05/26/2023
Equestrian Outrage: The Nightowl
The evening equestrian is the enemy. That's what Iโve learned in my 20+ years as a rider, anyway. โSheโs lazyโ, โI donโt ever see her rideโ, โShe doesnโt even get here until after 10:00โ. Those words used to wound but now they enrage me.
โEarly to bed, early to riseโฆโ, โThe early bird gets the wormโ, being a morning lark is lauded, aspired to, and seen as one of the greatest virtues you can possess in general- but especially in the horse world. So, Like most evening types, I tried all the tricks. I set my coffee to brew at 6:30, I woke up at 5am, I turned all the lights off at 8pm, I read self-help books to get motivated, anything I was told could work I did. And they all backfired. I found myself addicted to caffeine and checking my phone periodically as I lay in the dark until 2am. I mentally and physically exhausted myself, and felt like a failure at the most basic thing a horse person can be: a morning person.
I wasn't alone. Many recent studies show that being a night owl is correlated strongly with a lack of social support. People with a normal circadian rhythm can't fathom a later wake time and see it as a flaw. In their world they only wake up late when theyโre being lazy- so that must be what it means about you. So, the night owl gets punished. Schools mark your grades down for coming in late or falling asleep in class. Work doesn't understand or care that you would be so much more effective if you could just start and finish a little later. The lack of social support in turn leads evening types to have higher rates of depression, low self esteem, anxiety, and insomnia. The problem is that we canโt change.
In my late 20s I tried to be kind to myself and experimented with working on my own schedule: getting to the barn between 10am-noon and staying until 10:00pm or later. This actually worked! I could work a whole day with energy and enthusiasm. I got everything done working under the cover of darkness until I naturally felt tired. There was only one problem: people around me hated it.
I was renting a barn at this particular time and it was nearly instantly that I received punishment for my newly found efficiency. โYou canโt ride after 9pmโ. A new barn rule was added to the lease. The explanation was โits just not safeโ. I tried to explain that with the arena light it was just as safe for me to ride at midnight in the summer as it was for anyone to ride at 5pm after Daylight Savings Time ended in the fall. No one is ever at the barn except for me, so what difference does it make if my spectators continue to number 0? This fell on deaf ears and I went back to the fatigue and burnout that early mornings and late nights always brought me.
There are 10,000 genes that have been found that impact a person's sleep-wake cycle and about 450 are included in typical genetic test kits. I didn't know that until I was gifted a gene kit for Christmas the year I turned 28. After reading my ethnological background I went over to the health section and there it was. I was genetically a night owl in the .05% range. This means that my body is programmed to go to sleep later than 99.95% of people and to wake up 8 hours after that. I sat on my bed, staring at my laptop, and for the first time realized this wasn't my fault after all. I saw in black and white that I wasnโt a shameful failure at something that should be so easy to do, and I cried.
Researchers at The Rockefeller University discovered a mutation on the CRY1 gene that delays the circadian rhythm. This is called Delayed Sleep Phase Disorder. 1 in 75 people have this individual mutation, but its estimated that 5-15% of the population are genetically predisposed to be night owls and the CDC estimates that 50-70 million American adults have some form of sleep or wakefulness disorder.
So, what does this feel like? Melatonin is the hormone produced by your brain in relation to darkness. It makes you feel tired and helps you go to sleep. Melatonin production is also the most studied cause of DSPD. Typically melatonin levels begin to rise in the body around 9 or 10pm. In night owls they begin to rise aroung 2 to 3am. These people have a natural bedtime of 2:00am or later and a wakeup time of 8:00am or later. Night Owls literally canโt go to bed at 10pm every night. We arenโt tired. 10pm to us is like 5:00 pm to you.
Being forced to wake up earlier than your body needs to results in insomnia during the night and fatigue during the day. For the morning larks out there, you have a little experience with this that might help you understand what we night owls are feeling: The lag that most people feel during the first day of daylight savings time is what night owls feel every single day- except spring forward 5 hours instead of one.
But what about the horses? You donโt see your horses until what time in the morning? They can't sleep if you're there all night! Arenโt they hungry? First thing, no. I believe in 24/7 forage so everyone has a round bale or they never go without free choice hay. As for their safety, my horses donโt go nearly as long without supervision as horses in most standard programs. Let's say I leave the barn at my midnight night check and get back there at 10am to check in on everyone. That is a 10 hour gap. Most of the barns Iโve worked at feed at around 7am and again around 5 pm. Those horses go unsupervised for 14 hours. And finally, sleep is probably the smallest concern with a later progam. Research shows that the majority of a horse's sleep happens after midnight, and during those darkest hours is when the horse will have its recumbent 30-60 minute REM sleep. Just because Iโm a night owl doesnโt mean that my horses are forced to stay up late, too.
Iโve long stopped caring what people thought about my night time riding habits. When I bought my own farm the first necessity I put in- even before running water- was the biggest, brightest spotlight I could find. I do what I do best when I can do it best. This has improved my riding, improved my horseโs training, and greatly improved my own mental health. The horrible things I used to believe about myself- that I was lazy, that I didnโt ride enough, that my horses werenโt being well taken care of, that I wasnโt โprofessionalโ, and the guilt I used to feel for never being able to fit into the mold have now given way to acceptance and appreciation of the way my mind works and the benefits that it has. I am firm enough in my convictions about this, backed up by facts and research, that when I hear peoples snide comments, or simple misunderstandings about my program Iโm able to explain to the teachable and ignore the ignorant.
My lasting concern, though, is for the other equestrian night owls. The damage that the horse industry does to anyone they donโt understand, anyone who doesnโt follow tradition, can be devastating. I worry for the teenage girls like me who didnโt progress as quickly in their riding because they were always exhausted. I think about the night owls who believe they have a huge character flaw, that they โjust donโt want it enoughโ, or that they are undedicated. Please share this, and help me reach those people. Google these things for yourself and try to empathize with the night owls in your life.
Additionally for my people who have made it this far:
Pretend you just moved to a new town. Youโve settled in and are starting to meet people around you. You go over to a new neighbor's house and you are flabbergasted. They donโt own any chairs. Not in the living room, not in the kitchen, not in the dining room! Instead, as if nothing is wrong, they invite you to sit with them on a table. You think this is odd and ask for a chair. The neighbor says โwhat are you talking about? What is a chair? We have tables to sit on!โ You canโt understand how they donโt know about chairs! Youโve had chairs your whole life and theyโre definitely the best tool for sitting. Your neighbor canโt understand why you are making a fuss and wonโt just sit on a table like everyone else.
This is a little bit like what its like to have a brain that works differently. Some people sit on tables, some people sit on chairs, and neither can really understand why the other sits on what they sit on, but neither is wrong.
This is an admittedly silly analogy but donโt be the neighbor that goes gossiping to everyone else about how โSusie likes to sit on something called a โchairโ isnโt that weird? I wonder what her problem is. I bet she will never get a job around here if she isnโt willing to sit on a table all day.โ Be the neighbor that says โOh, you sit on something different? Well, at the end of the day we are all sitting down so I guess it doesnโt really matter how you do itโ.
