Saturday 3 March 2001

Pic of the day: Perhaps counter-intuitive, but my morning person is the more cheerful one.

Mornings vs evenings

Very few people would consider me a morning person. I absolutely hate getting up before 7:30 and will often get physically sick if I have to get up too early. When out of bed, I like to have plenty of time, so I'm pretty late at work usually. On the other side of the day, I am almost never in bed at midnight, more likely an hour or even two later. So one would be excused to think I'm a typical "night owl".

But there is more to it. I have noticed how my personality usually changes over the day, weekday or weekend, workday or holiday. In the morning, I am more abstract, impersonal. This is when I get the ideas for political essays, science and generally the gray entries. I still have a long list of keywords in my pocket computer, which I've jotted down on the bus or during lunch break. The more humorous entries shape themselves in my head around lunch time.

But toward evening, things change. No. I change. I become a somewhat different person. As the evening wears on, I become more serious, more personal, more emotional, more humble. Around midnight, I may feel small and weak and afraid. Where in the morning I sat in judgement of humanity, by night I cower in fear of God's righteous wrath over my wasted life.

One of my more faithful readers has been trying to find a pattern in the colors of my entries. I color code them according to content, and she'd like to find a recurring pattern. But there is a pattern which is obvious to me, but not to you. The gray and yellow entries tend to be written or at least thought out while the day is still bright. The green entries are more likely to come from the evenings. The black and violet entries in particular are written late, but also many of the green. (I guess I tend to over-use green, and some more entries should have been black or violet.)

***

I'm so used to this day rhythm, I haven't really thought about it. Well, I have noticed, but not in detail, until now. It is kind of humbling, you know. (Which means that I write this at 23:00 in the evening, yes. No kidding.) I've long considered myself lucky that I'm male, and not subject to the monthly personality changes that so many women suffer from. (And they don't usually suffer quite alone, either.) This becomes somewhat ironic - highly ironic, actually - when I consider that I do incorporate two or three different aspects that tend to dominate at different times of the day.

Now this is not an absolute rule, mind you. If I'm sick, I feel pretty bad even in direct sunlight. And in good company I can be quite humorous even a bit into the night; I am also known to sit up way past decent bedtime and discuss philosophy with my best friend. But it does tend to be a bit soul-searching, too.

***

I am not quite sure what causes these changes in my mind over the day. I'm pretty sure it's brain chemistry: I doubt such a profound and regular change would be written in the software alone. Besides, there is no clear reason why it should be. But brain chemistry is known to change over the day. In particular, sleep does some pretty heavy modifications to the brain, flushing some neurotransmitters and flooding with others. Also hormones are secreted differently during sleep.

I am not sure what would happen if I took up more sleeping in the afternoon. Currently, I tend to nap on the bus home, for ca 10-30 minutes. There is no deep sleep and no REM sleep, and I understand that it is those (and especially the deep delta sleep) that most affect the chemistry.

In the past, I used to go to bed earlier, like 10-11 in the night. But then I was noticeably more at risk for nightly panic attack. I would wake up after 90 minutes or more and feel icy cold from inside, then my guts would begin to churn, and finally the fear would seize me. When I go to bed after midnight, these attacks are very rare. It wasn't all that common then either, but each case was so terrible that I'm willing to go out of my way to avoid them.

***

I haven't noticed if other people change like this too. I don't live with anyone and haven't done for a very long time. And when I am with friends, I only stay for a few days. For that short a time, we will act differently than we do alone.

I won't go so far as to say that I am two different persons, morning and evening. But I am often tempted in the morning to break the promises or resolutions I have made in the evening. It happens that I do, too, especially if the resolution seems pointless and constraining. Needless to say, I regret it later. But I don't think it is so bad that you can't make a deal with me or trust me with secrets. It's not so much different persons in the same body, but different sides of the same person. I recognize and understand the other sides of me even when I don't express them.

So, how about you?