The Morning Myth Read online

  The Morning Myth

  How Every Night Owl Can Become More Productive, Successful, Happier, and Healthier

  Frank J. Rumbauskas

  Cover image: © GETTY IMAGES | PIXDELUXE

  Cover design: Paul McCarthy

  Copyright © 2019 by Frank J. Rumbauskas. All rights reserved.

  Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey.

  Published simultaneously in Canada.

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  ISBN 9781119537755 (Hardcover)

  ISBN 9781119537762 (ePDF)

  ISBN 9781119537779 (ePub)

  To my two beautiful daughters, Agnes and Maeve. I cannot possibly imagine my life without you both in it. You have made me a better person and brought me happiness beyond my wildest dreams. I love nothing more than simply being with you, and your Dad will always be there for you. No matter what.

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  Dedication

  Preface Don’t Try to Change Your Sleep Habits

  Why I Did All This Research

  How to Use This Book

  CHAPTER 1 Confessions of a Stigmatized Night Owl: How Early Rising Nearly Destroyed My Business (and Did Destroy My Education) A Very Annoyed Five-Year-Old

  High School Hell

  From High School to College Dropout

  The College Dropout Enters the Workforce

  Success Found—At Last!

  Freedom Found

  CHAPTER 2 The Brainwashing: Society Stigmatizes Night Owls—and People Buy It The Myth of Night Owl “Laziness”

  Society’s Negative Attitudes Toward Night Owls

  How People Fall into the Morning Trap

  The Cult of the Early Riser

  CHAPTER 3 The Prison: How Our Society’s Discrimination Harms Night Owls Morning People Can’t Keep Their Mouths Shut About It

  Night Owl Shaming Must Stop—Now

  CHAPTER 4 Studies Favoring Morning Larks Are Fatally Flawed: Our Society Is Rigged in Favor of Early Birds More Morning Garbage from Leading Business Publications

  The Problem with Studies Favoring Morning Larks

  CHAPTER 5 Fighting Your Internal Clock Is Harmful to Your Health: Getting Up Too Early Can Actually Give You Diabetes Rotating Shift Work Exacerbates Health Risks

  They Call Us Narcissists and Psychopaths

  It’s Not Just Diabetes and Heart Disease, It’s Stroke, Too

  My Personal Metabolic Morning Disaster

  CHAPTER 6 Your Circadian Rhythm—and Why You Can’t Change It: The Internal Clock You’re Born With Is the One You’re Stuck With Hours a Day—but Not for You

  Congratulations! You’ve Won 25 Hours a Day!

  You Can’t Change Your Inborn Chronotype— You Can Only Adapt

  Medical Treatments for Delayed Sleep Phase Disorder

  Can You Really Get Up Earlier—and Live to Tell About It?

  CHAPTER 7 Night Owls Are More Successful: The Early Birds Just Don’t Make As Much Money The Night Owl Experience That Set Me Free

  The Proof Is in the Pudding (or, in This Case, the Research)

  The BBC Speaks Up

  More Science Proving Night Owls Fare Better in Life

  CHAPTER 8 Night Owls Are Smarter Than Early Risers: Night Owls Show Overall Higher Intelligence Than Morning People More Science to Back Night Owls’ Superior Intelligence

  Night Owl MBA Students Achieve Higher Test Scores

  Want to Get Ahead? Be a Night Owl!

  Famous, Intelligent, Successful Night Owls

  CHAPTER 9 Night Owls Are More Productive: Want to Get More Done? Stay Up Later! Chronotypes and the Mind-Body Connection

  Natural Sleep Times = Happiness = Massive Productivity

  “Sleep Pressure” Gives Night Owls the Productivity Advantage

  CHAPTER 10 Night Owls Are More Creative: Creativity Flourishes After the Early Birds Have Crashed Science Doesn’t Know Why, but Confirms We’re More Creative

  The Sales Training Flunkout Who Became a Top Sales Rep

  Author Stereotypes versus Author Truths (or Entrepreneurial Truths)

  CEOs and the Perpetual Myth of the Early Riser

  CHAPTER 11 Night Owls Are More Relaxed: Getting Up Early Is Stressful (but You Already Knew That) Coffee and Getting Up Too Early: Both Are Major Stressors

  Cortisol Keeps Early Risers on Edge

  CHAPTER 12 Night Owl Discrimination and Sleep-Shaming: The Time Has Come to End Discrimination Against Night Owls “Well, It’s Nice of You to Join Us”

  The Very Real Effects of Sleep Deprivation on Your Health

  The One-Sided Story That Won’t Go Away

  Unintended Sleep-Shaming Is Everywhere

  Night Owls Are Tired of Being Discriminated Against

  Night Owls, Sleep-Shaming, and Depression

  CHAPTER 13 Diet, Nutrition, and Other Secrets to Better, Deeper Sleep A Look at Drug-Based Sleep Aids

  Natural and Herbal Sleep Aids

  Good Sleep Hygiene

  What to Avoid in Order to Get Great Sleep

  CHAPTER 14 Mitigating the Health Risks of Early Rising: Stay Healthy and Let the Early Birds “Sleep When They’re Dead” Eat Healthy

  Relax, Relax, Relax!

  Self-hypnosis

  Exercise—Within Reason

  Use Adaptogens

  Spend Enough Time Outdoors

  Use Essential Oils

  Sleep!

  A Word of Caution

  CHAPTER 15 How Flexible Work Hours Benefit Employers: Why Employers Who Force Morning Schedules Are Losing Money Flexible Work Schedules Benefit Employers

  Epilogue: Night Owls Have a Huge Advantage over Early Risers

  Acknowledgments
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  About the Author

  Index

  End User License Agreement

  Preface

  If you’re a “night owl,” I feel your pain. I’m one, too. I know what it’s like to be judged by others as being lazy, slothful, and juvenile, when in fact studies continually show that night owls achieve more in life and the majority are wealthier and more consistently successful than morning people.

  You may find that hard to believe after years of being brainwashed with the notion that morning people are more successful, and somehow just plain better, than we are, but it’s true. I’m living proof of it.

  And the endless criticism we suffer can be unbearable at times.

  Friends who I call my “office neighbors” sometimes comment on how late I arrive to the office. What they don’t know is how extremely productive and creative I am after the sun sets in the evening.

  About 10 years ago, I had a television interview scheduled for 8:00 a.m. at my office. When the TV crew arrived, my receptionist told them, “Frank is never here this early!” The look on her face as I came through the door was priceless!

  Even family and friends get in on the act, when they should be the very people who support us. They simply assume that because I’ve been fortunate to experience tremendous success in my businesses that I’m “fat and happy” and sleep in for the sheer hell of it. Nothing could be further from the truth; the reality is that I sleep in later than most because that is what makes me hyperproductive.

  They’re all wrong, as you’ll learn in a minute, and I have good news for you: If you’re a night owl, there’s nothing wrong with you!

  Take it from Kate Shellnut at Vox.com:

  Night owls aren’t the lazy, distracted weirdos the early crowd makes us out to be. When the rest of the world winds down, we work, create, and tinker on our own schedules. Each evening, I watch the typical bedtimes pass by and wait for that jolt of energy and inspiration that comes well past twilight …

  For us, staying up late is the easy part. The real challenge comes when we wake up and face the early risers, who still see night owls as lazy, juvenile, and unhealthy. And today’s hyperawareness around the importance of sleep has only made our reputations worse …

  Night owls remain a misunderstood, maligned minority. We defy the conventional wisdom, missing out on the proverbial worm and whatever instincts make early risers “healthy, wealthy, and wise.”

  Both family and friends, aside from my wife and kids, are completely unaware that during my waking hours, I work almost constantly, and produce my very best work after the sun has set and the kids and my wife are in bed; she just happens to be a morning person, and thankfully, one who understands that I perform best on a night owl schedule.

  Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.

  —Ben Franklin*

  You just learned that Ben Franklin’s famous quote has it all wrong when it comes to being wealthier.

  The news gets worse for morning people—they’re not healthier, either. They’re not necessarily less healthy; however, Franklin’s quote has once again been proven wrong, and to make matters worse, night owls who force themselves to get up early may in fact suffer from diminished cognitive function and decreased immunity, and are at higher risk for depression, anxiety, and seasonal affective disorder. That’s why it’s insane for nearly all employers to require that employees arrive at 8:00 a.m. First of all, night owls who are forced to work on that schedule may not perform as well, and second, they’ll probably have more sick days, which means lost productivity to the employer. (Maybe that’s why antidepressants and anti-anxiety medications are the most prescribed drugs in the United States and many other Western nations?)

  Considering the fact that approximately 32% of people are night owls—almost one-third of the population, with many estimates going up to half—forcing 100% of employees to be at work early is simply foolish, and the worst part is that a large percentage of employers, who are successful night owls, make their staff come in at 8:00 a.m. while they’re at home sleeping until 9:00 a.m. or later. It’s costing employers more money than those employees are generating. If they would schedule workdays around employees’ sleep tendencies, they’d have infinitely more productive “night owl” employees if they let them come in from 11:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., and allowed them to work from home after dark, when they’re at their very best.

  Don’t Try to Change Your Sleep Habits

  I’m also going to venture a guess that you have tried to be a so-called “morning person” and found the results to be disastrous. I’ve been there, too.

  (The brainwashing that causes us to attempt to become early risers is explained in later in the book.)

  You see, I was born with low thyroid function, which was not discovered until about three years ago, after my wife and I signed on with a private concierge doctor. We made that decision after Obamacare wrecked our health insurance and we found ourselves paying $2,000/month for insurance that covered virtually nothing. The concierge practice we joined conducts an extremely thorough three-hour exam and extensive lab work when on-boarding a new patient, including a take-home adrenal saliva test kit.

  Finding the correct dose of thyroid hormone is very difficult. Taking replacement thyroid hormone throws lab tests way off, so the only accurate way to determine the proper dosage is to monitor symptoms, energy levels, and midday body temperature.

  At one point in this grand experiment, I was taking too much and began suffering from hyperthyroidism.

  As if by magic, I began waking between 5:45 a.m. and 6:00 a.m.

  The problem is, my work output, income, and overall wealth dropped instead of increasing. I was astonished because I was excited to finally be an early riser and be hyperproductive, but it didn’t work out that way.

  To make matters worse, I began to get sick and catch colds more often. Research proves that attempting to fight your natural sleep cycle is harmful to your health, and reduces immunity in particular. If the drop in productivity weren’t bad enough already, now I was having downtime due to repeated illness, particularly nasty colds that always seemed to be followed by sinus infections.

  My night owl brain wasn’t working at full power on that schedule, despite the fact that I was bursting with energy. Needless to say, my doctor and I agreed to drop the dosage and I fell back into my normal circadian rhythm. (By the way, and contrary to popular belief, you cannot change your circadian rhythm, which will be explained later in the book as well.)

  Other attempts to force myself to go to sleep early with the help of a sleep aid, and wake up early, were also disasters. I was downright miserable and tired all day, and the bags under my eyes didn’t help much in meetings with prospective clients, or even in performing simple tasks such as answering email. My body simply wanted to get up later. It needed to sleep in its own schedule, not one invented by society. (By the way, this whole “start work at eight o’clock” nonsense goes back to agrarian farming days—in other words, the world is still operating on a schedule that’s ancient history nowadays.)

  But don’t take it from me. Here are just a few examples of scientific research done on the topic:

  A study done at the Institute of Neuroscience and Medicine in Germany found that when night owls follow the same time schedules as morning people, there’s a tendency to develop seasonal affective disorder or depression. Researchers at the University of Liege in Belgium conducted a study in which night owls and morning people competed against each other to measure reaction and attention times. When given a task shortly after waking up, both groups did well, but 10 hours after their days began, the night owls were better at completing assigned tasks and were quicker and more alert. Dr. Victoria Sharma, medical director of the Sharp Grossmont Hospital’s Sleep Disorders Center, said morning larks can be perceived as more driven at work because they tend to perform better early in the day, while a night owl’s circadian rhythm may be telling them they should still be
sleeping. (Fast Company)

  Sharma carried out a study among 59 people and found that night owls and morning larks have different brain structures that cannot be changed. (Huffington Post)

  Researchers at Southampton University in England analyzed a national sample of men and women who’d been surveyed years earlier on sleep patterns as well as measures related to, well, health, wealth, and wisdom. There were 356 morning larks in the group (in bed before 11 p.m., up before 8 a.m.) and 318 night owls (in bed after 11 p.m., up after 8 a.m.). Contrary to Ben Franklin’s decree, night owls had larger incomes and more access to cars than did morning larks; the two chronotypes also scored roughly the same on a cognitive test and showed no self- or doctor-reported health differences. “We found no evidence … that following Franklin’s advice about going to bed and getting up early was associated with any health, socioeconomic, or cognitive advantage,” the authors concluded. “If anything, owls were wealthier than larks, though there was no difference in their health or wisdom.” (Fast Company)

  The results showed that evening types scored higher than morning types on inductive reasoning, which has been shown to be a good estimate of general intelligence and one of the strongest predictors of academic performance. A further piece of good news for the owls is that inductive reasoning is linked to innovative thinking and more prestigious occupations, and tends to lead to higher incomes. Famous night owls include former president Barack Obama, Charles Darwin, Winston Churchill, James Joyce, Marcel Proust, Keith Richards, and Elvis Presley, to name a few. (The Independent)