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Late To Bed, Early To Die? Night Owls May Die Sooner (livescience.com)
An anonymous reader shares a report: Bad news for "night owls": Those who tend to stay up late and sleep in well past sunrise are at increased risk of early death, a new study from the United Kingdom suggests. The research, which involved nearly half a million people, found that self-described "evening people" were 10 percent more likely to die over a 6.5-year period, compared with self-described morning people. The findings add to a growing body of research that suggests that being a night owl could have negative effects on health. Many of these effects may be attributable to a misalignment between a person's internal clock, or circadian rhythm, and the socially imposed timing of work and other activities, the researchers said. "'Night owls' trying to live in a 'morning lark' world may have health consequences for their bodies," study co-author Kristen Knutson, an associate professor of neurology at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, said in a statement.
To even get out of bed in time we have to add unhealthy chemicals to our body that increase our blood pressure. Stop messing with the damn clock and let me come to work around 1pm and I'll be fine.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Linked articles don't really have anything on things which might co-exist with staying up late. For instance, in mortality cases, did staying up late cause health issues leading to death, or was there a health issue which made it hard to sleep which also eventually caused death? Does stress affect sleep? Does staying up late correlate with lack of exercise? The list could go on and on. Without a mechanism, it's silly/stupid to suggest modifying things like the job market to fix the problem. It's comparable to saying "Cholesterol is bad, you should be really careful about eating eggs."
I worked rotating shifts for fifteen years. One location changed shifts every week, another changed monthly. It was terrible. There were times that I didn't know if it was six AM or six PM. I couldn't eat at night because my stomach wouldn't digest food at two AM and when I had breakfast at seven AM and went to bed I would experience GERD. Now my sleep times are mostly normal.
The biggest problem "night owls" have is living in a society that forces them to live in a state of life-long sleep-deprivation if they have any kind of normal job.
I just don't get tired naturally until 2 or 3am. I can fall asleep earlier if I'm sleep-deprived, but THEN my body treats it like an afternoon nap... I'll wake up 3-5 hours later, then be unable to fall asleep again until dawn. My earliest sustainable go-to-bed time is ~12:30am (with Ambien & melatonin).
I worked happily for years at a company that let me work 11-7 (usually a little later, but I didn't mind). I rarely got sick & did the best work in my life. Sadly, the company didn't survive The Great Recession.
I later worked for 2 months at a job that required me to get up at 6:30am... it damn near killed me. I was getting sick enough to need antibiotics every 2-3 weeks (mostly strep & sinus infections), crashed & burned into Friday night, and didn't start to feel "not awful" until Sunday... and then the hell began started again. My short-term memory went down the toilet & took months to heal after I quit.
By week 4 of my hellish early-morning job, I was having worse & worse muscle cramps... first, randomly at night. Then, sitting at my desk. Then at completely random moments, including driving or just walking. I'm convinced I was weeks away from having a heart attack that would basically have been just another muscle cramp, and probably would have literally died if I'd kept it up.
Get checked for sleep apnea. That was why I was initially staying up... and drinking more than I should have in an effort to get sleepy enough to go to bed. It's a vicious cycle... Now I'm sleepy earlier and get up easier.