joyful excitement to go on with or start a project…but it’s fun to think of wonderful painters like you, busy at work before the dawn. I don’t think we’re really mutants…just farmers?

Robert, I am a mutant colleague – have been for decades. I love early morning hours. The solitude, the silence, the certainty of no interruptions, the hot coffee, the sense of being alert, thoughtful and creative is an exhilarating experience each day. So much is accomplished, mediation, writing, journalling, blogs and letters and art. I’m grateful for the gene. I can power nap any time and any place.

Once, when I was young and foolish and had all the time in the world, I would go into my studio and paint until such a time as my brain would start blanking out on it’s own. My schedule became 24 hours awake and then sleep for 12. Now I have to have a more “normal” routine, and I have to force myself to sleep and then force myself to get up. The current “normal” sleep cycle is really a hold over from the days of the Industrial Revolution when factories and shops all started at a set time and stopped at a set time. Best to be a mutant and set your own body clock.

I too rise up early, anxious to get busy with my painting. I love the morning hours. I think working early is my way of feeling like I accomplished something and still have a full day to enjoy other ideas and things. Sometimes I am up early just because I can’t wait to add more or to try something new with a painting. I get up at 4 and by 5 I am painting away!

My natural sleep cycle seems to be 1 AM to 8:30 AM. I tried sketching a young niece at 6 AM once. She looked remarkably like Mahmoud Amadinejad by the time I realized I should start drinking for the day. I keep the travesty around to remind me not to be so rambunctious.

From a spiritual standpoint, I think our human weaknesses are most acute at night when we are weary, our body in need of sleep. This is the time when our fears can overrun us, and our insecurities bleed out thoughts like, “I’m just not good enough” or “this painting is a total disaster”. That is purely human frailty run amok.

Upon first waking after a good sleep, however, that is when one’s inner, spiritual voice is the loudest and clearest. The human clatter hasn’t started yet, is still asleep, so to speak. Hence Rumi’s famous quote, “The morning breeze has secrets to tell you. Do not go back to sleep”.

Middle of the night critiques work for me. I will often give up on a painting in the evening…go to bed and at 3am get up to see exactly what it needed. Then I can go back to bed knowing that in the am I’ll be on a roll.

It is the best time of the day. One can smell, see, hear, feel the dawn of a new day. It tingles–birds chirp, and one can get into the right brain and meditate to the Divine and with the painting on the easel. In praise of early rising!

I am the partner of one of your subscribers and enjoy some of your writings.

A lifetime of early rising has been interesting. I marvel that my parents taught me to stay quiet until proper rising time from the time of my earliest recollections. I spent much of my life waiting for the “world to get up.” I marveled at my difficulty getting to morning appointments on time until I realized that these were in the shank of my day and I had been busy long before them.

On one memorable occasion I could let my clock go. I found that I fell into sleeping about six hours and working about twelve hours. My circadian rhythym brought me to roughly an eighteen hour day. In a conventional “week” I had about nine days.

It would seem wise for one to consider ones natural “clock” when selecting vocations and avocational activities.

I am up at 5 every morning and love the peace and quiet for thinking, emails and find this time generally my most productive. I got into the habit when I was a student with small kids. I don’t usually make it into my studio until 8 but I have had time to think about what awaits me. I love early mornings and early bedtime. It is gratifying to read that I am not alone as most of my friends think I am nuts.

Yet another contribution to the one-story cultural model that makes a virtue of the time of day one wakes so long as it is morning “like everyone else”. Most humans need about 6-10 hours of sleep in 24 hours … starting and ending at different times. This gets confused in the land of the midnight sun’s wild seasonal variances.

So, morning risers, what about the night shift … workers at ER’s, public transportation, utility companies … are they less human because they do not “get up with the sun”? Many painters, musicians and authors are ending their fulfilling “days work” about the time you are washing your hair and combing your face … just as productive and creative as the FASPS. Lots of people rise early each day to spend it watching TV or staring vacantly at walls. This culture forces seniors to adhere to early riser schedules they found unnatural for 70 years but the institution is controlled by the HW&W crowd. Please don’t pass on the myth that there is a particular virtue in any one way of living … diversification is the virtue, not uniformity.

Thank you, Gord.

I had a good chuckle on ‘in praise of early rising’ – as you once told me–and i quote you word for word “Never underestimate the power of alcohol in your studio” suggesting that at the end of an evening when you have enjoyed a few at a party to come back into your studio and have a look through rose colourd glasses ….top that with your 5 in the morning rise – well… I will tell you, your advice worked a few times for me – throws a whole new perspective on work that stood still for a few days.

I’ve tried any number of waking and sleeping schedules but my natural inclination always goes back: staying up to the wee hours of the morning2,3,4,5am, then going to sleep and dreaming between 8-10am(on other schedules I was dream deprived and got sick from exhaustion)then up some time after that but usually around 11 am. I’ve tried all kinds of remedies and such but nothing sticks around even after a long period it always eventually returns to the above schedule, no matter what part of the world I live in. Thank you Gord for sharing there is not 1 correct sleeping schedule, though most of the world thinks there is, esp early risers, HA!

If the idea is that a few safe hours can be picked up to work in, then the early morning hours are the ones to choose. Just adding hours is the point, and what better than the dawn when we are fresh

I’d like to compliment your columns and congratulate you on the publication of your book. As the wife of an author of linguistics books, I know exactly how exciting this must be for you! On all levels, I applaud your effort and outpourings of self and wish you a speedy trip to a second printing!

It has become very clear over time that not only do you write well but you think well — a valuable set of commodities indeed and the proverbial horse and carriage of communications biz…or rather, the carriage and horse, I think. Your thoughts provide generous fodder for reflection, and if I responded each time I had something to add or ask, far too much of my available energy would be spent at the keyboard instead of the drawing board. (How ever do you find time to paint?)

Some of us — as Dr. Fu comments in _Esoterica_ — are not naturally tuned to the standard 24 hour night/day cycle. My morning fluctuates with the seasons and moves from dawn to 10am as the year plunges into winter. As my life has changed, so have my needs and inclinations. There was a time when I worked from 3am ’til noon and enjoyed the opportunity to finish first. (In fact, I felt perfectly wicked!)

I find that I am most productive ticking to my own internal clock, and I allow that natural rhythm to set the pace for me. The freedom and comfort of easing gently into a morning’s tasks on one’s own terms cannot be quantified. (Only when forced to recall those years on company time when I chugged along like a V8 firing on 2 cylinders do I realize the true value of rising when I’ve had enough sleep.)

The rules which you have postulated work well for me and it seems unlikely that they would meet with contention in any population. Mine are a bit simpler: Work when you want to. Eat. Do something else. Rest. Begin again.

Hey all you early risers – you think that you are ahead…not so! I finish the next day’s work on the night before!!!

Nights are for intelligence, mornings are for zombies!

I wonder if early rising has to do with caffeine addiction. I notice most early raisers mentioning drinking coffee to wake up. I get up at 9am after 7h of sleep and I never drink anything with caffeine in the morning – just orange juice. I don’t need anything to wake me up…maybe there is a straight connection between the sleeping habits and caffeine use. I also don’t need any naps during the day — if I need a nap, that usually means that I am getting sick.

i knew there was a reason artist openings and receptions were evening events….strike one for night owls…

Often 9:30 sees me in bed with a book or crossword puzzle. The problem with this is at the other end: I find myself waking up at 4:00. Logic tells me I’ve had enough sleep and to get up. But it is dark outside, it is warm in the covers, and so I push myself for a few more hours. Rarely are they good sleeping hours, rather misfits of snooze and awareness.

I should be up in my studio sketching, painting but I can’t do it (yet). Perhaps the call isn’t strong enough.

I have always been an early-to-bed, early-to-rise type. My ex used to call me the princess of darkness for my penchant to start my day around 4 am. (with a cup of tea, not coffee). Since I started to dabble in painting I now have a small watercolour book filled with sunrises. I eagerly await the dawn while on vacation in Mexico. Later in the day, when I am painting various other scenes there is a marked difference with the styles. The dawn paintings are much more fluid, the day paintings are more hard edged. No matter how tired I am, I still wake the same time, and on the odd occasion when I have gone back to sleep and wake later, I am cranky the whole day. I am a farmer now, so I figure sunrises are nature’s gift to me.

Fascinating! I always felt sunrises as violent events – never desired to be awake to witness them. My favorite time of the day is right after the sunset when everything feels quiet for a moment, before the excitement of the evening. I think that diversity is a good thing – some of us paint the sunset, some the sunrise. It’s good to know that we can’t assume the emotion impact on the viewer.

Interesting. I am a night owl. I do not do mornings. This is something that is built in. For most of my life, I could not relate to morning people, who seemed to set the agenda simply by being up first. There clearly was a moral issue involved that judged night owl types as somehow either lazy or decadent.

Then research began showing that those circadian patterns are not personality patterns so much as normal variations in human behavior that during most of human history probably had utilitarian value. And still does, obviously.

I had an experience during my last pregnancy (long ago now) that gave me a personal demonstration of this variability and how it works (and for the first time I understood morning people: they simply can’t help it). To my bafflement, hormones apparently rearranged my internal schedule: up at 4:30, instantly wide awake, all housework done before kids woke up, cooked breakfast ready for them. Worked in the morning, starting to fray by time kids home from school. Falling asleep on the sofa by 7, struggling to stay awake long enough to see kids to bed at THEIR normal time. After baby, I began to shift back, though I never did entirely go back to the very extreme night owl I’d been.

As a night owl, during school or working in jobs that required me to be at work at ungodly hours like 8 am, and during the years that my kids were in school, the only way I could manage was to wake at 4 or 5 am so I had a good three hours to emerge. This became my treasured “quiet time”, when I wrote, drew, read, or simply pondered the darkness and the emerging light. Then I had to be careful about being too active in the evening, because of my tendency to just keep going until, oh, dawn (I used to do housework in the middle of the night, and write in the wee hours).

However, I came to so value the enjoyment I get from the early morning silence that I’ve maintained my early rising schedule. My “night owl” pattern still is dominant: I’ve just moved it back about five hours. Afternoon and early evening is still my best creative time– provided I’ve had those treasured laid-back hours in the early part of my day. And nobody is allowed to talk to me until after nine am.

By the way, the baby from that early rising pregnancy is most definitely a night owl. And an artist.