I'm married to a night owl: Cliff is naturally at his wittiest, smartest self about the time my mind melts into mush each evening. And even though I'm not really an early bird, I am usually more alert earlier in the day than he is.
This causes some predictable problems in marriage: I won't elaborate, but I suspect you get the picture. And if you do, it's probably because it's a problem you face as well: surveys find men are more likely to self-report as night owls, while more women claim to be early birds.
Now I know why. Researchers have found that when people are left for weeks in a windowless sleep lab, men and women revert to cycles that are, on average, six minutes different. In other words, a woman's average inner clock cycle is actually six minutes shorter than a man's. (I knew there wasn't enough time in my day!)
Six minutes doesn't seem like much: I can lose that much time just trying to find my son's shoes. But, over the course of years, this can shift a woman's natural sleep cycle to be significantly earlier than her husband's.
You can read or listen to the NPR report about this here.
Use It Now: The consequence of different inner clocks can mean less time for each other. Rather than working against your own sleep nature, talk with your spouse about how to make best use of the time you do have together. Reserve time earlier in the evening for taking care of the important things: conversations that need to be had, relaxing that should be done together, sex. Push individual projects into the hours you have alone (after she goes to bed, or before he wakes up).
He is awake spontaneously at 4 am, which is to say he's ready for bed about 8. I am not fully awake-and-engaged-and-productive until after 3 pm--left to my own devices, without children to raise, I'd be coming to bed about two hours before he gets up. We have nonetheless been married for, hmmm, 38 years. Weekend afternoons are obviously vital: that's the only time in the week when we are both fully fledged human beings. Otherwise, I coped by (a) realizing that I simply had to get up earlier than my body wants because I did want to get the children to school on time and (b) taking notes when he told me anything of significance in the morning, which is his communicative point in the day. Other than that, I think we have both come to prize our solo time. It's good for the relationship to have real alone time..
ReplyDeleteWhat? leadership policy study group? Sorry Amber, I'll try to fix that next time around. This is Cate. Also--you might have the settings set so you can see comments before they are posted. It's protection against vulgar flame-outs from total strangers.
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