{ Monday, April 20, 2009 }
I found something I'd clipped out of a paper copy of Wired: Three Smart Things about Sleeping Late. I have a collection of these kinds of things, to arm myself for confrontations with readers of Poor Richard's Almanac. It's short, so I'll post the entirety of it here:
- You may need more sleep than you think Research by Henry Ford Hospital Sleep Disorders Center found that people who slept eight hours and then claimed they were "well rested" actually performed better and were more alert if they slept another two hours. That figures. Until the invention of the lightbulb (damn you, Edison!), the average person slumbered 10 hours a night.
- Night owls are more creative. Artists, writers, and coders typically fire on all cylinders by crashing near dawn and awakening at the crack of noon. In one study, "evening people" almost universally slam-dunked a standardized creativity test. Their early-bird brethren struggled for passing scores.
- Rising early is stressful. The stress hormone cortisol peaks in your blood around 7 am. So if you get up then, you may experience tension. Grab some extra Zs! You'll wake up feeling less like Bert, more like Ernie.
LINK | 11:09 AM | TB
One of my favourite things about being forced into leisure has been waking with the sun, and not my alarm clock.
George Oates | April 21, 2009 11:37 AMoh, i so know this in my bones, but work and preschool require getting up at that evil hour of 7am. my kid happily will sleep in til 9am most days if we let her (and we do on weekends) and i'm glad her elemetary school (starting in august) has a civilized 9:30am start time!
leanne | April 21, 2009 9:33 PMSleep is a habit. Even though we are tired, we mostly don't sleep as long as needed because of habit and social pressure. I remember one November I was not working, and felt very run down. After a week or so I was sleeping about 12 hours a day, sometimnes more. I just carried on until I didn't feel like it any more, which ended up being until about March. felt absolutely fantastic. In a civilised world, there would be no shame attached to spending a lot of time sleeping.
Yea! 1 for the night owls. I always knew there was a reason for my night madness. I am tired of swimming against the early bird culture. Thanks for posting the article.
Denise | April 25, 2009 10:19 PMReally good stuff, except for this: "The stress hormone cortisol peaks in your blood around 7 am."
Surely the peak of the cortisol cycle depends when you go to sleep? The person who always goes to bed at 10 PM is going to have a different cycle than the person who always goes to bed at 4 AM.
Maybe cortisol levels aren't associated with the time you go to sleep, it might have more to do with sunlight or circadian rhythm or who knows. It would be wise to check those 'facts' though.
Logan | May 11, 2009 4:46 PMgreat post. i fit perfectly with the night owl crowd. i write music and i always find myself staying up until 3-5 am when i'm writing songs.
tyler | June 3, 2009 2:01 PMHi, found your blog as a result of looking at (and admiring) Hunch.com. This info. is spot on and helps me justify to my partner why "it is a good idea" to stay up later rather than get up earlier...for me anyway ;)
chris lunn | July 15, 2009 3:00 AM{ Post a comment }
Very interesting. I'd read something similar about the introduction of electric lighting and the decrease in sleep. At the turn of the last century, the average person slept close to 9.5 hours. Being a big sleeper, I like to keep this in mind. Especially when I get grief for wanting/needing "so much sleep." Alas, I wake up early though, always been an early bird, never a night owl.
megnut | April 21, 2009 11:07 AM