Do you find getting up early extremely difficult?

Page 1 of 3 [ 38 posts ]  Go to page 1, 2, 3  Next

Joe90
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 23 Feb 2010
Gender: Female
Posts: 26,492
Location: UK

18 Mar 2022, 1:40 am

At my old job I had to get up early and start, and it always caused anxiety (except in the hot summer months). Whenever I expressed this to people they just said "oh everyone feels like that", and yes that's true but I felt like it to a greater extent.

It seems most NTs get themselves into a routine and just think of getting up early for work as a fact of life and get on with it, and some even have their body clock adjust to getting up at a certain time and not feel rudely awaken by their alarm. For me, it wasn't like that. My body clock wouldn't adjust to a routine like that, because my sleep pattern fluctuated every night (due to ADHD), and when the alarm went off in the morning I felt all anxious, depressed and had brain fog. I don't like coffee and I felt too sick to eat breakfast. I'd walk to work which you'd think would wake me up but it didn't, and while everyone else at work seemed fresh as a daisy I was still quarter-asleep and my anxiety levels were sky high.

Now I'm in a job where I work afternoons and/or evenings and I feel much better. I am more able to think straight and my emotions are more positive and I barely have any anxiety at all.

Does anyone else have problems with having an early start at work? Is working later in the day better for those with ADHD?


_________________
Female


shortfatbalduglyman
Veteran
Veteran

Joined: 4 Mar 2017
Age: 40
Gender: Male
Posts: 9,710

18 Mar 2022, 9:00 am

The next door rooster starts crowing between 3:30 and 5am

It has done so for a couple of years

Usually bed 9 to 10 pm and wake up 5 to 6 am

Work or no work

I would find it hard to sleep any other time, which is required for some jobs

But I am 39 and have only been like that since 29



Fireblossom
Veteran
Veteran

Joined: 18 Jan 2017
Gender: Female
Posts: 3,567

18 Mar 2022, 10:30 am

Depends on the definition of early... I mean, apparently, any time before 10 a.m. is early for some, and for some others any time before noon! 8O

For me, getting up before 6.00 a.m. is early, too early, though if I have to, of course I'll do it. I think it's because I woke up at six for school for years and later for a job, so I got really used to it. These days I don't have to wake up until seven on work mornings, which is cool. When I started this job, it felt like sleeping in an extra hour, but now I'm used to it.

All that said, getting out of bed after 9 a.m. is just way too late; it feels like I've wasted the day! Fortunately, that doesn't happen often, and when it does I tend to either be sick or stayed up way later than usual the night before.



vividgroovy
Deinonychus
Deinonychus

Joined: 20 Dec 2018
Gender: Male
Posts: 330
Location: Santa Maria, CA

19 Mar 2022, 8:47 am

Yes, extremely.

My mother is also a Night Owl. I didn't grow up with my biological father, but I'm told he's the same as well. I always had great difficulty going to bed and getting up early for school. I was very happy when I started home-schooling and no longer had to do that.

When my stepfather came into the picture, he decided I needed to be up by Noon, which probably sounds too lenient to most people, but it was a completely arbitrary rule.

Sometimes, he and I would have conversations like this:

HIM: You look tired.

ME: I am.

HIM: You should have gone to bed earlier!

ME: I tried, but I couldn't fall asleep.

HIM: (resentfully) What do you have to be worried about?!

For years, I worked at jobs where I had to get up early regularly and I never adjusted. I used to have terrible stomach cramps as well.

Anything involving time causes me great anxiety. To me, time just seems to melt. But having to be somewhere the morning makes it much worse.

At my current job, most of my co-workers are happy when they see they've got a morning shift. They say they'll get home early and have the whole rest of the day to themselves. I see it and I panic. (At least the scheduling is more regular now, with an opening and closing crew. It used to be completely erratic.)

I can sleep easily in broad daylight (I know a lot of people require darkness), however, I'm sensitive to noise. My neighborhood is almost totally quiet 90% of the time and the other 10%, it sounds like the world's loudest construction site (garden equipment, trucks backing up with *beep, beep, beep*, neighbors with power saws, etc.) The problem is, I never know when that other 10% is going to come along. It's like, for hours before I go to bed, there will be quiet, then my head hits the pillow and suddenly there's all this noise out of nowhere. That causes me a lot of anxiety as well, especially if I have to be up for work.



SharonB
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 14 Jul 2019
Gender: Female
Posts: 2,733

19 Mar 2022, 10:56 am

I was a night owl... before kids. I was dependent on an alarm and hated it. I missed buses, classes, was late to work, etc. My husband was and is an early bird and so he'd leave before I got up and be in bed just hours after I got home from work. However, then the kids came and generally young kids get up early, and amazingly I adjusted. However, to your point, although I enjoy getting up early now, I still don't want to work early.

Now we all go to bed between 9-10 and are an alarm-free house. I love it. I will probably revert back to my owl-like ways once the kids start sleeping in (as teenagers). In the meantime, I am proof that after near 40 years of night owl, it's possible to be an early bird - even for ASD/ADHD types. Sometimes I am asleep by 9:30 pm with the kids, so wake up naturally, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed at 5:30 am :o ! ! Who am I? I notice that when I go to bed "early" with time to spare in the morning, when I am fighting a cold (and don't even realize it), I easily sleep in which helps with recovery (9+ hours of sleep). I quite enjoy this "early bird" phase. But while my husband happily goes to work before 7 am many days, I don't want to work until 8:30 am. My ASD BFF doesn't have kids and so still struggles to get to work by 10 am. My mom has had a "reversed" schedule (up most the night, sleep half the day) for a large part of her life. It correlates with avoidance/disengagement in her case.

I'm glad you are more comfortable now.



Dial1194
Velociraptor
Velociraptor

User avatar

Joined: 3 Jul 2019
Age: 124
Gender: Male
Posts: 413
Location: Australia

19 Mar 2022, 11:26 am

Something like 6am, yes. Ugh.

Something like 3am, though... I can get up, and the world is dark and quiet and calm. There are not a million people whizzing about, and the birds haven't started their cacophony yet, and if I'm getting up that early for work reasons I can beat traffic or log in to a virtual workplace which doesn't have 900 other people all trying to pull me into meetings or send me chat messages. There's also a good chance I'll be able to leave in time to beat traffic back, or log off before people start descending into afternoon socializing, and maybe go hit up stores before business hours are over.

So... yeah. Slightly early: bah. Extremely early? You have my attention.



babybird
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 11 Nov 2011
Gender: Female
Posts: 62,501
Location: UK

19 Mar 2022, 11:39 am

If i get up later than 7am I feel like I've missed half the day. I get everything done in the morning time. Shopping, housework, workout. Then I have the rest of the day to do more leisurely things.

When I was working (two jobs) I was up at about 4:30am. I'd start my first job at about 5 and then I'd get to my full-time job at about 7:30 and then finish early.

When I was younger I was actually a night owl and then I realised that I needed to see some daylight so I managed to switch.

I do have adhd as well and I have heard that people with the condition do struggle in the morning time and I did used to but not any more.


_________________
We have existence


lostonearth35
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 5 Jan 2010
Age: 50
Gender: Female
Posts: 11,790
Location: Lost on Earth, waddya think?

19 Mar 2022, 11:42 am

My sleep-wake patterns must be set on a completely different time zone. Either that or I'm part vampire. I have always hated getting up early and I have always had anxiety over going to bed early as well. And ever since covid it's gotten worse. I guess that's what happens when you have no job and no life.

It's hard to believe that over two decades ago I just started waking up early and often couldn't sleep at all. It was torture because all I wanted to do was sleep. Trying to do something else until I felt tired enough to sleep didn't work because I was already tired. I would have spasms and sleep apnea and sometimes woke up feeling like I was having a heart attack. My anxiety was so bad and everyone seemed to think it was all my fault and I was a horrible person. That was around the time I was diagnosed. Maybe they were right and it was all my fault and I really was a horrible person. I said and did some pretty nasty things and the more they tried to control me the worse I would act.

I actually woke up before noon today and I didn't even need to. Must be because of my dad. I'm also worried about my mom. She hasn't called or sent a message yet to let me know how she's doing. I guess I should call or e-mail her.

I'm worried that my brain cells are dying or that I might have be in the early stages of Parkison's or MS.



Joe90
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 23 Feb 2010
Gender: Female
Posts: 26,492
Location: UK

19 Mar 2022, 12:08 pm

I do like the daytime, in fact I dislike the dark. But I'm just not an early riser. I read somewhere that having an alarm to wake you up is unhealthy or something and that your body should know when it is time to wake up so you don't need an alarm. Um, no, I never wanted to risk doing that! I remember when I was at my old job I had set my alarm but for some reason had set it to silent and didn't realise (God knows why there's a feature to make an alarm silent but there you go), and I was half an hour late for work that morning, and I would have been even later if my mum hadn't woken me up.

No - going to sleep and relying on your body clock to automatically wake you at the right time is just too risky.


_________________
Female


Lady Strange
Pileated woodpecker
Pileated woodpecker

Joined: 21 May 2021
Age: 40
Gender: Female
Posts: 195
Location: USA

19 Mar 2022, 5:41 pm

Yes getting up early (before 9am) is usually miserable. I am a night owl, tend to do better with evening shifts rather than morning or typical day ones. Hoping my next job can be an evening shift job. Early mornings are like torment, and I feel messed up the whole rest of the day.



Joe90
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 23 Feb 2010
Gender: Female
Posts: 26,492
Location: UK

19 Mar 2022, 6:31 pm

Lady Strange wrote:
Yes getting up early (before 9am) is usually miserable. I am a night owl, tend to do better with evening shifts rather than morning or typical day ones. Hoping my next job can be an evening shift job. Early mornings are like torment, and I feel messed up the whole rest of the day.


Same, I would finish my shift mid-afternoon and was so eager to get out of there so I could go home and take a much needed nap before dinner. But sometimes the supervisor would force me to stay after my shift if things weren't done, and it would cause me massive anxiety that she wouldn't understand. I even had a meltdown once because I just wanted to get home and recharge. She just said I was acting like an old person of 90.

I wasn't too bad getting up when I was a child, although I did get tearful on really cold winter school mornings. But it got worse as I became an adult.

I remember when I was at my old job there was a huge thunderstorm one night that kept me awake because it was an extremely humid night, so by the time I was tired it was literally an hour before I had to get up for work. It seemed I'd closed my eyes for one nanosecond and suddenly my alarm was beeping and I felt like throwing it across the room.
When I got to work I had a splitting headache and little things kept going wrong. I dropped a full bucket of water by mistake and it went all over the floor, which then made me burst into tears. Normally I wouldn't cry at that but I was just so sleep deprived.


_________________
Female


Dillogic
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 24 Nov 2011
Gender: Male
Posts: 9,339

19 Mar 2022, 7:35 pm

I mostly have trouble getting to sleep. I've needed drugs to get to sleep when I'm not in too bad a spot for a couple of decades, and I can keep a somewhat normal cycle with them. In a bad spot, I'll have classic insomnia regardless of medications, which will last for some months (usually no more than a year); I'll try to keep a normal cycle by doing less at night and/or lying down and "waking up" in the morning. In a real bad spot, I need to distract myself during those insomnia sessions.

I have to keep a normal cycle now as a carer for someone (the disabled caring for the more disabled amuses me more than it should), regardless of whatever. Kinda been in zombie mode with microsleeps more than I'd like to admit the past several months. Which isn't the best experience, but it's nowhere near the worst I'm dealing with.



Edna3362
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 29 Oct 2011
Gender: Female
Posts: 11,366
Location: ᜆᜄᜎᜓᜄ᜔

20 Mar 2022, 12:39 am

Mine is just weird. It fluctuates.

Sometimes I can't get up because of some jetlag like feeling that my insides -- my heart more so -- is working harder than usual.
A sign of either me consuming enough caffeine, consuming melatonin (doesn't work well with me), no restful sleep at all and just laying down on bed with eyes closed not really asleep, cannot breathe well or/and having to sneeze for hours or having an upset stomach while lying on bed.
Or just flat out insomnia and stress. More cortisol because the next day is supposedly busier or more important. Maybe it's worse with anxiety or any mental health issues.

Sometimes it's hormones. Particularly either post menstrual or before ovulation.
I had to move body or I'd start falling asleep wherever I'm after being idle for a minute.
It's not my body -- it's not working harder. In fact it didn't had to, except just being sleepy in the head. Someone told me it's my body's way of preparing ovulation.
Meaning the hardest for me at that time would be at the very start of the day -- getting up.

And then during said ovulation, chances I'd be an insomniac with no meaningful sleep if I tried.
It also adds more sensory sensitivities for me -- while there's a nightly band every week and my mom singing several hours a day, at least it's not the highway or a construction nearby.
This leads with anything else -- chances of jetlag feeling, chances of losing energy, chances of more stress. If only I can predict it.

Sometimes it's actually energy levels. Usually pre menstrual or during a period. Needing more iron and losing some blood.
It doesn't feel like jetlag, but everything just feels heavy. My body isn't working hard enough or lacking of working with something important -- like blood -- and I feel like I'm working harder resisting against gravity.
And getting up is painful. It won't help that my cold intolerance is worse at that time and then having to leave from a warm cocoon.
Also it's not even limited from getting up from bed, but transitioning from different stationary bodily positions in general -- from lying down, to sitting up, to sitting, to actually getting up from sitting before standing...

And then there's actual laziness -- the uncommon feeling of me too comfortable asleep. Or trying to "salvage" asleep as if that's going to do anything.
It's different from real restful sleep where I could get up easy and do things right even feeling lazy.
The only distinction I have from that is the lack of sensory overload and overwhelm, and a complete loss of sense of time during sleep as if I took a break that is the human experience and existence.


I tried to be consistent with sleep recently.
Turns out before that happens for me, I also had to be just as consistent with when I eat -- especially at night, when I eat I need about 2 to 3 hours before going to bed -- not just when I have to stop being exposed to light.
This is more related to the circadian rhythm and possibly gut issues for me than anything I mentioned.

Getting up when and how well, however, is more fluctuated for me than how easy and when I'm going to sleeping.

As a whole, I'm a night person living on a morning to afternoon lifestyle.
:? Not exactly pleasant.


_________________
Gained Number Post Count (1).
Lose Time (n).

Lose more time here - Updates at least once a week.


Lady Strange
Pileated woodpecker
Pileated woodpecker

Joined: 21 May 2021
Age: 40
Gender: Female
Posts: 195
Location: USA

22 Mar 2022, 8:16 pm

Edna3362 wrote:
Mine is just weird. It fluctuates.

Sometimes I can't get up because of some jetlag like feeling that my insides -- my heart more so -- is working harder than usual.
A sign of either me consuming enough caffeine, consuming melatonin (doesn't work well with me), no restful sleep at all and just laying down on bed with eyes closed not really asleep, cannot breathe well or/and having to sneeze for hours or having an upset stomach while lying on bed.
Or just flat out insomnia and stress. More cortisol because the next day is supposedly busier or more important. Maybe it's worse with anxiety or any mental health issues.

Sometimes it's hormones. Particularly either post menstrual or before ovulation.
I had to move body or I'd start falling asleep wherever I'm after being idle for a minute.
It's not my body -- it's not working harder. In fact it didn't had to, except just being sleepy in the head. Someone told me it's my body's way of preparing ovulation.
Meaning the hardest for me at that time would be at the very start of the day -- getting up.

And then during said ovulation, chances I'd be an insomniac with no meaningful sleep if I tried.
It also adds more sensory sensitivities for me -- while there's a nightly band every week and my mom singing several hours a day, at least it's not the highway or a construction nearby.
This leads with anything else -- chances of jetlag feeling, chances of losing energy, chances of more stress. If only I can predict it.

Sometimes it's actually energy levels. Usually pre menstrual or during a period. Needing more iron and losing some blood.
It doesn't feel like jetlag, but everything just feels heavy. My body isn't working hard enough or lacking of working with something important -- like blood -- and I feel like I'm working harder resisting against gravity.
And getting up is painful. It won't help that my cold intolerance is worse at that time and then having to leave from a warm cocoon.
Also it's not even limited from getting up from bed, but transitioning from different stationary bodily positions in general -- from lying down, to sitting up, to sitting, to actually getting up from sitting before standing...

And then there's actual laziness -- the uncommon feeling of me too comfortable asleep. Or trying to "salvage" asleep as if that's going to do anything.
It's different from real restful sleep where I could get up easy and do things right even feeling lazy.
The only distinction I have from that is the lack of sensory overload and overwhelm, and a complete loss of sense of time during sleep as if I took a break that is the human experience and existence.


I tried to be consistent with sleep recently.
Turns out before that happens for me, I also had to be just as consistent with when I eat -- especially at night, when I eat I need about 2 to 3 hours before going to bed -- not just when I have to stop being exposed to light.
This is more related to the circadian rhythm and possibly gut issues for me than anything I mentioned.

Getting up when and how well, however, is more fluctuated for me than how easy and when I'm going to sleeping.

As a whole, I'm a night person living on a morning to afternoon lifestyle.
:? Not exactly pleasant.


Yeah with time of the month I feel like a zombie. I swear if I had a job where I didn't move around some I'd be afraid I would literally fall asleep and get fired. I once had an early class and just about fell over in the chair and could not keep from falling asleep for a little bit. I don't know how people stay awake and alert with such ease. Driving scares me because I get afraid of falling asleep at the wheel especially if it was a long trip. I don't drive much, so not a huge problem but I just get tired very easy. I was better when I was young, but feel like right around middle/high school is when it started. I feel like I need 9-10 hours sleep to function at a human level, and even then I can get tired and I don't know. Its just how life is. Are autistics more sensitive to needing sleep or something ?



Lady Strange
Pileated woodpecker
Pileated woodpecker

Joined: 21 May 2021
Age: 40
Gender: Female
Posts: 195
Location: USA

22 Mar 2022, 8:26 pm

Joe90 wrote:
Lady Strange wrote:
Yes getting up early (before 9am) is usually miserable. I am a night owl, tend to do better with evening shifts rather than morning or typical day ones. Hoping my next job can be an evening shift job. Early mornings are like torment, and I feel messed up the whole rest of the day.


Same, I would finish my shift mid-afternoon and was so eager to get out of there so I could go home and take a much needed nap before dinner. But sometimes the supervisor would force me to stay after my shift if things weren't done, and it would cause me massive anxiety that she wouldn't understand. I even had a meltdown once because I just wanted to get home and recharge. She just said I was acting like an old person of 90.

I wasn't too bad getting up when I was a child, although I did get tearful on really cold winter school mornings. But it got worse as I became an adult.

I remember when I was at my old job there was a huge thunderstorm one night that kept me awake because it was an extremely humid night, so by the time I was tired it was literally an hour before I had to get up for work. It seemed I'd closed my eyes for one nanosecond and suddenly my alarm was beeping and I felt like throwing it across the room.
When I got to work I had a splitting headache and little things kept going wrong. I dropped a full bucket of water by mistake and it went all over the floor, which then made me burst into tears. Normally I wouldn't cry at that but I was just so sleep deprived.


Yeah if I had a real early shift from what I was used to (like 6am) I was just comatose. People I worked with knew I'd be a puffy faced pale mess. When customers would come in the store I hoped they wouldn't ask me anything because I didn't know how to answer like what is my name even? I just get destroyed, and would have to go home after and sleep for like 3 hours. I understand! Its awful, then everyone else is doing it and they seem fine, maybe a little tired but not completely plowed like I feel and look. I have not found a way around this either.



ToughDiamond
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 15 Sep 2008
Age: 71
Gender: Male
Posts: 11,147

22 Mar 2022, 9:25 pm

I've had mixed reactions to getting up early. When I was a young child I had no trouble at all with it, but later on I started to feel more "allergic" to it. Don't know if it was a biological change in me or just a reaction to the increasing strain the day would put me under. I suppose as I got older I was less forced to go to bed early.

For most of my adult life I lived near my workplaces, so I didn't have to allow for much travelling time and I could usually get away with getting up at around 8.45am. I didn't bother with breakfast (I usually felt rather ill in the mornings so didn't have much appetite anyway, and I've never noticed any of these adverse health effects we're so often told we'll suffer from if we don't have breakfast). But even 8.45 usually felt too early, especially in winter.

Now I'm retired there's rarely any pressure on me to get up early, so I just take it easy and get up when I feel like it. I usually sit up in bed for an hour or so drinking tea and messing about on my laptop. I've also tended to go to bed rather late (because I seem more able to concentrate after midnight), and naturally that makes it harder for me to get up early. These days I feel ill if I don't get enough sleep. But I sometimes get a bout of "terminal insomnia" (which is waking up early and not being able to go back to sleep). Unfortunately, the terminal insomnia rarely coincides with the occasional early appointments I have to get to, and I hate those. Luckily there aren't very many of them. But I don't feel good about getting up late even though it doesn't really matter. I suppose I had it drummed into me that slobbing about was a bad way to live. And it's annoying to find there isn't much day left by the time I emerge. So I rather wish I kept more normal hours, but I don't think it's going to happen.