Does it actually matter when you sleep?

Cool Cool

No matter how hard I try, I end up sleeping really, really late at night and then even after sleeping for hours during the day I feel somewhat agitated.

So is it because I am not doing what nature's intended or is it just in my mind? Has anyone else been in the same boat?

Thank you in advance o.o

Barry Badrinath

I stay up for weeks on end.

Because yknow, Freddy's gonna get me.

The Backwards Man

Give me two weeks with ya and you'll have no bother sleeping at night my boy.

Unless I have you on night shift, then you'll have all the bother you want

9de5q7tsr8u2im

Do an all nighter, and wait till the next evening
eg 9pm and go for the snooze.

Works everytime!

xLisaBx

Biologically, no, it does not matter when you sleep. The human needs roughly 8 hours sleep to function optimally, and ideally these should be 8 consecutive hours as opposed to two 4 hour blocks.
Psychologically, however, sleeping through the night is recommended. It establishes a sense of routine- if you sleep through half the day, you will not get as much accomplished, although you are still awake the same amount of hours.

The Sidewards Man

6 hours is more than adequate for the average human.

xLisaBx

The Sidewards Man wrote: »

6 hours is more than adequate for the average human.

Well adequate, yes, but they wont function as well during the day :rolleyes:

whatdoicare

I get a weird stop start sleep because of my 3 year old waking me multiple times in the night - it's the worst kind of torture. It actually doesn't feel half as bad if I just stay awake altogether but I have to try get some sleep as I have to go to work and have a toddler who doesn't nap to deal with all day.

So I get an hour here, two hours there, all night. Even if she doesn't wake I just wake up every so often if the night has started off with herself waking me. Like my brain is trying to cope by waking me before I'm woken.

So if I know my hubby will be able to take over the next day I just stay up all night and sleep late the next day - feels amazing.

I've never in my whole life slept early anyway so I feel comfortable being awake all night, it's just how it works for me. I get my deepest most restful sleep between 7/8am and 12pm.

The Sidewards Man

xLisaBx wrote: »

Well adequate, yes, but they wont function as well during the day :rolleyes:

Are you sure? :rolleyes::rolleyes: I am.

Yes it makes a massive difference to me.

mo matter how much sleep I've had getting up before about 9am is a massive struggle. Luckily I can wander into work anytime between 9 and 10 or else I'd be seriously under pressure. Don't think I could do a job where I had to be up at 8am even.

I need about 8 hours sleep if I'm going to bed around 1am and up for 9am. I can survive on less if I'm going to bed around 3 or 4am and up around 10 or 11am.

I would love if my job could be done on a night shift but unfortunately it doesn't exist in my line of work.

xLisaBx

The Sidewards Man wrote: »

Are you sure? :rolleyes::rolleyes: I am.

How do you know you are functioning as well as you should be? :pac:

Cool Cool

The Sidewards Man wrote: »

6 hours is more than adequate for the average human.

I thought it was 8. Also, are you and The Backwards Man related? :P

The Backwards Man

Cool Cool wrote: »

I thought it was 8. Also, are you and The Backwards Man related? :P

*Fired *

Barry Badrinath

xLisaBx wrote: »

Well adequate, yes, but they wont function as well during the day :rolleyes:

Jaysis,

I functioned (physically and mentally) more than adequately on 4hrs sleep a night for a long time.

racso1975

xLisaBx wrote: »

Biologically, no, it does not matter when you sleep. The human needs roughly 8 hours sleep to function optimally, and ideally these should be 8 consecutive hours as opposed to two 4 hour blocks.
Psychologically, however, sleeping through the night is recommended. It establishes a sense of routine- if you sleep through half the day, you will not get as much accomplished, although you are still awake the same amount of hours.

I think there is a biological effects to can't paste link from mobile. Remember nursing union on about it before some include: heart disease, lower sperm count, cancer and obesity

Cool Cool

McGruber wrote: »

Jaysis,

I functioned (physically and mentally) more than adequately on 4hrs sleep a night for a long time.

How lucky you are!

The Sidewards Man

Cool Cool wrote: »

I thought it was 8. Also, are you and The Backwards Man related? :P

No associate of this parody.

xLisaBx

racso1975 wrote: »

I think there is a biological effects to can't paste link from mobile. Remember nursing union on about it before some include: heart disease, lower sperm count, cancer and obesity

Yeah I've seen these before too actually, however a lot of it is theoretical. Far more likely to suffer from mental illness due to a lack of sleep, and recovering from illness takes longer too.

Eugene Norman

McGruber wrote: »

Jaysis,

I functioned (physically and mentally) more than adequately on 4hrs sleep a night for a long time.

Everybody's a light sleeper on the Internet.

It's true some people can do that. For most it has major implications.

pgj2015

xLisaBx wrote: »

Well adequate, yes, but they wont function as well during the day :rolleyes:

Tell that to Bill Cullen, apparently he only has 4 hours every night.

Car99

pgj2015 wrote: »

Tell that to Bill Cullen, apparently he only has 4 hours every night.

If you have a name for only sleeping four hours a night you can stay in bed all day.

Sam Quentin

It's all about consistency.. I use to work a couple of days and a couple of nights a week.... That's a complete NO NO, will cause stress, annoyance eventual depression.. Sleep is so damn important. Now I work nights all the time so even on my nights off I go to bed really late just to keep things regular.. if you have an issue with light or sound!? Then act accordingly, blackout blinds, ear buds accompanied with any moisturiser to act as a seal and lubricant to seat the ear buds perfectly into the inner ear....

sullivlo

racso1975 wrote: »

I think there is a biological effects to can't paste link from mobile. Remember nursing union on about it before some include: heart disease, lower sperm count, cancer and obesity

There are huge numbers of links between certain illnesses and the bodies circadian rhythm. I'm on my phone so can't do links but there are studies out there.

Those that operate on a "regular" pattern, day is day, night is night, fare the best health wise. Those that operate a fixed opposite pattern where they solely work nights, fare second best.

And those that operate a mixed pattern, eg overnight shift workers who frequently change between day and night, fare the poorest.

If your sleep pattern is consistently at the same / similar times every night, then you should be okay.

This has implications in so many illnesses being treated. For example, and this is anecdotal but there may be a study done (like the different stress responses in mice when they're fed by males or females), the time of day in which medication is delivered can have major implications.

For example, lab animals follow a standard day / night pattern. Within the same lab, over the course of a big trial over a few months, there were some major variances. The experiment was done by person A, who is an early riser and likes to get the animal work out of the way. This gave a positive response. The experiment was then completed by person B as person A was off sick for 3 months. Person B is a late riser, and prefers to do the animal work in the evening when the place is more quiet.

Overall, the response between the experiment run by person A and person B were similar. However, the mice treated by person B had a poorer prognosis and a different immunomodulatory response.

It's right on the cusp of innovative science right now. There are a lot of people who deny that circadian rhythms exist, myself included initially, but when I saw some recent data from another group in work, there was no denying it!

Sam Quentin

Mice got use to person A.... Person B interrupted that particular pattern!? So the sample taken off mice treated by person B was always going to be a poorer 'result' than from person A..... If B had started the experiment then I'm sure if A had come in half way through then A's results would have been poorer....

FizzleSticks

This post has been deleted.

Badly Drunk Boy

This week, I've been falling asleep at 9 or 10, waking up at 1, and then getting an hour or two between 4am and 7.

I don't think it's a great set-up. I don't feel irritable during the day but a nap would be welcome at times.

sullivlo

Sam Quentin wrote: »

Mice got use to person A.... Person B interrupted that particular pattern!? So the sample taken off mice treated by person B was always going to be a poorer 'result' than from person A..... If B had started the experiment then I'm sure if A had come in half way through then A's results would have been poorer....

They were two entirely different experiments. Person A did all of one set. Person B did all of another set.

This was also replicated with putting half the mice in a light controlled area and the results were consistent.

JustTheOne

Scientists still haven't actually discovered the reason we need sleep.

There is no explanation as to why it's needed.

Badly Drunk Boy

There's somebody on Ireland:AM at 8.15 this morning on TV3 talking about sleep and why we need it.

Junkyard Tom

The truth never sleeps, you're only fooling yourselves lads at the end of the day when the fat lady has the shoe on her other foot.

_Brian

I worked nights for 13 years, 7 to 7, tag on a 1.5 hour drive both sides to that.

I can definitely confirm it does matter when you sleep. Not sleeping at night when your body should be sleeping makes a mess of your body. Your body clock is set to sleep during dark and wake during bright, mess with that and your health will suffer, mental and physical.

Samaris

Cool Cool wrote: »

No matter how hard I try, I end up sleeping really, really late at night and then even after sleeping for hours during the day I feel somewhat agitated.

So is it because I am not doing what nature's intended or is it just in my mind? Has anyone else been in the same boat?

Thank you in advance o.o

Pre-electric light being common, it was usual to go to bed more or less with the sun, and by Victorian times, it wasn't at all uncommon to sleep for about four hours, get up for a couple at about 2AM (and even go visiting!) and then go back to bed at 4AM until morning. Odd set-up but it seemed to work quite well for them. I agree with the other posters that said it was about rhythm though. Consistantly doing it will be less physically upsetting to your body and brain.

However, I rather zoomed in on the word "agitated" there. You're obviously trying to get your sleep cycle back on a more normal track and this system is upsetting you.

When I was unemployed and was also suffering from depression, it wasn't so much the sleep cycle that was upsetting me as the sheer anxiety of not having a job and having few to no prospects of getting one. Sleeping through the day just meant I was having totally unproductive days and then I was awake half the night, totally listless. That racked up the anxiety and I would be restlessly agitated and completely unable to concentrate.

Unhelpfully, the only real "cure" I had for it was getting a job that gave me a set pattern. I -have- to be up in the morning and my own system demands that I go to bed early to cope with it. People saying "four/seven/six/half an hour is fine!" can only talk from their own bodies and systems and there's a thousand and one things that can influence different people.

The only thing I can suggest is looking at the wider picture, maybe go to a doctor. Anxiety over a long period is very draining. Setting alarms all over the place for a certain time in the morning and getting up (no matter what time you went to bed the night before) and staying up until after seven or eight in the evening, maybe look into getting some sleeping pills to help you over the bump until your body accepts that dammit, you're in charge of it.

It's not easy. I hope something works out for you.

Cool Cool

Badly Drunk Boy wrote: »

There's somebody on Ireland:AM at 8.15 this morning on TV3 talking about sleep and why we need it.

you mean I can finally post in that creepy thread? :O

_Brian

_Brian wrote: »

I worked nights for 13 years, 7 to 7, tag on a 1.5 hour drive both sides to that.

I can definitely confirm it does matter when you sleep. Not sleeping at night when your body should be sleeping makes a mess of your body. Your body clock is set to sleep during dark and wake during bright, mess with that and your health will suffer, mental and physical.

I think it depends on the person rather than a hard rule for all. One side of my family are very much night people (a trait I have got aswell). I have two relations in particular who work nights by choice in fact both faught with their employers (and won) on more than one occasion to keep their evening/night working hours.

I certainly wouldn't be against working evenings/nights myself either but it's not really an option in my line of work. You also get paid more for nights.

The think the real killer is switching regularly between night and day working hours now that will mess with your body. But if it's nights all the time you just keep your night hours when off also etc.

SEPT 23 1989

I believe working nights takes about ten years off your life expectancy

beach_walker

xLisaBx wrote: »

The human needs roughly 8 hours sleep to function optimally, and ideally these should be 8 consecutive hours as opposed to two 4 hour blocks.

Nope. The whole 8 hour sleep is a relatively recent practice. People used to have a small sleep, then be up for an hour or two and go back for the second sleep - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-16964783

Edit: Oops, just see Samaris post above.

Cool Cool

I have also heard the older you get the lesser you need to sleep, is that true?

The Sidewards Man

Yes its true, I am a day older today I woke two minutes before the alarm.

Cool Cool

my messed up sleeping routine is really starting to get on my nerves now

Capt'n Midnight

https://xkcd.com/320/

The Sidewards Man

Its a trivial annoyance for you.

Cool Cool

The Sidewards Man wrote: »

Its a trivial annoyance for you.

trivial? :P