Healthline: Why the Human Mind Is 'Not Designed' to Stay Awake Past Midnight

“According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), around 15 million adults in the United States work night shifts or rotating shifts, meaning their brains have no choice but to be active past midnight. To help minimize any potentially negative effects, experts say maintaining sleep consistency (when possible) is vital. “We are creatures of habit,” Mednick said, “The more consistent you can be between workdays and non-workdays [is] really important.”

Demonstrating the importance of sleep-wake consistency, a study from 2017 found that students who slept and woke at regular times — regardless of irregular hours — obtained better academic outcomes than those who had erratic or irregular sleep patterns.

“The recommendation is for 8 hours of sleep for adults; people can choose in which hours of the day to obtain it,” Klerman said. “Consolidated sleep is better than multiple shorter sleep episodes.”

That said, switching from sleeping at night to during the day isn’t quite so straightforward.

“Your circadian rhythm isn’t really set up to have deep sleep during the day,” Mednick said. “Even if people use blackout curtains and stay in bed for a certain amount of time, it is much harder to achieve the same sort of consolidated sleep that sleeping during the night naturally brings you.” “Most shift workers are not able to realign their circadian system so that it is aligned with the work schedule rather than the light-dark cycle,” Klerman added.

Some Insights From This Article

• Our body is generally built to be asleep at night as to align with the sun. Special receptors in our eyes feed into areas of our brain, where light triggers ‘awake’ parts of our brain which lead to release cortisol and other hormones that prepare our body for the day. Absence of light at night or in dark dimly lit areas trigger other parts of our brain which signal ‘sleep’ releasing hormones such as melatonin to prepare our body for rest.

• According to this article, latest research shows our bodies aren’t necessarily made to stay up past midnight. Given the irregular timing of light that is exposed that may cut the quality of sleep early. However, it is important to note that sleep quality is also heavily hereditary, some families are blessed with having refreshing sleep even with less than 8 hours!

• At the end of the day the most important part is getting a quality 8 hours of sleep everyday, this means sleeping at consistent times to allow our bodies to get into a proper cycle and preventing factors that may interrupt sleep quality such as noise or light.

Full article is here!

#Sleep #SleepHygiene #Health