Morning shower, evening shower?
Here’s an article comparing the benefits of morning showers versus evening showers, and why you might choose either (or both).
There are considerations of cleanliness, habit, and wakefulness (it wakes you up in the morning and/or it helps you sleep at night—which seems a bit contradictory to me). But I think I can simplify the whole thing for you: morning people shower in the morning, night people at night.
Now, I haven’t subjected that blanket statement to any empirical scrutiny at all. But as a night person who tends to take night showers unless I’m showering after exercise, and who just about never takes a shower in the morning (unless you define “morning” as after midnight), I think I may be onto something.
I discovered the wakeup value of AM showers as an intern in medicine, back in the days when 0-1 hour of sleep in an on-call night was customary. I needed it as much as I needed caffeine.
And 50 years later I still do AM showers. If I defer, I just schlepp around getting little done even with coffee aboard.
But: never go to bed dirty or smelly!
I used to shower in the morning when I was working. It never felt right putting on a suit or “business” casual clothing unless I felt squeaky clean. However, I moved to D.C. after I retired and with the heat there, I found myself taking two showers a day. I finally decided to cut the morning one so now I shower in the evening. Perhaps shower changer is a new categorization?
I’m a morning person- I always have been – and I shower in the morning. It’s a daily ritual that’s as important in getting the day underway as a cup of coffee, and now that I only drink decaf, even more so. I don’t know if it wakes me up exactly, but it makes me feel fresh and ready to face things. And if I didn’t sleep well, the soothing hot water on tired eyes and muscles seems to make up for some of the lost sleep.
So, there’s one data point for you.
I like “shower changer.” That made me laugh.
I always understood the timing of the shower to be determined by the work you do: white collar workers shower in the morning so as to be clean for work, blue collar workers, usually laborers of one sort or another, shower in the afternoon to clean up after work.
Morning shower?
It all depends what you did last night.
Gary D. G. has it mostly right — but if you don’t want your kids to speculate, you start taking a shower every morning. And usually learn to like it.
I’m both a night person (now 1 am) AND a morning person (up at 7am), ’cause I take naps! My wife’s a night person … but often feels the need for a morning shower.
For cleanliness before white collar work.
I learned, as a dentist, you shower in the morning, even if the prior evening were fruitless
I’m definitely a night person, but I’ve found that I must blow dry and style my hair immediately after showering if I am to look presentable at the office. I’m cursed with stick straight hair (have always envied those with natural body and curls!). Therefore, to avoid a lifetime of bad hair days, I am a (reluctant) morning shower person. But I would much rather shower at night.
“morning people shower in the morning, night people at night.”
I’ll go even further – city people shower in the morning; while country folk bath at night.
Simply because no one wants to go to bed dirty. You want to go to bed clean and keep the bed clean.
CV:
Dry curly hair here that never gets dirty or oily. I wash it once a week, but not because I need to. On the other hand, it takes a LONG time to wash, style, and dry it. Over an hour.
My favorite time is two in the afternoon, but that’s mostly because I learned not to compete with the family (5 kids) in the morning and the evening.
It’s also warmer (at least psychologically) during the winter.
Besides, once I’ve showered, I have a good reason to stop working….
Shower in the morning — wash hair, look your best for the day.
Then shower at night after your workout. Cause you’re a sweaty mess.
Like CV, I have longish straight hair which necessitates showering in the morning. I comb it into the best shape–special care needed for bangs so they don’t separate or flip–and go about my day. I prefer to shower in the evening so I go to bed clean, with the grime of the day rinsed away, but if I do that I wake up with sideways hair. Not a good look.
I’m a morning person who likes to take my shower right before bed.
What’s next, Neo? Best Foods or Miracle Whip?
Thank Goodness for my XY (again). My hair is about 1 inch longer than it was with my teenage brushcut 60 yrs ago. My styling is a part, takes 5-10 sec and I’m good until the next AM. And still the same dull brown.
Molly Brown:
Hellman’s. It’s the east coast, not the west.
For a lot of my adult life, I took one in the morning and just before bedtime, though as a child I took them in the morning after about age 12 or so. In retirement, I usuall just take one now after exercising- usually in the late afternoon, though I will sometimes still take one just before going to bed if I feel like I might have a hard time getting to sleep- the residual moisture evaporating in the fan’s wake cools me off and makes me sleepy.
Always morning. Do not want to feel itchy all day.
Hot sweaty day? Evening also.
or whenever I feel I need to.
It depends on what kind of job you have. Blue collar guys get dirty and shower when they get home or at night. Office workers usually shower in the morning. Not speaking for all the metrosexuals. Just us regular guys with no complex grooming rituals.
I shower morning and night.
I can’t bring the days germs into bed.
I have to be clean and fresh going into work.
Sometimes I add a third shower based on yard work or work in attic or whatever.
I sleep like a baby for 9 hours every day (mostly – except for when a liberal really upsets me – jk)
When I was working I would shower every morning before breakfast. I felt like it woke me up.
Now that I’m retired I shower about a 1/2 hour before I go to bed. I feel like it relaxes me and helps me go to sleep.
I still brush and floss after breakfast and before bed.
Depends if I exercise in the morning or not. If I do, then it’s an AM shower; if in the evening then it’s a PM shower. Though I make it a priority to exercise in the AM due to the body being able to burn fat more effectively when one is a couple of hours awake from slumber.
I see little need to shower before I sleep if there was no PM sweat-a-thon. Sounds disgusting but a little dirt is good believe it or not. I only wash my face and brush my teeth before I hit the sack.
On days I don’t exercise I may take a shower – may – just hitting the face, neck, back, chest, armpits, privates and feet with a thorough light scrub. It takes no more than five minutes. TMI? On mornings without showers (this is always is due to an absence of exercise) I just wash my face, moisturize, brush my teeth and fix my hair.
I’ll add a data point for you.
I normally wake up for work between 4:30 and 5:30 am (morning person, but mainly to beat traffic to workin Houston, TX [by the way who said something about D.C being hot?!?]). I also shower in the morning naturally. I think someone said white collar job people do this, and I think he’s right.
Of course there are exceptions, but that’s the norm, and I like it.
Work requires me to be there at 6am. That means waking up at 5:15am. I WILL NOT get up any earlier than I have to at that godforsaken time, so I shower at night. And breakfast and the first cup of coffee wait until I get to the office.