It is that time of year again. The time when we only have daylight for about six and a half hours. Daylight is still receding and our days will get shorter and shorter until December 21st when we’ll have four hours and six minutes of daylight. After that the day will slowly get longer again, first by a few seconds, then by minutes per day.

Thankfully, I only have to wake up around 8 o’clock once a week. And I feel really sorry for myself on that chilly, dark morning. It reminds me of how I hated getting up at half past six every school morning during my childhood.

Because I lived in the countryside, I had to ride a bus to school. Classes started at 8 or 8:30, which meant that the bus picked me up at least an hour before.

Yes, I woke up two hours before school started to get ready and have breakfast and then spent up to an hour on a bus, driving the same route from farm to farm, five mornings a week, nine months a year, for ten years.

And on a really cold morning, with gale winds and blinding snow drift, the last thing you wanted to do at 6:30 am was to get out of your warm bed, dress up in moon boots and a parka to walk through the snow to meet the bus up on the road. Especially when you were only ten or 12. It was even harder for a grumpy teenager.

I think I’ve had enough of early mornings for a lifetime. The thought of working somewhere five days a week from 9-5, or worse, 8-4, makes me shrug. I tried it for a while and discovered that I’m neither an A type nor a B type, I’m a C, even a D type.

I tried to sell my boss the idea of working only from 10 or 11 am to 2 or 3 pm from November through February.

Then, in late April, May, June and July, I could get in at 5 or 6 am to make up for it because at that time of year, I don’t need nearly as much sleep and am usually wide awake that early in the morning anyways.

At least it’s far, far easier to get up so early when it’s broad daylight outside than when it’s pitch dark and you know that by the time you get out of work it will be dark again. My boss thought I was nuts, ordinary people work from 9-5, that’s the law. Or something.

Who decided that? Obviously it wasn’t someone who lives in a country where the inhabitants are deeply affected by the seasonal changes.

In the days of yore, Icelanders knew exactly how to deal with the dark. They only did what was absolutely necessary during the short, dark winter days, like feed the livestock, milk the cows etc. They filled the pantry before winter came and then spent the long winter nights spinning wool, knitting, sewing, telling stories and reading.

They just slept more, stayed indoors more and waited until the days grew longer. Then they were off working before dawn and stayed outdoors working until way past midnight.

And that’s exactly the right way to deal with it, to take nature into account and adapt to it, rather than try and live by a clock and a lifestyle created somewhere closer to the equator.

I’m certain that students and employees would be more efficient and work just as much, if not more, if we would allow them to attend school and work according to their biological clock and seasonal affects.

Needless to say people work better and harder if they’re awake. So, A types could work in the mornings, B types in the afternoon and the rest of us at nights or at some other times we feel wide awake and ready to get some work done.

We’re not machines, why do we try to make ourselves work like robots?

Well, I hope you had a nice lie-in this morning, enjoy your Sunday!

Ingibjörg Rósa Björnsdóttir – ingibjorgrosa@gmail.com