When most people talk about springtime they see it as a time of new growth, new beginnings, more sunlight, and so forth.
For me, it’s nothing like that and my mom can wholeheartedly agree that I’m not a springtime person – I’m better suited for months when there’s less sunlight.
And on top of that, being a night owl living in a morning-person world is really exhausting.
There’s also another cute bird designation for morning/daytime people being called “larks” versus my night owl status.
My mom will also tell you that I’ve been a night owl since I was a child and spent a lot of late nights reading books and staying up past my scheduled bedtime.
It’s been a struggle for me for as long as I can remember and even impacted my time spent at college in San Angelo.
Unfortunately, that’s where I also learned that copious amounts of caffeine aren’t the key or provide any help in my wakefulness either.
I just know I’d function better if “daytime” work started around noon and left me alone until midnight or later.
And sure, I know it sounds ridiculous, but, there’s also some science backing this claim up.
Night owl tendencies are viewed on a spectrum and can be influenced by genetic predisposition, a person’s age, and the environment they live in.
In several countries, especially in Scandinavia, one who stays up late is called a B-person, in contrast to an early riser being called an A-person.
Plus, night owls who work the day shift often have difficulties adapting to standard daytime working hours.
In worse cases, night owl symptoms are components of Delayed sleep phase disorder (DSPD) which is the delaying of a person’s circadian rhythm, or biological clock compared to those of societal norms.
This disorder affects the timing of biological rhythms including sleep, peak period of alertness, core body temperature, and hormonal cycles.
Also, researchers have speculated that the lack of exposure to natural sunrise/sunset cycles relates many of the symptoms of these circadian disorders to modern habits of humans spending extended periods indoors, without sunlight exposure and with artificial light.
However, getting diagnosed or professional help with such a disorder is quite an undertaking and requires plenty of testing that I don’t have the time to sit through.
Being a night owl is also factored into the spectrum of other attention deficit hyperactivity disorders (ADHD), which is just another diagnosis that takes forever for adults.
Besides that, all of this is a moot point in my line of work since the majority of the news in Matagorda County happens during daylight hours.
If we were a bustling urban city, I could sing a different tune and stay up late to my heart’s content covering things happening.
Though I still think my mom would want me awake and on deck once the sun rose again anyway.
We’re built differently, night and day but we also love our jobs and this county.
So, maybe all the daylight suffering I’m enduring counts for something, right?
