Night People

May 2022

Copyright © by Judith, 2022

We are all aware of the vigorously forwarded notion that health is best for early morning risers. We are socially pressured to rise with the Sun and retire to bed well before midnight. Historically, this makes sense considering the availability of daylight versus poor human night vision. However, is a dawn-sunset schedule really best for everyone? We all know folks who las does the potently scented night jasmine flower, blossom at night. These “Night People” naturally sleep deepest in the early and late morning hours. Try as they might, they cannot displace their seemingly “abnormal” sleep cycle.  Typical job start and school hours present an endless round of struggling and misery! 

As an astrologer, I am keenly interested in the “circadian rhythms” of our internal clocks. Does our thirty-day season of birth ( i.e. zodiac sign) influence our preferred sleeping hours? Or, is it the actual birth time that matters most? What about our natal Moon sign…does this play a part? Or, night or day birth? Having performed no extensive scientific style research on these questions, I can only report upon my personal decades of empirical observations. 

In my late teens, I briefly worked as an old-style telephone operator, while giving chart readings on the side. The day shift was hectic…the going joke was that manning the emergency telephone lines was as difficult as brain surgery. And gosh, well…it was! Taking a poll, I discovered that almost every daytime emergency operator was an Air sign (Gemini, Libra, Aquarius). As the proverbial communicators of the zodiac, the Air trio is famous for love of conversation (especially Gemini, the sign most dominant in my office). 

Personally, I loathed the maddening day shift. As soon as an opening availed, I switched over to the night shift. Here, my fellow operators read, napped, and floated through the largely uneventful hours in a state of peace that most would find unacceptably boring. My new zodiac sign poll revealed that all these operators were all born in Water signs (Cancer, Scorpio, Pisces). 

This stark contrast I observed between day and night shift personalities corresponded nicely with the traditionally contrasting traits of astrological Air and Water sign births! Maybe we had something here. The day shift Air people were loquacious and fun, as says tradition. They danced around when possible, chatted constantly, and laughed. Conversely, the Water sign night shift folks seemed quiet and sad, preferring books to while away the time (this is in the days before e-devices).

Over the years, I’ve noted other consistencies. For instance, I’ve observed that most (not all) Aries people enjoy early hours, even so much so, as to swim, or run at dawn. Remember, in astrology, no single observation is “always” in because charts have multifarious influences. That being said, we do note tendencies exhibited in certain directions. 

Aries is the first sign. What then, of the last sign, Pisces? Time and time again, one sees the long and late sleeper, born of this sign. Awakening unhurried and blurry, they are taunted by, and often keenly annoying to, the “morning chauvinists” of the house. 

I’ve always thought that the over-50 insomniac was nature’s answer to “who gets to stay up and keep guard” over the happily snoozing tribal group.  Because human beings are a tri-generational species (as also, are elephants), it makes sense that age-related insomnia might be in fact, purposeful!  However, yesterday’s chat with a delightful young woman named Allison Lowrie, opened another theme regarding alternate human circadian rhythms. 

Allison opined that a certain proportion of “night people” would be sprinkled through the population to keep watch at night while others slept. These natural insomniacs could be of any age. This very sound idea and worthy of further investigation.  If her theory is true, then who would be nature’s “night people”?  

Humans are one of the rarer species who are fertile all the year-round, and therefore give birth through all twelve seasons. The Western zodiac is comprised of twelve thirty-day birth seasons, commencing from the Spring Equinox, aka “0˚ Aries”. From what I’ve tentatively observed, sleep rhythm is definitely influenced by, and linked the zodiac sign of birth. As yet, I’ve not studied, nor made correlations between birth time and sleep time preference. It is possible that this too is highly relevant. 

‘Birth Time’ brings up yet more questions:

Do we do best near the hour that mirrors our own birth time? How much does the Ascendant sign determine our circadian rhythm? What seems certain is that although most humans share an overarching, “best for good health” sleep cycle, we do see individual variations. And, although it may very well be best to “rise and shine” with the Sun, your occasional, rare, true “Night Person” is as natural as the Moonshine they prefer.

Join in the conversation. Share your thoughts.