Logically speaking regardless what hours are picked as the “popular” hours, they will feel like shit due to association.
Because almost everything operates on a 9-5 schedule, it makes a 9-5 schedule feel gross because you associate it with working hours.
It’s a feedback loop.
The main things I’ve found that make it 2ay worse though:
Caffeine. By a huge margin, becoming dependant on caffeine fucks up your schedule and makes you feel like you are perpetually in a funk. In the morning you are exhausted, during the day all you want us a nap, and at night it is hard to sleep. Repeat.
Not having a proper breakfast. It’s a meme but it’s fucking true. It’s easy to skip or half ass breakfast, but it leaves you feeling like shit all day long.
Phones in bed. It’s incredibly hard to resist. If I leave my phone on my office desk and go to bed unplugged, I sleep so much more. It’s just way too tempting to sit up and plug into those endless dopamine hits and not fall asleep til 1 in the morning.
Hydrating before bed. Waking up feeling like my mouth is full of sand and my body dried our isn’t Nirmal or healthy. When I started bringing a water bottle to bed to sip on, my sleep improved a tonne.
Early morning pass break. It’s super tempting to ignore your bladder abd stay in the warm cozy confines of your bed, I get it. But I found if I listened to my body and forced myself out of bed to go take that super early morning / late night piss, wgen I crawled back into bed I would sleep way harder and wake up feeling much less achey.
Most jobs don’t need these strict schedules, though. I get it in hospitals, factories, etc., but everyone else could easily switch to looser time slots.
For example, I’m technically on what’s called Gleitzeit (sliding time?), that means, there’s a core 6h window from 9 to 3, where I’m supposed to work, but where I put the other 2h is up to me. In terms of commuting, that model would help smoothing the traffic curve.
Breakfast is overrated I haven’t eaten breakfast for years and I never felt like shit because I skipped breakfast. Just eat healthy and get enough calories, doesn’t matter when you do it. It’s not like you have burned all your dinner calories when you wake up.
Breakfast is only necessary if you are young and growing or do heavy manual labor. But even for labor you can carb load during dinner the day before.
I think all about what one is used to. I used to eat large breafast and would feel horrible by lunch if I skipped it. But after skipping the breakfast most days for a couple months I’m barely hungry before lunch and haven’t noticed any difference in energy levels.