For those of us who stay up really late...

[ChristianKitsune]

This article was really interesting, but depressing at the same time:
http://health.yahoo.com/news/healthday/sleepanecessitynotaluxury.html

I LOVE to stay up late and work on artwork, (when I am working on artwork that is... ^^; ) after midnight is when I get more creative...

But this study is a bit depressing...but I am not sure I want to change my night-owl ways any time soon...

What do you guys think?

[beau99]

It doesn't matter when you sleep, just as long as you get on average 8 hours a day.

Many people sleep during the day and stay up at night and do fine.

[ChristianKitsune]

But doesn't that supposedly "Throw your body's system out of whack?" XD

I personally, agree with you, but this is what I've been preached to my entire life...

this study could answer some of my physical problems though as well as the problems of many people around the world.

[Tsukuyomi]

I am so guilty of that whole eating thing at night >_>.. XDD;

[Syreth]

I used to work rotating, 12-hour shifts. It would swap back and forth between working 7am-7pm to working 7pm-7am with a few days off in between each rotation. Now that was hard on my system.

But now, I just work a straight 8-hr shift at night, and I do just fine. Just as long as I get about 8 hours of sleep and go to bed and wake up at consistent times, I do pretty good. I also tend to feel more creative at night.

[Warrior4Christ]

I thought humans had an in-built daytime detection system... meaning that without any actual sunlight, birds tweeting, etc., we can still determine which part of the day it is... which would mean it's less likely that quality sleep is independent of the time it occurs.

Did you know sleep is an effective weight loss mechanism?

[LadyRushia]

Like a few others have mentioned, all that matters is that you get at least eight hours of sleep. These days, I can stay up until 4AM and sleep until one or two in the afternoon. What's bad is staying up late and waking up early.

Also, yes, sleep helps you lose weight. It's an eight hour period where you don't eat and your body is using up energy to restore itself.

[eternalprincess]

Sorry, old habits die hard. I'm not about to give up my precious quiet time from 11pm to 2am.

[sharien chan]

My fiance works almost 12 hour days, and gets basically 5 and half hours a night of sleep...every few days he takes a 3 hour nap, and he is basically doing okay. Granted that is only because God is sustaining him, and God is teaching him through this job and that's the only reason he can do it at all. But still! XD

[TallHobbit86]

That article has convinced me to go to bed. XD

[Angel Tifa]

I don't think the article mentioned this, but what about those of us who stay up late, but then just sleep in during the day? I usually don't go to be any earlier than midnight and I still get my healthy hours of sleep. Of course that's the catch is that I sleep till noonish when I go to bed at 3am. That's why I'm so not a morning person XD.

[Mr. SmartyPants]

But doesn't that supposedly "Throw your body's system out of whack?" XD

Only temporarily. Once you adjust to your "new" circadian rhythm, you'll be just like any other normal Joe that's going to bed at normal times.

[KhakiBlueSocks]

Agreed. My system can switch between sleeping at night and sleeping during the day after about a day or two. Here's an example of my work schedule since I started here in 2006.

December 2006 - February 2007 (Training) - 2:00PM - 11:00PM
February 2007 - July 2007 (Production) - 5:00PM - 2:00AM
July 2007 - January 2008 (Overnight) - 10:30PM - 7:30AM
January 2008 - May 2008 (Manager Relief) - 2:00PM - 11:00PM
May 2008 - Present (Overnight MR) - 10:30PM - 7:30AM

The trick to it is when you finally go to bed, make sure you get a GOOD, UNDISTURBED sleep for at least 6 hours. The only quirk to this is when you're off on a particular day, you wind up going to bed earlier, and waking up in the middle of the night! This frustrates me to no end on my weekends off becuase I want to stay awake and chat and watch anime, but once I get under the covers to watch TV, I'm out like the proverbial light. Then I wake up with nothing to do and nothing to watch!