Why Do You Only Get Motivated After Midnight? | Night Owls

▼ Timestamps ▼
────────────
00:00 - Reddit post
00:37 - Why do we get motivated at night?
02:44 - Mouse graphic
07:11 - Adenosine is the dopamine counter
12:05 - Future discounting
17:44 - Spiritual focus
25:10 - "What should we do? tl;dr"
27:59 - Don't work for the first hour of the day
29:58 - "How do I reset the cycle from working all night?"
32:13 - Your phone and the dopamine train
39:00 - What music does for your mood
40:06 - What to do when your work involves a computer
43:14 - Devices that do everything
────────────
DISCLAIMER
Healthy Gamer is an online community and resource platform for gamers and their families. It does not provided medical services or professional counseling, and it is not a substitute for professional medical care. Our coaches are peer supporters, not professionally trained experts, and they cannot provide medical service. If you or a loved on are experiencing an emergency, please call your nation's emergency telephone number.

All guests of Healthy Gamer are informed of the public, non-medical nature of the content and have expressly agreed to share their story.
Become a Healthy Gamer!

[Balloonbot]

I always felt its because there's an expectation during the day. Its when im meant to produce work - and i become avoidant due to that pressure. As soon as its a time where im expected to rest - that resistance clears up, its like there's no one watching me anymore, so if i fail - who cares its midnight i'll just go to bed if i fuck up. I also get this during the work day, i can do fuck all until my last hour then suddenly i find it much easier to work in the evenings.

[Mahsei]

I like the feel of late night. No one tries to force you to do things. I can write, practice drawing, and even do homework or wash dishes without my family making fun of me, putting me down, or just bothering me/distracting me. It’s kind of like having your own room.

I live in an Apartment with 4 brothers, and there are only 3 rooms so privacy is quite limited. It’s why I tend to stay up late, at the very least.

[ferrisbueller]

I think a lot of this phenomenon is instilled in adolescence where school owns your day and its homework owns your evening. Finally comes night and you can work on your own time. This leads to staying up late, cherishing the few hours that you like, meaning less sleep for the shit you have to wake up for.
Teenagers being forced to wake at 7am is stupid. I remember my school tried to make a change for it to be 9. Overwhelmingly popular but a few moms on the board were real killjoys: calculating how the accumulation of the hour per day adds up to 2 weeks less of education. Yeah, they just don't want their white wine nail salon day schedule fucked with.

[gatsuyatsu]

1.Gets motivated at mightnight
2.Promising myself that I will do something productive in the morning
3.Waking up in the afternoon demotivated
4.Repeat 😓

[andrewkelley]

I find it easier to be productive late into the night because that is when nobody bothers me and I can actually focus on myself.

[hundert]

36:00 gave me goosebumps. What you're describing with "what's the NEXT BEST STEP?" is extremely similar to something I used to call my "next step system". I often struggle with debilitating procrastination and problems executing even simple tasks on some days.

Seeing all you SHOULD be doing as a massive chunk can be so demoralizing, especially if you tell yourself that you're an idiot for not even being able to respond to a few emails or something similar.

Breaking down tasks into the most basic, almost braindead easy PHYSICAL actions converts fuzzy, vague goals (like "get healthy") into achievable tiny steps. "I'm lying on my bed right now, browsing reddit again for 90 minutes, and I need to get so much stuff done today". Then, almost like someone outside of me, I give myself a mental quest list - like a tutorial level. Step 1: lock my phone. Step 2: stand up. Step 3: put on pants and walk outside for a bit.

With some tasks - even short ones - that I dread starting, I focus on JUST the most obvious, immediate step - and give myself permission to take a break directly afterwards. That way I kinda trick my lizard brain that I don't actually plan on doing that dreaded task all at once, but just a small, physical action. Sometimes I even imagine a little quest marker hovering over whatever I plan on interacting with next. Doing a workout at home? Step 1: Approach and pick up the dumbbell.

It can often feel so idiotic and hilariously basic, but even the longest marathon is just a series of steps. You don't need to focus on the goal way in the distance - first you need get off the couch. Then put on your shoes. And then take the first step. Then another one. And then another.

[jdjk]

One thing I think should be mentioned is that one thing that may contribute to "night owl" phenomena is the fact that in pre-industrial times, the middle of the night used to be a productive time. This theory primarily comes from one historian, Roger Ekirch, but he draws from hundreds of written references to such sleep patterns and his work is generally supported.

It was very common to sleep for a few hours beginning around 8-10pm, wake up for an hour or two around 12-2am, and then sleep again before waking up around 5-7am. In fact, the expression 'beauty sleep' is a mistranslation of a Latin/Romance phrase, 'prima nocte'-- but now this is considered to have meant 'first sleep' (i.e. that first phase of sleep).

The middle of the night was used for various purposes, most of which were self care-like (praying, self-reflection, writing/poetry/journaling, sex, socializing, etc). Also obviously people tended to use the time for crime.

Ekirch suggests that the reason this fell out of fashion was primarily due to the effect of electric lighting on circadian rhythm, i.e. always-on electric lighting keeps people up much later and disrupts this pattern (one which one might call 'natural')

[TheKarret]

The internet is the fae world: You step in it, thinking 30 minutes have gone by, and it turns out you've been MIA for 6 hours.

[LenweTaralom]

This is literally exactly my life, but I never found the words to describe this to my therapist or doctor. I can only concentrate and I only feel in control of my decisions when it‘s nearly time to go to sleep again. Thanks a lot!

[theUnbridledCreative]

"Our brain chooses an immediate gain over an uncertain, long-term gain."
The future is uncertain, but the pasta is now

[TheDhammaHub]

At night, the stress of the day fades with all the distractions and the problems we have "surface". That's when problems are most obvious/immediate problems often motivate us to change things

[bonnacon]

Because the midnight hour is a time of low expectation: you can imagine that all those people who want stuff from you - your teacher, your boss, your editor, your auditor, your supervisor, your whatever - are asleep (probably!) and out of your hair. No-one expects anything from you, and the in absence of that godawful expectation, that never-ending thrum of the external locus of evaluation, your own energy, your authentic internal locus of control, comes soaring back. In short: this is one of those areas where it's society that's dysfunctional, not you - your soul wants freedom, but society wants to own your ass. Rebelling against this debilitates you physically, yes - you'll be exhausted the next day alright - but spiritually it makes complete and utter sense.

[werewolfe]

If i don't have anything to do in the morning (and put an alarm), i automatically go into the waking up at 11-12am and sleeping at 3-4am. Everyone talks about that "morning energy", but I've never experienced that in my life. Being awake in the morning is suffering for me, so I don't know how you would get more "morning dopamine".

[JDjr.]

Holy shit, this is legitimately useful advice. even the "I can't tell you exactly what to do, you have to understand it first" was used as a preface to actually helping to understand and then give suggestions, rather than a cop out to seem smart but not help anything. Thanks, my guy!

[aprilmidnight]

There is a large crossover with ADHD and a sleep disorder called Delayed sleep phase disorder (DSPD) meaning your circadian rhythm is later than normal. This the typical night owl who can't force themselves to sleep earlier at a socially acceptable time. It's also found that trying to conform to a "normal" sleeping time when you have a later circadian rhythm can be not beneficial and you may not get good sleep. Research shows at the moment that for these people, adjusting work and life around your sleep is healthier, than being sleep deprived. Thought it would be interesting to mention as everyone's circadian rhythms also affect when we feel motivation, early morning people feel more so in the morning, night owls late at night. The most important things is that you are having good consistent sleep, when you go to bed isn't always necessarily a bad thing if you can work around it, it's just difficult when the world is set on a 9-5 schedule.

EDIT: Noticed a few comments talking about how their circadian rhythm is longer than 24 hours, this is likely NOT dspd, but something called Non-24-Hour Sleep-Wake Disorder meaning your body doesn't follow a consistent 24/7 routine in terms of sleep. Usually people with DSPD, when allowed to go to bed at consistent times end up getting fairly good quality sleep. Having a circadian rhythm that falls outside the regular 24 hours will result in your sleep constantly being pushed back, not it just being later than socially normal.

[justinsanity]

As a huge night owl in college, I feel like it was great being able to work on stuff alone and not be bothered by outside noise or people texting / calling me. It was bliss, just me, a book, and homework problems. I would even go for late night walks since I lived on a relatively safe campus, which really helped me work through stuff in my head. Loved being a night owl.

[colsoncustoms]

“A serpent uncoiling, your mind will go into absolute rebellion”
Never heard it put into words so well, telling yourself “you can wait another 30 minutes for that first cigarette if the day” makes for an eye opening experience regarding the autonomy of ones inner dopamine fiend.

[GldnClaw]

Bookmark
Being with yourself (meditation)
24:00 Study yourself, experiment and understand first. "Do not touch a piece of technology the first hour of the day"
28:30 If your material success is tied to the dopaminergic circuit in the nucleus... then you can be successful and do this. The challenge for most of us is that the dopamine hit is NOT tied to this success.
30:00 reset sleep schedule: easier to stay up when tired, then go to sleep when you are not
Leave the house without phone, have a very simple plan (next 2 hours only)
35:40 "What is the next, best thing I can do?" (not objective best, but what I can do. Don't have to be perfect)
40:15 Different computer for work than gaming
Avoid getting on the dopamine train

[amaurys]

I would like to hear Dr. K weigh in on how the 9 to 5 routine is fatiguing to the psyche. I have so little energy after powering through a customer service* work shift. It’s needless to say that work is taxing, but certain jobs yield more compassion fatigue than others and at the end of the day My capacity for empathy and self-preservation is so low I have difficulty doing anything but binging food, weed, and then trying to pass out afterwards to repeat the cycle again.

[shannonjones]

"Go for a walk and leave the phone at home."

That's funny because i usually bring my phone with me when i go for walks precisely so i can listen to videos like these lol. Everything is a trap.