Timothy Birdnow

New research suggests "night owl" habits lead to much higer incidents of mental health issues than do their early rising cousins.

People who regularly stay up well past midnight are 40% more likely to suffer from emotional and stress-related disorders than are others, according to a New Study by Stanford Medicine published in the journal Psychiatric Research. The study tracked the sleep habits of 73,888 people and found a clear correlation between the times the late nighters went to bed and other issues (like depression).

The study focused on older adults. They were given monitors to see how much activity was involved so as control for that.

These problems could be reduced or eliminated if night owls would impose earlier bedtimes on themselves, the researchers found.

I know from personal experience that I feel much better and am happier if I maintain a cons istent bedtime before Midnight. I try to go to bed at the same time every day too,so as to avoid insomnia. I used to suffer from terrible insomnia, and when I worked the graveyard shift (for three years) I hardly ever slept. But returning to a normal schedule completely cured me of insomnia and it's rare when I get it now,provided I follow the rules about bedtime and whatnot.

Benjamin Franklin admonished "early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise" and it appears that, by and large, he was right.

Humanity's whole existence was dominated by the day/night cycle, and that even predates the human condition. We are day creatures by evolution. Our primary sense is sight, and it doesn't function well in the dark (unlike some creatures like cats). We are thus day hunters and gatherers and are evolved for operating in daylight. The invention of artificial light (starting with fires) made it possible for us to stay awake after dark,but there never was a really good light source until the nineteenth century when gas lighting was invented, followed by electric. Candles and whale oil lamps and olive oil lamps just don't put out that much light. May as well just go to bed when the sun goes down. And if you do burn the lamps you risk burning up all your precious oil for them!

Electricity changed all that. Now we get power from miles, hundreds of miles, away and it's easy; just flip a switch and you have light! That made staying up late atrractive, but in the end we weren't built to be owls or bats. We have a natural rhythm.

Which is disrupted by late nights. Corisol prroduction is interrupted, as is melatonin production. The end result is the night owl gets less REM sleep and as a result feels more tired and tends to become depressed and lethargic. Not all,of course, and there are people who do amazing things at three a.m. (look at Donald Trump) but for the lion's share of us it does not serve us.

Truckers, for example, often bing-drive, going well into the night. They are 22% more likely to suffer from depresion and anxiety and other stress-related problems than the general public. All shift workers have higher rates of mental health issues than does the daytime public (33% as a whole). Does anyone wonder why Dracula was such a jerk?

so a good nights sleep makes for a happy life, and to get one an earlier bedtime really helps.

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 11:09 AM | Comments (9) | Add Comment
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