I’m hacking my circadian rhythm to increase productivity and reduce stress

Cat DiStasio
Aug 25, 2017 · 6 min read
Photo by Amith Nair on Unsplash

Tired as it might be, I believe in the concept of working smarter, rather than harder. The problem is that I’m tired, too, and there’s no relief in sight.

I’m balancing a busy freelance career, a side business making natural body products, founding a new company with a business partner, and raising a very smart and very fast little boy. Before I became a parent, it was easy to work late into the night and sleep well into the next morning, and I’ll be the first to admit I took that freedom for granted. For the past four years, I haven’t slept much (or well) and various parts of life have been pretty stressful, too. I developed some health issues as a result, not the least of which is my own self-diagnosis: sick and tired of being sick and tired. I’ve done a lot of work to improve my health since it was at its worst, and it’s just recently that I’ve been able to focus a little more of my energy on that age-old question: How does one even figure out how to work smarter?

I’m certain the man who coined that adage had no idea what would become of work, given that the phrase is nearly nine decades old. Surely, much of the personal advice he’d give would simply no longer apply. But the concept of simplifying work should be stronger than ever, regardless of your motivations for working. We must constantly reinvent what it means to work as work itself evolves over time. Thanks, technology.

Another Daywalking Night Owl

I’m a night owl. No two ways about it. So, I can either attempt to force myself to be a daywalker, rising with the sun and slurping bottomless cups of coffee in a vain attempt to encourage my synapses to fire properly… or I can take a deep breath and look for a creative solution to this creative’s problem. I’m self-employed, after all, so I have a lot of control over my schedule.

After spending the better part of a year trying to cram all my work into painful daytime hours and enduring many a restless night’s sleep, I had one of those cartoonish light bulb moments and perhaps a little animated smoke came out of my ears, too. Why was I fighting so hard to work against the one thing about me that has not changed in decades? I realized I needed to accept my nocturnal nature, and find a way to make the most of it. And so it began.

After my epiphany, I had no doubt I needed to shift some of my work to the late evening hours. That’s when I’m at my most creative, when words and solutions flow from my brain most easily, and when I feel the least amount of physical stress. Perhaps it’s the cool night air sneaking in through the just-barely-opened window or the orchestra of crickets echoing between the houses, but whatever is different about working during these hours, as compared to mid-morning, makes all the difference in the world.

This is my time. This is when I shine. This is when I’m sailing. Everyone has a window of time like this, and our DNA determines whether we’re more likely to be singing with the birds over breakfast or thriving in the pitch black night. I believe in science, so I’m comfortable interpreting this as evidence that my priorities were in need of a big shift.

Hacking the Clock

I’ve embarked on an experiment of the decidedly non-scientific variety in order to maximize those prime productivity hours and, maybe, build habits that will lead to less stress, better sleep, and just plain feeling happier. The initial results are pretty promising.

First things first, my approach isn’t like other sleep hacking regimens you may have seen. I do not have any carefully plotted graphs breaking the day up into segments. I don’t have a complex sleep-wake pattern laid out. I am neither committed to nor avoiding biphasic or polyphasic sleep. And I won’t be using any artificial light therapy (no matter how awesome these glasses would look on me).

That’s a list of things I’m not doing. What I am doing is looking for the best time of the day for each given activity I need to engage in — from sleep to work and everything in between — and then comparing that against my commitments and availability to plot my schedule. For the first week of this experiment, that has meant that each day looks a little bit different in terms of what is happening when, but I’m not super attached to routine, so that doesn’t create any anxiety for me. I fully realize others are not so lucky.

Every person’s sleep and work needs, styles, and preferences are so different that I’m not going to share my complete logs here. I don’t want you to get lost in the minutiae. Instead, I hope you can consider the concepts and then ask yourself the right questions in order to determine what might work for you and your specific situation.

Early (Bird) Results

One week into my productivity hacking experiment, I’m pretty happy. Here’s what I’ve noticed:

1. My stress level has dropped.

Doing just 1–2 hours of work during my optimal work hours has lifted a huge weight from my shoulders. Working when my brain is already ‘on’ means that my work is easier, smoother, and faster. This also allows me to use part of this productive time to review my agenda for tomorrow, and I think most people feel less stress when they are feeling prepared for the day to come.

2. I am sleeping better.

When you’re a night owl, the most difficult thing you will ever do is go to bed early. Four years of parenting have really obliterated my old sleep patterns, so oftentimes I have trouble falling asleep no matter how tired I feel or what time it is and I wake frequently during the night, which are both really bad things when you have to talk to a toddler before you’ve had any coffee. On evenings I work until midnight or later, it takes me less time to fall asleep and I wake up less frequently during the night.

3. Mornings, even the early ones, are easier somehow.

This one surprised me, until I had a cup of coffee and thought it through. Back when I was trying to force myself to do all my work during daytime hours, I spent an equal amount of time in the evening trying to force myself to go to sleep. That translated into some bad habits (uhm, hello, binge-watching Breaking Bad for the fourth time will not lull you to sleep!) and I just didn’t realize how simple the fix was. By accepting my night owl nature, I immediately reclaimed the lost time that I used to spend trying to go to sleep at whatever a decent hour is and trying to wake up when morning broke again.

4. More time is incredibly valuable.

I estimate I have reclaimed nearly two hours per day. Although I’m spending much less time in bed, I’m sleeping more than I was on my daywalker schedule. Additionally, some work that takes me a long time to do during the day (mostly due to lack of focus on my part) goes faster at night, so I am getting that time back. With my ‘extra’ time, I’m working on a strategy for a new line of business and setting up a gym/yoga space in my home. I was also able to attend a few community events that I would normally be “too busy with work” to make it to.

The more I think about how I might organize my time, the more opportunities I see to tweak and shift even some of the smallest tasks in my life. I’ll continue homing in on the intricacies of what works for me over the next few weeks, and with any luck, I’ll revisit this topic to share more about the lessons I’ve learned.

Have you ever tried hacking your sleep patterns to make better use of your prime times of the day (or night)? Any suggestions for me?

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Cat DiStasio

Written by

writer // mama // kitchen wizard // adventurer

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