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NIGHT OWLS
After months of waiting, Night Owls can finally find a comfortable and comforting place. Here, folks
who have trouble sleeping during the dark hours will find a
friend, and maybe more. We'll just have to see how this part of my work
grows.
Back in the late 1980s, I started this project
by publishing a 16-page newsletter entitled Night
Owl's Newsletter. The idea was
to provide a place in which Night people could share information about
our
experiences in a world run by Larks (Day people). As a natural-born Night Owl,
I also wanted to share the
medical information I was gathering regarding the then nascent
field of sleep research. By that time, many scientists were
beginning to acknowledge that no matter how hard they tried to
retrain people like me to function in the daytime, many of us
were likely to slip back into the old pattern of craving sleep in
the mornings, or during some hours of the day, and being
wide-awake during the wee hours.
The conclusion: Being born a Lark (Day person)
or an Owl (Night person) is no different from being born with brown
or blue eyes. Sadly, society isn't yet ready to accept this
fact. Too many "experts" continue to refer to Owlhood as an
"aberration from the norm." My question is: Since the majority
of people on the planet have brown eyes, does that mean blue eyes
are an
"aberration" that must be altered by some type of medical
intervention? The answer is obviously, "NO"! Then why do they
want to do that with Owls?
Obviously, I could go on in this vein for
pages and hours, but I'll just share some of the
tidbits I wrote for my newsletter until the mid-1990s. I hope
they help you Owls out there to realize that you are not
alone!
This page contains articles I wrote for
Night Owl's Newsletter and/or the Arizona City
Independent Edition. I also reviewed several books that
focus on the issue of Night people and Night-time
activity. To read those reviews, go to:
(All articles originally appeared in either
Night Owl's Newsletter
and/or
Arizona
City Independent Edition)
www.trivalleycentral.com
To jump to a particular article, just click on the title
below:
FREE FLIGHT INTO
THE
NIGHT SKY
(Originally featured in
Night Owl's Newsletter, Volume 1,
Number 21;
reprinted in
Arizona City Independent Edition,
June 29, 2005)
I've always been fascinated with the night
sky. A restless child, I spent many evenings outside, gazing at
the stars. As I stood beside the mimosa in our suburban Fort
Worth front yard, I could let my imagination take flight. I
would lose myself in the midnight canopy, wandering among
millions of glittering jewels set around the moon in its various
phases. Up there, I was as resourceful as Annie Oakley, as
powerful as Wonder Woman, as drop-dead gorgeous as Ava Gardner.
In those years, one of the things I wanted to
be when I grew up was an astronomer. For a long time, I read
everything I could find on the stars and planets. Though my
natural tendency toward being a Night Owl even then would have served me
well in that profession, I finally realized I wasn't cut out for
the scientific life.
It wasn't that I couldn't do the work. My
aptitude test results always landed me in advanced science and
math classes. Even without much studying, I rarely earned less
than Bs. I just realized that I didn't want to devote my
energies to a technical world that seemed almost devoid of human
interaction. When I looked up into the night sky, I cared not
where Orion was, for I was too busy being Diana.
During my years of raising children and
working full time, I fell out of the habit of communing with the
stars. Apartments and mobile-home parks afforded me little
privacy, and city lights dimmed heaven's brilliance. But in the
early 1980s we owned a house in La Porte, Texas, with a fenced
back yard and a deliciously dark night sky.
For five years I could walk out my back door
on any evening and travel into a boundless galaxy. I soon found
that lying on a chaise lounge added an exciting and unsettling
new dimension to my stargazing. From that perspective, only the
house eave and fence top were peripherally visible. Otherwise,
all I could see were the moon and stars sprinkled on an arc of
midnight velvet.
At first I feared gravity was about to loosen
its grip on me and I would fall outward into oblivion.
Nevertheless, I continued my stellar meditation, gradually
gaining the confidence to relax and enjoy the experience of
mental free flight. My imagination soared into the expanse. I
was dreaming again. It was no accident that during the years we
lived in that house, I began to write seriously for the first
time in my life.
Later we moved to a mobile-home park where
glaring street lights limited my access to the glories of the
firmament, but my ability to dream endured, along with my desire
to write. Our home in Cumming, Georgia, had a darker sky than
most of our homes in Texas, but frequent mists often obscured my
heavenly view. Now that we live in the Arizona desert, I can
enjoy not only a clearer view of the night sky, but a wider
panorama than I’ve experienced since I lived in Fort Worth in
the 1950s.
Today the cosmos is mine, even when I'm not
outside looking at the stars. Even better, I now understand my
early fascination with astronomy and the night sky.
Since I grew up in a seriously dysfunctional
family in which we were forced to suppress our feelings, my
childhood forays into the great beyond helped me put my lonely
existence into perspective. So when I got a bedspread with
ballerinas dancing across it for my birthday, while my younger
sister got the ballet lessons I so desperately desired but was
always denied, I went outside, looked up into the night sky, and
became the prima ballerina of the Monte Carlo Dance Company,
complete with red shoes.
Gazing into outer space reassured me that the
little world my family ruled with an iron fist was only a minute
part of the vast cosmos. My mental journeys among the moon and
stars gave me the strength I needed to survive an unhappy
childhood and lighted my way into the infinite universe of the
imagination.
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GLOSSARY OF
NIGHT
OWL TERMS
(Originally featured in
Night Owl's Newsletter, Volume 1,
Number 2)
The following is an explanation of some terms
often used in this web site:
ALARM CLOCK--An instrument of torture developed by monks
to punish Owls (after the monks had declared Owlhood to be a
sin, of course).
BED--The scene and subject of numerous battles between
cohabiting Owls and Larks. This unnecessary conflict can be
eliminated with a little education and more reasonable communication.
DAY--That period of time every twenty-four hours when the
sun shines. This is the half that most Owls try to avoid as much
as possible.
EXHAUSTION--An unnatural state that is, for Owls, the natural result
of repression and oppression by Larks and Alarm Clocks.
INSOMNIA--A usually misunderstood condition suffered by
Owls who are unable to fall asleep as early as Larks do. Often
maltreated by doctors with runaway prescription pads.
LARKS--Those disgusting people who sing when they rise
in--gasp!--the early Morning.
LARKHOOD--The state of being a Lark. Obviously an
unnatural freak of nature.
MAKE THE BED--A ridiculous ritual developed by Larks to
keep Owls out of the bed when they are most in need of rest.
MIXED MARRIAGE--A union between an Owl
and a Lark. In such a relationship, the Night person is
generally pressured to adapt to an unnatural sleep-wake schedule
in order to keep peace in the home.
MOON--A lovely, soft light to live one's life by. Very
romantic.
NIGHT--That period of time every twenty-four hours when
the moon shines, which offers far more soothing illumination
than that multimillion-candlepower lamp that someone insists
upon switching on every Morning. This is the time when Owls
really Hoot.
NINE-TO-FIVE--The basic Lark business day, established by
Lark bankers who, because they control the money, have the power
to make decisions that affect Owls adversely.
OWLS--a miserably repressed and oppressed minority in
Lark
society, usually much more intelligent and creative than their
limited energy allows them to appear. People who are usually at their
best if they are allowed to sleep at least until Noon.
OWLHOOD--The state of being an Owl. Obviously several
steps closer to perfection than those imperious Larks.
OWLISM--The systematic repression and oppression of Owls
by Larks. Begins in the cradle with feeding schedules and
perpetuated by every aspect of Lark society.
SLEEPING IN (also SLEEPING TILL NOON)--A seeming
luxury--What the heck! A real necessity!--not often enjoyed by
Owls because of the vicious tyranny of Larks and Alarm Clocks.
SUN--A harsh, unrelenting spotlight that shines through
windows and disturbs the peaceful slumbering of Owls.
We hope our web page help Night people become
a little more comfortable with their Owlhood. And I really hope
that it helps Larks to better understand many of the problems
that Night Owls face as we try to survive in their world.
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IS OWLHOOD A
GENETIC ABERRATION?
(Originally featured in
Night Owl's Newsletter, Volume 1,
Number 4)
Now that scientists have discovered the
genetic source to the state of being an Owl, some of them are
experimenting with reprogramming the "aberrant" gene to make
these laboratory specimens "normal," that is, Day...uh...
Animals. (Imagine turning a rat into a Lark. Dr. Frankenstein,
step aside.)
I suppose the long-term application of this
knowledge will be to turn all us human Owls into Larks. Do
scientists also foresee the day when they will abolish all those
"aberrant" blue eyes and blond heads? Since the majority of
humans on this planet have dark eyes and dark hair, that sounds
like a logical progression of these experiments. If they're
going to reprogram Owls, it's only fair that they target the
fair-haired too. (Pun definitely intended.)
When everyone has brown eyes and brown hair,
then it'll be time to do something about all those different
heights people now rise up to. Of course, one practical result
of everyone being the same length is the abolition of stiff
necks, but is that reason enough to make everyone the same size?
Why should they pick on us Owls in the first
place? I doubt they'd ever really do such a thing to
blue-eyed, blond-headed people. Maybe short people though. At 5' 1/2 ",
I've noted a definite prejudice in that area. But members of the
workaday world do have it in for us Owls. They are planning a
campaign of geneticide when the technology becomes readily
available for that folly.
We must stop that insidious plan before it
gets out of hand. Fill out the form below and return it to me. When we collect enough of these Votes for Owl
Liberation, we'll use them to let the scientific community know
that we Night Owls want them to stay out of our genes!
Stand up and be counted! After that, you have
my permission to crawl back into your beds and get some
much-needed rest.
A VOTE FOR OWL LIBERATION
I, _______________________________, being a
Night Owl of sleepy body and sound mind, abhor the insidious
plan of the scientific community to "cure" me and my brethren,
by genetic reprogramming, of the condition of Owlhood which
"afflicts" me. I strongly disapprove of "geneticide" in both
people and laboratory rats.
I further believe that the time has come for
Larks (Day people) to accept the existence of Night Owls and
acknowledge our right to live and work in our own time, i.e. the
wee hours.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
You can cut-and-paste this form into an e-mail
and sent it to:
debbie@imaginetheworldatpeace.com
Or you can block-and-print the form, sign it,
and snailmail it to:
Debbie Jordan, Chief
Executive Owl
1664 E. Florence Blvd., Suite 4 #145
Casa
Grande, AZ 85222
If nothing else, you'll know that someone else
understands!
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A SHORT HISTORY
OF
OWLISM
(Originally featured in
Night Owl's Newsletter, Volume 1,
Number 5)
As I explained in my "Glossary
of Night Owl Terms," above, Owlism is "the systematic
repression and oppression of Owls by Larks. Begins in the cradle
with feeding schedules and perpetuated by every aspect of
Lark society."
It wasn't always so. In the beginning, Owls
and Larks cohabited peacefully. When hunters and gatherers
dwelled in caves or other simple shelters, daytime hunters
(Larks) depended upon nighttime guards (Owls) to keep the fires
burning and scare away wild animals that ventured too close.
The only clocks humans used then were those of
nature, the sun and moon and their own bodies, the most accurate
timepieces in the universe. They knew it was time to eat when
they were hungry, time to sleep when they were tired, and time
for . . . Well, let's just file the rest under "Mother Nature Calls."
Our primitive ancestors' daily schedules did
depend upon calls of nature outside their bodies. Instead of
popping down to the local supermarket for prime rib, they had to
run out and kill a dinosaur or a mastodon for supper. Ditto for
gathering wild plants for food. It was safer and more efficient
to hunt and gather during daylight hours. Thus, arbitrary time
dictates based on the sun's cycle do have ancient historical
roots, and there were doubtless some Owls that weren't allowed
to enjoy the privilege of being able to "work" during their best
(dark) hours.
The next step toward Lark tyranny came when
humans "progressed" to planting and gathering. Farmers had to do
almost all their work during daylight hours. Since our most
valuable commodity is food, in the days before bureaucracies
controlled food prices, farmers made social policy. This was
when the rumor first began that anyone who wasn't out working in
the field by dawn must be either lazy or the king. It is no
accident that an important hallmark of aristocracy is the
practice of "sleeping in"--also called "sleeping till noon."
The monastic movement deserves much blame for
oppression of Owls. Monks supported themselves by farming when
they weren't praying (it didn't hurt to pray for good weather if
you were into farming). Religion joined agribusiness in applying
social pressure against Owls. With the power of the Church
behind their prejudice, monks declared Owlhood to be a sin. The
punishment for some sins back then was burning at the stake, and
people were often accused of witchcraft for just being odd. How
many Owls were burned at the stake for the sin of sleeping in?
Those who weren't aristocrats or bishops, of course.
The Protestant Reformation did nothing for the
status of Owls. In passing some of their oppressive "blue laws,"
for instance, strict Massachusetts Puritans actually legislated
against Owlhood. People who didn't attend Sunday morning church
services were arrested and sentenced to time in the public
stocks.
Puritan Owls who did manage to drag themselves
out of bed and into church on Sunday morning still weren't safe.
Deacons patrolling the meeting houses were armed with long poles
with feathers on one end. If a woman punctuated her "silent"
prayer with a snore, she earned a "warning" tickle on the nose.
Men often received the other end of the stick on the head.
"Incorrigibles" who couldn't stay awake during services got a
one-way ticket to the stocks. An Owl couldn't even get a decent
morning's sleep there. All the Larks in town would taunt
"evildoers" harnessed in those wooden racks in the middle of the
town square.
Monks contributed another terrible tool to
Owlism: They invented the Alarm Clock. Of course, the complex
systems they designed using sand and water were nothing like the
simple electronic gadgets we have today, but both machines had
the same effect. Ever since the "dark ages," no Owl has been
allowed to "sleep in" in peace. The noise of the first alarm
system of that long ago European monastery might as well have
been a bugle, for it signaled a war against Owls which Larks
have been waging--and winning--for centuries.
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TOSS AND TURN
(With thanks to Mac McGinty,
who made me do it!)
(Originally featured in
Night Owl's Newsletter, Volume 1,
Number 6)
Toss and Turn
Toss and Turn
I wonder if there's anything on TV at this hour
I wonder if they have cable in this kingdom
Toss and Turn
I wonder if they even have TV in this kingdom
Toss and Turn
Just can't get comfortable
Toss and Turn
Cheap mattress
This kingdom must be in a royal recession
Toss and Turn
If this was a waterbed,
I'd call it Boulder Dam
Toss and Turn
If this is the quality of beds in the royal castle,
I'd hate to see what the peasants
get to crash on
Toss and Turn
Everybody must be real poor around here
Better call Mother Theresa quick
Toss and Turn
Maybe she could even pray for me
Toss and Turn
Maybe I'll catch PTL on the tube,
and they can pray for me
Toss and Turn
Toss and Turn
Sheesh, the things a princess will do
to please a royal mother-in-law
(Note: To those who aren't into some of the more
obscure fairy tales,
this poem was my update on "The Princess and the
Pea.")
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TO CLINIC OR
NOT
TO CLINIC?
(With apologies to
W. Shakespeare)
(Originally featured in
Night Owl's Newsletter, Volume 1,
Number 8)
Whether to suffer the slings and arrows of
outrageous Lark expectations, or go to a sleep clinic and take
the "cure." For Owls, that is the eternal question.
If you've been considering a sleep clinic,
we'd like to help. We can't tell you what to do, but we can lead you
to information to help you make up your own mind.
First, let's identify the major categories of
Night Owl:
● "Short Sleepers" sleep only a few hours a
night, going to bed long after midnight and waking early,
refreshed and ready to do a day's work;
● "Late Sleepers" can't get to sleep until
well past midnight and can't wake up to anybody's Alarm Clock,
especially their own; and
● "Early, Early Birds," actually thought of as
Larks, awaken very early in the morning and can't get back to
sleep. We consider them Owls because they're active when some of
us like to hoot, long before 6 a.m., and many face the same
dilemma we do: They don't know whether to accept the condition
or try to "cure" it.
Many short sleepers sneak naps during the day,
which is fine if your schedule allows it. Research shows that,
like eating smaller meals many times a day, sleeping in small
doses several times a day can be a healthy practice.
Speaking of healthy, that's often a clue that
you don't need medical aid for your condition. However, demands
of Lark society often interfere with a Night Bird's ability to hoot
during Owl hours.
Like Owl types, the causes generally fall into
three categories:
● "Genetic Owls" are born that way; their
condition is about as "curable" as blue eyes or brown hair;
● "Age-generated Owls" have reached a time of
life when sleeping all night--or at least, "normal" night
hours--isn't a priority, or even a possibility; the two most
common sleepless ages are teenage and post-middle-age; and
● "Temporary Owls," for some physical or
emotional reason, no longer sleep within what used to be their
natural Lark pattern.
Needless to say, the first two Owls cannot
really be "cured," but we've all had to "control" our tendency
to Owlhood at times. However, you "temporary" Owls, take heart:
Not sleeping "on time" isn't terminal, and you can make up for
"lost" sleep once you've taken care of the underlying problem.
For "temporary" Owls, the inability to sleep
at the "right" time is not a disease, it is a symptom. You
should find out why you can't sleep, instead of trying to cover
over the symptom with pills.
Below, I detail interviews I had in the early
1990s with experts in the study of sleep, including excerpts from
my conversations with a
sleep-clinic physician and a sleep researcher. In the future,
I plan to present information from many disciplines--mainstream and
alternative--in the art of treating sleep "problems."
Besides reporting here on what scientists are
learning about sleep, I've been able to tell the scientists I've
talked to what Owls already
know about it. Meanwhile, I would love to hear from Owls who've lived with
this "problem" for any length of time, from a few months to an
entire lifetime.
From preliminary conversations, I believe some
professionals are listening, but we must keep making noise. We
must get the word out to a whole world of Larks, most of whom
are fast asleep when we're hooting.
If your sleep schedule, whether lifelong or
temporary, is one that you or a loved one thought needed to be
treated, contact us. Tell us about treatments you've received. Were
they effective? Were they really safe? Did they have short-term
or long-term adverse effects? We might post some of your words
on a special "Clinic" page on this web site.
Help us help other Owls. Share your story with
us. E-mail us at:
debbie@imaginetheworldatpeace.com.
Return to Top
Medical News:
EXPERTS AGREE:
OWLHOOD IS "NORMAL"
(Originally featured in
Night Owl's Newsletter, Volume 2,
Number 10)
From 1990 to 1995, I heard from Owls in every U.S.
state and some in Canada and a few other places around the world. Their most common complaint is the
lack of understanding most people show for their Owl natures.
Few people realize there's nothing wrong with us, even though
our bodies can't rest when they're "supposed to."
In fact, a Lark who recently wrote a book
about night workers claims, "When you stay up past midnight, you
defy your body's commands." (A Day In the Night of America
by Kevin Coyne, Random House, 1992.) This web site is dedicated
to dispelling such myths that continue to be spread by
self-proclaimed "experts" on Night people.
Misconceptions about Owls can be summarized by
the labels too often thrown at us. According to many people,
Owls are supposed to be: sick, crazy, lazy, undisciplined,
anti-social, immoral, and self-destructive.
None of these epithets apply to Owls I know.
Most of us are active, mentally and/or physically, during the
hours when most people are asleep.
It's true we have trouble adjusting to
schedules imposed by people who are active during the day,
Larks. But we believe the real problem is a lack of education.
The purpose of this work is to teach Larks and Owls alike
about the nature of Night people in all their diversity.
Recently we asked two Atlanta sleep
professionals if they believe there's something wrong with
people who have an alternative schedule preference. Their
responses assure us that it's okay to be a Night Owl.
Dr. James J. Wellman, Medical Director of
Sleep Disorders Center of Georgia, describes a "bell curve" of
individual sleep needs, putting the majority in the center with
average sleep requirements ranging from 7 hours, 15 minutes to 7
hours, 50 minutes; "short sleepers" and "long sleepers" fall at
both small ends of the curve. He calls the difference between
"normal" and "abnormal" sleep patterns a "definitional problem"
and adds, "Some forms of sleep disorder may not be considered a
disorder in some people." The key, Wellman agrees, is the
person's ability to accommodate the difference in his or her
lifestyle.
This philosophy is echoed by Dr. Charles M.
Epstein, a neurologist who studies sleep disorders at the Sleep
Research Clinic of Emory University. Like Wellman, Epstein
points to a genetic factor as the root cause of Owlhood in many
people. But the proof might be a long time in coming. According
to Epstein, "This [genetic question] is not the kind of thing
that the National Institutes of Health is going to spend a lot
of research money on. But the general feeling when intelligent
people look into it is that the difference between Larks and
Owls is probably genetic."
We discussed medical terms applied to the two
most common conditions. Late sleepers who stay awake until long
after midnight have delayed sleep phase syndrome (DSPS), whereas
people who fall asleep in the evening then wake hours before
sunup experience advanced sleep phase syndrome (ASPS). The key
to whether each condition is a problem for a particular person
is not when the person sleeps but how well
they sleep.
When asked about the traditional practice of
prescribing sleeping pills for patients who have trouble falling
asleep, Wellman likened the situation to the patient
experiencing chest pain: First the doctor must be certain there
is no other treatable condition, such as a heart problem, before
prescribing something to ease the chest pain, which is only a
symptom.
Both doctors confirm that it can be dangerous
to ignore the underlying cause of a sleep problem, but
short-term medication in identifiable short-term
situations, such as stress or grief, can be appropriate. Epstein
explains, "The modern sleeping pills are pretty safe, and they
work pretty well for that [short-term problems]." He warns that
alcohol is "a terrible way to go to sleep."
The reason many doctors are still too quick
with the prescription pad, according to Wellman, is that "the
majority of physicians have not been trained and are not
experienced in trying to deal with what causes the various sleep
problems." In the last decade he has learned about sleep "on the
job" and admits, "We clearly understand we don't know all of the
variables, and we're learning daily about sleep problems and
sleep issues."
Both Wellman and Epstein encouraged us to continue our efforts to disseminate up-to-date sleep
research data to the public. They want to hear more about Owls
who, they admit, have much to teach them about sleep in all its
variations. We have an important job ahead of us.
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ADOLESCENT REPOSE?
(Originally featured in
Night Owl's Newsletter, Volume 2,
Number 11)
Pretend you're a teenager, again--or still?
You've gone to school 8, 9 years. You've managed to get by
pretty well, except for Mr. Johnson's 7th grade math
class--first period, 8:15 a.m. You wished for toothpicks to prop
your eyelids open as you endured Mr. J's soporific monologues on
fractions and decimals. That was when you first noticed someone
was slowly moving all the clocks forward.
It didn't happen all at once. You can barely
tell how much sleepier you are now than you were a few weeks
ago, how much later it is before you fall asleep each night--or
in the early a.m. What you do notice is your grades slipping
into the toilet, especially in morning classes. And your mom
going nuclear because you're sleeping late almost every
Saturday, into the afternoon.
Now, Mom wants you to see a doctor; dad keeps
telling mom you need to see a shrink. Everybody's uptight, but
all you want is a little more sleep.
Relax. Your worst problem, more than likely,
is adolescence. (Every parent knows that's an entire syndrome in
itself!) Not being able to fall asleep "on time" or to wake up
at 6 a.m. and stay awake in Ms. Vanderhoven's English class
isn't an illness. It's certainly not abnormal.
Alternative sleep rhythms--the times at which
you fall asleep and wake up--vary during every person's
lifetime. Dr. James J. Wellman, Medical Director of Sleep
Disorders Center of Georgia in Atlanta, insists it's perfectly
natural. We've also been assured that your head is probably
"screwed on straight" by Dr. Harvey A. Rosenstock, a Houston
psychiatrist. Both professionals agree that many
people--including a high percentage of teenagers--simply cannot
turn off their brains and make themselves fall asleep at a
"decent" hour. Both men are especially sensitive to problems
suffered by their teenage clients.
Wellman explains the "normal" weekly schedule
of a typical tired teen: "They have to get up in the morning to
go to school, sometimes 6 o'clock to catch a school bus. They
don't wake up until 10 o'clock in the morning. They clearly
don't learn as well in their early morning classes. They're
probably sleepier in the afternoon than they should be, and it
gets worse as the week goes on. That's why you often hear of
teenagers literally crashing on the weekends. They'll sleep till
2 and 3 o'clock in the afternoon on Saturday."
He says the weekend "nap blitz" isn't so bad,
it's the adolescent's weekday routine that's most dangerous:
"They're probably a little better on Monday, then as the week
goes on, they're more and more sleepy, fatigued, and tired, and
by Friday sometimes they can't even function because they're so
sleepy."
Rosenstock believes many teenagers' behavioral
problems can be attributed to sleep deprivation. "When I started
taking care of a lot of adolescents, we had kids getting into
all kinds of trouble, and they looked like they were bad kids.
But I worked with them; they weren't bad kids."
Many of the kids Rosenstock counseled had
dropped out of school and fallen into the habit of sleeping late
every morning and getting into trouble at night. Since
traditional hard-line remedies (e.g., curfews and alarm clocks)
don't work, the solution, according to Rosenstock, must be
something that has never been tried before.
In 1980, Harvey Rosenstock and his wife, Judith
D. Rosenstock, Ph.D., an educator, approached officials at
Houston Independent School District (HISD) with a revolutionary
idea for a "midnight magnet" school, a specialized high school
which would offer classes from 11 p.m. to 7 a.m. Though
skeptical, Houston school administrators gave the Rosenstocks
the green light to develop their plan.
The Rosenstocks collected an impressive list
of volunteers: teachers welcomed the opportunity to work nights,
parents hoped midnight classes would get their kids back on the
learning track, and deep-pocketed contributors realized the
economic benefits of the radical plan.
It didn't take much to convince people with
vision of the benefits. The urban dropout rate topped 50% in
1980, so every kid who returned to school was a victory. With
the cost of school vandalism in the city running into thousands
of dollars every year, having people in the buildings at night
would reduce that amount considerably. Capital costs, the price
of building new schools, would automatically drop when school
buildings were used for two--or even three--shifts, instead of
the single traditional day shift.
Support for the concept was so positive and
far-reaching that a publicity campaign was launched. Reports of
the plan appeared in newspapers, and the Rosenstocks discussed
it on a national radio talk show. Harvey Rosenstock explains the
reaction: "All over the country people were excited about this
idea."
Though the man who was then superintendent of
Houston schools liked the idea, he couldn't make the final
decision. He suggested the Rosenstocks present their concept to
one of the boards with that authority. That's when the momentum
of change got caught on the deadly snag of bureaucracy.
Rosenstock remembers, "They said, 'Well, it's
a great idea. We'd like to see somebody else do it first.'" To
the suggestion that blood studies be done to identify kids with
different diurnal hormone rhythms who are, thus, night people,
he said, "We don't have to get that wild. Most parents know
their kids are night people." In spite of all the support for
the program, the board still refused to approve the project.
The Rosenstocks believe a pilot "midnight
magnet" school would be an ideal laboratory in which to study
the benefits of the concept. However, more than a decade after
they introduced their radical plan, no school district in the
country has yet to establish one.
The cost of delay is enormous. Rosenstock explains, "We feel
that magnet school would save two or three hundred kids a year
from dropping out of school, especially minorities. I could
envision magnet schools in different areas of the country, major
population centers each having a "midnight magnet." The grand
total would be thousands of kids every year not biting the dust
and dropping out of school for reasons that they don't
understand, but [because] society doesn't offer them what they
need. What's the value of thousands of kids having an education
versus not having an education? It's millions and millions and
millions [of dollars]."
In addition to these benefits, we recognize another positive byproduct of midnight magnet schools:
High school graduates encouraged to learn when their minds work
best constitute a pool from which industries can choose
employees eager to work nights, the hardest shift to staff.
Currently, too many people on night shift doze during wee hours
on the job, and far too many people who must wake early for day
jobs suffer unnecessary bouts of late-night "insomnia." In a
future article, I hope to explain why this important labor pool is
not being properly identified and what must be done to solve the
problem.
Besides their fear of trying a new idea,
school authorities simply don't understand the depth of a
teenager's sleep problems. Dr. Wellman says, "There's not a lot
written about it. There's not a lot of press about it. But
virtually everybody that has a teenager understands this."
I'm happy to say that more attention has been
focused on this problem of sleepy teens in the years since I did
this interview. This web site is dedicated to educating people
all over the
world about this problem. To school administrators in Houston
and all other U.S. school districts, we offer the example of
Midnight Basketball League (see our
Midnight Basketball Leagues
web page, or go to the organization's web site at:
www.amblp.com),
established six years after Drs. Harvey and Judith Rosenstock
failed to convince Houston school officials that kids do want
and benefit from constructive direction during the wee hours.
We hope that, once they begin to understand the benefits of
a nightly academic program for wakeful teens, school officials around the country
will take immediate steps to establish a pilot midnight magnet
program in their districts.
Imagine how different our world would be if
the Wright brothers had never gone to Kitty Hawk because no one
had yet flown in an engine-powered vehicle. Their vision and
daring have taken us to the moon. Now young Owls need the help of
visionary school administrators and educators willing to let
them "fly" in revolutionary "midnight magnet" schools.
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IDENTIFYING THE
NIGHT
POPULATION
(Originally featured in
Night Owl's Newsletter, Volume 2,
Number 13)
How many people are awake late at night?
This is the question I'm asked most often when
I speak about Owls, and the question which is hardest to answer.
The question does not appear on any census form: Do you sleep
all night? Or: Are you awake during at least part of the hours
between midnight and 6:00 a.m.?
Though statistics represent actual counted
noses, more information comes from polling sample groups, and
interpretations of data are based on probabilities and averages.
On that basis, we can still identify several groups of people
awake at night, and we can estimate that an impressive number of
people do not sleep straight through from midnight to 6:00 a.m.
I define an Owl as one who is awake during all or a substantial
part of these dark hours--or someone who should be and isn't.
If we could count the actual number of people
who are awake during any given night, we still would not know
the exact number of Owls, since so many of us are pushed into a
daytime mold. And because we are, thus, denied our rightful Owl
identity, too often we chart our adult lifestyles against our
natural Night grain. When we do try to accommodate our tendency
to stay awake at night or sleep late into the morning, we face
opposition. Already physically and emotionally drained from having to function in a
"foreign time zone," many Owls haven't the energy to establish
their independence from the world they're familiar with and the
Larks they love.
Therefore, many people now living as Larks are
really Owls. One goal of this work is to help these
genetic Owls identify and understand their true nature and offer
information to help them chart a course into the Night.
NIGHT WORKERS
This is the easiest group of Owls to count.
According to U.S. Department of Labor Statistics, (in the early
1990s) at least 10
million people work full or part time between 4:00 p.m. and 8:00
a.m., and this figure grows every year. These work periods are
called second or "swing" shift and third or "graveyard" shift.
More than 2 million people work the late-night shift. Of those
who work until at least midnight, a high percentage do not go
directly to bed after work and fall asleep immediately--any more
than day-shift workers go to sleep right after they get home
from work. Since people need time to unwind before falling
asleep, we can assume that a high percentage of second-shift
employees remain awake long past midnight.
One problem with this category of "Night"
people is that many are actually Day people forced to labor
during the wee hours. Few employers consider their employees'
circadian rhythms when assigning them to any shift, including
day shift. Therefore, many workers are not always alert on the
job, a situation which can be both dangerous and costly. (For
more on this situation, consult my review of The
Twenty-Four-Hour Society by Martin Moore-Ede, M.D., Ph.D.,
on
the Night Owl Books page.)
PARTY OWLS
This is the most visible class of Night
people, and the reason so many Larks believe the rest of us Owls
"choose" to stay up for social rather than biological reasons.
In fact, "party" Owls represent the most prevalent stereotype of
Night people.
Not all party people are true physical Owls, but for many, their
mental and/or psychological energy levels seem to run on high when
they're in the company of other people. Some enjoy staying up
late, at least on occasion, in social situations. On the other
hand, like a majority of the population, many party people run
out of steam before midnight and do not hesitate to leave the
festivities early in order to get home and into bed "on time."
CREATIVE OWLS
The hardest group to tally is the large number
of people who don't sleep well at night and, rather than
fighting their nature, simply find useful activities to occupy
their time for much of the night. Many work at home during hours
of their own choosing. A large number are involved in such
creative pursuits as music, dancing, painting, sculpting and
writing. These Owls understand that they need to use that energy
when it is available. Others say their minds simply won't turn
off until long past midnight, or they cannot sleep past a
certain early hour, so they've adapted their work or other
activities in order to be productive when they know they'll be
awake.
Since these Owls spend most of these waking
Night hours in isolation, they don't fall into any category that
is polled for statistical purposes, so we must guess how many
there are. You can drive along almost any residential street in
the wee hours and note at least one house with enough lights on
to indicate that someone inside is awake and active at that
hour. You can do the same with apartment houses and high-rises,
anywhere people live. Multiply that house by the number of
residential streets in the country, the apartments by the number
of such buildings in the nation, and you can envision a huge
flock of untagged Night Birds.
Many in this group used to be part of the next
group--until they realized they're not Larks with "insomnia,"
they're actually Night Owls. For many, this understanding gave
them a freedom they never knew as "pseudo" Day people. At least
they no longer beat their heads against the proverbial brick
wall, trying to find a "cure" for a condition that, I believe,
is not always a "disease."
"INSOMNIACS"
Here is another well-tallied group, especially
since the proliferation of sleep clinics began in the 1980s. But
it is also the most elusive class of Owls because, as the name
implies, most still believe they are Larks who cannot sleep at
night. A great many of them, I believe, are actually Owls who
don't realize it--or can't accept it.
Most do manage to achieve a relative sleeping
state during much of the time on most nights, but they don't
sleep as well during dark hours as they would if they allowed
themselves to sleep later into the morning. Often, they fail in
their attempt to fall asleep early, or they awaken many times
during the night. For the "chronic insomniac" these are common
symptoms, not merely occasional problems, and this situation
cannot be attributed to a particular stressful event in their
life, whether good or bad. This inability to obtain restful
sleep night after night is a common problem for at least 20
million Americans, according to the National Sleep Foundation in
Los Angeles.
Another 20 million or more experience
occasional insomnia, often the result of such a stressful event
as a loss or life change, situations known collectively as
"grief." Most of these people are probably not Owls, unless they
are remarkably disciplined and make themselves sleep and wake
when they're "supposed to," despite their natural tendencies.
Some, at least, could be Owls and might actually function better
in the long run if they slept according to an internal clock
they've been trained to ignore.
HOW MANY PEOPLE ARE AWAKE LATE AT NIGHT?
First take 10 million night workers, add 20
million "chronic insomniacs," add a few more million awake on
any given night because of occasional insomnia, throw in a
million or two of "party" Owls for fun, and round it out with
the uncounted millions who work at home at night and those who
just stay up late doing productive things--and who no longer
complain about not being able to sleep at night. With this
mixture, it is no stretch to assume that at least 40 million
people are awake at some time during each night, and this might
be a conservative estimate.
As resources for Night people continue to
proliferate, the number of people awake at night grows every
year. And since I began writing about this subject almost 20
years ago, more Owls are
beginning to realize it's okay to be an Owl. They're no longer
fighting their nature and are beginning to make the lifestyle
changes necessary to live by their own body clocks.
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DOING BUSINESS
ALL
NIGHT LONG
(Originally featured in
Night Owl's Newsletter, Volume 2,
Number 13)
In days of yore you had to make travel
reservations between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m.--Lark time. Now you can
pick up the phone and book space on cruise ships, planes, and
trains 24 hours a day. Even better, Owls actually have an
advantage if they need railroad tickets in a hurry.
As noted in the article "Sleeper Secrets" in
Success InSight (January 1993, page 29), the
official newsletter of the Charles J. Givens Organization, the
world's largest financial education organization: "Every day
from midnight to 3 a.m., Amtrak's computer network purges all
expired reservations. . . . [If you] Call Amtrak at 800-USA-RAIL
[872-7245] . . . in the wee hours of the morning, you may get
lucky."
To find out more about how to "get lucky," we
asked Howard Robertson in Amtrak's Washington, DC, Public
Affairs Office. Robertson told us the "witching hour" is 2:01
a.m. if you call 1-800-USA-RAIL shortly after that time each
morning, you have the best chance of getting tickets you want on
short notice. Of course, there's no guarantee. The train you
hope to take might still be booked to capacity, but it's worth a
try.
These days more and more businesses offer some
kind of around-the-clock service, especially account
information. Corporate busy signals are practically non-existent
at 2 a.m., and we Owls tend to forget the frustration of wasting
time on "hold."
Given the number of people awake at night,
major corporations not offering 24-hour "hot lines" should
consider that, in the U.S. alone, the "after hours" community
numbers in the tens of millions. Even a basic 24-hour electronic
information system without a personal operator on duty can
handle thousands of simple account questions that otherwise
would jam phone lines during "normal" business hours. And the
cost of a small night-time staff is negligible compared to the
business to be gained or secured because so many customers are
more comfortable handling their business at night.
To paraphrase one commercial for a certain
long-distance company: You're apt to lose customers when they
always have trouble getting through. Keeping telephone lines
open 24 hours ensures that thousands of your customers will be
able to contact you when they want to.
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INSOMNIAC OR OWL:
WHICH
ARE YOU?
(Originally featured in
Night Owl's Newsletter, Volume 2,
Number 16)
As I discussed in "Identifying the Night
Population," above, many people think they have chronic
insomnia who are actually Night people. The purpose of my work
with this web site is to help these "pseudo" Larks realize and
understand that they don't have a disease that needs curing,
they have an alternately set body clock.
Of course, what seem like symptoms of
"insomnia" are usually your best clue that your body clock might
not coincide with the "average" Lark program. If you've always
had trouble falling asleep on many nights, usually wake often
during the night, have trouble waking up in the morning, and
find yourself wanting to nap often during the day, you might
want to consider two tests to determine whether you might
actually be an Owl: the temperature-range test, and the
vacation-sleep test.
TEMPERATURE-RANGE TEST
You can perform the temperature-range test any
time you want. Just take your body temperature every three hours
or so and record the results in a notebook. The difference
between your highest and lowest temperatures each day and the
times of these two points will give you a hint as to whether
you're really an Owl or a Lark.
Larks, or Day people, record their lowest
temperature around 3:00 a.m. and the highest about twelve hours
later. In addition, the range between their lowest and highest
temperatures is usually little more than one full degree. So the
"average" person might have a body temperature of 97.9 a few
hours before they awake in the morning and as high as 99 in
mid-afternoon. Incidentally, this temperature of 99 is not a
sign of illness, since doctors have finally come to realize
that, for the majority of healthy people, 98.6 is not "normal"
but an "average" or "median" daily temperature.
If your temperature doesn't peak until 9:00 at
night, then falls to its lowest point about 9:00 a.m., this is a
good sign you should be sleeping through to late morning to get
your best rest. In addition, you might find the difference
between your high and low temperatures to be as much as two
degrees. Scientists have discovered that this can be a perfectly
normal range for a Night person. You're not sick; you're just an
Owl.
VACATION-SLEEP TEST
The vacation-sleep test is more much
complicated and difficult to perform than the temperature-range
test, but you will definitely enjoy it more, if you can manage
to do it. First, you must arrange to find a week or two when you
can leave all of your time responsibilities behind and just
sleep when your body dictates. Rent a cabin in the woods and
take along a lot of books to read, crossword puzzles, anything
that will take your mind off the passage of time. Try not to
have any of those items around that will remind you of the time,
such as clocks, telephones, radios, or TV sets. Not even a cell
phone, as that displays the time just like a digital clock.
For the first few days, you don't want to know
what times you go to sleep and wake up, you just want to do it
when it feels right. Let your internal body clock dictate your
schedule. After about a week, check the schedule you've slipped
into. Better yet, if you have a relative or friend along, they
can record your sleep-wake rhythms and not tell you the details.
After two weeks, you'll probably have a pretty good idea of the
times when your body wants to go to sleep and when it wants to
wake up.
BACK TO REALITY
Of course, the very fact that you've been away
from the stress of your day-to-day routine is part of the reason
for the improvement in the way you'll feel after your Owl
vacation. But if you could apply this new sleep-wake schedule to
your real-world program, at least for a while, you'd probably
discover a significant improvement in the overall quality of
your sleep and a rise in your productivity during waking hours.
Chances are you won't be able to make an
instantaneous switch in your daily schedule when you return to
the real world. But you can begin to make plans for implementing
that change sometime in the future. At least the vacation
experience, and data collected therefrom, will provide you with
ammunition when your loved ones, friends, and co-workers begin
to question your reasons for taking the necessary steps toward
your new Owl schedule.
In a future article, we'll discuss some you can take to move your schedule around so you can
sleep when your body most craves its rest.
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ADVENTURES IN
"GOOD
MORNING AMERICA"
(Originally featured in
Night Owl's Newsletter, Volume 2,
Number 16)
On August 29, 1994, I had the good fortune to
appear on "Good Morning America" to discuss Night Owls with
early-morning TV viewers. The folks at ABC found me through an
article in The Washington Post. I've done media
appearances before, but this was the first out-of-town gig,
including an expense-paid trip to the Big Apple, NYC.
Training for future trips, I learned a lot.
For instance:
● You might not need a green card to drive a
cab in New York, but it certainly helps.
● Trees in Central Park look a little bare.
Some kind soul in Georgia should take pity on deprived New
Yorkers and ship them a couple of sprigs of kudzu. In a week and
a half, a lush crop of predatory vines will enshroud every tree
in NYC--in a month, all those buildings will be covered in leafy
green--and people in the Big Apple will finally know what "back
to nature" is all about.
● I must keep my eyes open when I talk. I
close them to cut out distractions and go into my brain to find
information, but I shouldn't do it on camera. If you see me
close my eyes when I'm talking, say: "Open your eyes, stupid!"
● TV networks spend an embarrassing amount of
money to fill five minutes of air time. They flew me in from
Atlanta and put me up overnight in a luxury suite. They flew in
sleep researcher Dr. Charles Czeisler and his wife from Boston
to enjoy another luxury suite before we met and chatted for a
few minutes in front of millions of people, then we went our
separate ways in separate studio-provided town cars. No expense
was spared.
I did discover one benefit to being a Night
Owl: Night people don't waste dark hours in a luxurious
Manhattan hotel suite sleeping. We can munch imported chocolates
and dried California fruit, guzzle imported bottled water, and
watch late-night TV.
If you saw me on TV, you should know that
wasn't the real me. The woman on your screen was the product of
a personal shopper, a personal makeup artist, and a personal
hairdresser. Only the woman underneath who closes her eyes when
she talks was me.
Five and a half minutes is all the time I
spent on camera with Dr. Charles Czeisler, Director of Sleep
Disorders Center at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, and
our interviewer, Willow Bay, who was sitting in for Joan Lunden.
Everyone was extremely gracious. Willow made us feel comfortable
the moment we sat down by telling us to call her Willow. Dr.
Czeisler did the same thing when he ran up to the makeup room to
introduce himself to me as Chuck.
We found a couple of Owls among the
early-morning crew. One fellow had been having sleep problems
lately and asked for our advice. Dr. Czeisler and I told him to
avoid sleeping pills and look to life's upsets to see what might
be causing the problem. It's nice being part of the medical
team.
In conclusion, I must say I had a ball, and
I'm waiting for the next call from--who knows?!
Return to Top
Love and peace to all,
Debbie Jordan
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