Friday, February 17, 2012

Carpe Noctem

You've all heard carpe diem (seize the day) however I've always considered myself a being of the night. I generally start my day after the sun goes down and hence I seize the night (carpe noctem). Today I offer to you the idea that you may function better as a person if you truly know your naturally thriving hours. So often we are constricted to the light and with only a few cities that are truly busy at night most places seem to turn into desolate wastelands.
I'll use Detroit Michigan as an example. Go to the more upscale area at the corner of plymouth and I think either middlebelt or schoolcraft, around midnight and simply look around, despite having so many lanes for traffic and so much business in the area the streets are completely empty, not a car or person in sight despite almost every light for every business still being on. You'd think it was a post apocalypse ghost town abandoned without damage, it's a weird sense to feel that only when you see something like it can you truly understand how shocking it can be at times.

My particular hours in which I'm at my peak are between midnight and 8am, so often I would sleep from 4pm to get up at midnight and in a sense I was quite the morning person, now I generally sleep through most of the day and get up around 5pm and work through till sunrise or so. I've found it to be fairly consistent as well. I convince some others I know to try and find the best times for them and they've since become more productive by slightly changing their schedules to work with those hours.
So what I'm asking you isn't to change your life, just to understand when you're at your best so you can plan accordingly for what you want to get done. You never know when it might be useful or how it might change your life.

For some of you the hours may not matter, it may be certain weeks in certain months or seasons in which you simply perform your best naturally and it could still be useful information to have. The question then comes why this is. Believing in science I have no reason to think that it should matter when I'm up or down as to how my body will function within reason and yet somehow it does. How many of you share my thoughts on how sad it is that so often the night is your friend but the town is asleep and therefore your efforts are for naught.

5 comments:

  1. I can't function before noon. I sleep better during the day too but if I do, I'll miss most of the day and the sunlight...and my classes! And like you mentioned, it's like a ghost town at night sometimes.

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  2. I function best at night but the rest of the world functions best during the day.

    If only there was a way that let me sleep only during dawn and dusk and be active during the rest of the time.

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  3. i know people who are more suited to the night, a couple i know always work night shifts and have done for years.

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  4. I wake up around 1 to 2pm on days I have nothing to do, laze around for hours on the net, then around 7 or so I workout then I hit the internet for another 8 hours sleeping around 5am lol..

    CAPRE NOCTEM!

    Im a night owl. And I function best at night.

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  5. Whenever I have an assignment that needs to be rushed I actually function better during 11pm - 3am. During those 5 hours is time really well spent. Anything comes to my mind those times; ideas, schemes, plans, realisations, complex understandings and what have you.

    The only thing is that my parents dislike of what I do. :P

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