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It's always funny to me when people assume that sleep works the same for everyone or that it is as simple as scheduling something on a calendar. Neither are tru

by th0ma5 10y ago

It's always funny to me when people assume that sleep works the same for everyone or that it is as simple as scheduling something on a calendar. Neither are true.

alrehn 10y ago
I think most people can change their sleeping habits. If you actually practice good sleep hygene and make consistent habits around sleep and you still can't get to sleep at a reasonable time, then you are not the norm and may have a medical condition.
- epochwolf 10y ago
  Good sleep hygiene, work, and having a social life aren't always compatible.
- kolinko 10y ago
  Honest wuestion - what do you base this on? Anything besides personal experience?
  - mannykannot 10y ago
    Well, I can say for myself that the younger me adapted faster to timezone changes than I do now. That adaptation is presumably driven by the diurnal rhythms of the destination, but given that a fair amount of modern life is conducted under artificial light (and artificial darkness, for those who sleep in), it seems plausible that sleep patterns could be modified to some extent, through adjustment to the already-artificial diurnal cycle.
maccard 10y ago
If you're in your twenties, you've probably spent 8+ years building up a habit of sleeping late. It's expected that it would take you a reasonable amount of time to break that. As an anecdote in the opposite way, I am a sort-of night owl (my peak hours are roughly 10:00pm to 1:30am). As a teenager I was a late night, late morning (4am to 2pm) sleeper. Around 17, I started training at 7am, meaning I had to be up at 5:45 every morning. When I eventually quit after about 4 years, it took me another 4 years to un-learn the habit and move back to being an evening person.
- komali2 10y ago
  I don't mean to nitpick, but I don't think it takes very long to break a sleep habit. I travel quite a bit and so am not only changing my actual sleep hours significantly (i.e. going to bed at what used to be my 4pm or whatever) but also changing them based on local timezones (so this job requires me to go to bed 2am local time, vs another job where I can go to bed 10pm local time). Anyway point is I'm usually adjusted within a week. And I certainly adjusted from my "classes start at 7am" in highschool schedule to my "classes start at 12pm" schedule in college near instantaneously.
  - eric_h 10y ago
    I've always found the best way to deal with jet lag is just to stay up until it's a normal time to go to bed in one's current timezone. Depending on where you are going/arriving from this can be quite a long stretch, but it generally gets me set on the local timezone within about two days. It helps that I'm not very good at sleeping on airplanes unless I've been awake for >30 hours
    - maccard 10y ago
      It also helps to pre-empt it a little. The last few times I've flown long-distance, I've tried to adjust my sleeping a day or two in advance of flying and had very little problems.
  - TheOtherHobbes 10y ago
    Your personal anecdotes say nothing useful about the experiences of other people. I get pretty wiped out for a week when the clocks go forward or back. I'm only marginally productive when the sun is up, but get a huge amount done from about 8pm to 2am. But so what? That's me. I don't expect the rest of the world to be the same. Sleep is clearly very individual. Standard school/office hours are a hugely inefficient waste of the potential of tens of millions of people. It should be possible to design a more flexible system. But we still have ridiculous notions that early risers are somehow the model of virtue, and everyone else should aspire to the same hours.
mannykannot 10y ago
You are right to say that we should not jump to conclusions, but it is appropriate to ask to what extent the phenomenon is affected by culture - for one thing, that would raise the question of whether, and to what extent, students might modify their behavior in response, possibly nullifying the effect after a while. The paper itself seems to consider the effect to be largely genetic in origin, which I assume is probably a well-supported conclusion from other studies.

by th0ma5 10y ago

It's always funny to me when people assume that sleep works the same for everyone or that it is as simple as scheduling something on a calendar. Neither are true.

alrehn 10y ago

I think most people can change their sleeping habits. If you actually practice good sleep hygene and make consistent habits around sleep and you still can't get to sleep at a reasonable time, then you are not the norm and may have a medical condition.

epochwolf 10y ago
Good sleep hygiene, work, and having a social life aren't always compatible.
kolinko 10y ago
Honest wuestion - what do you base this on? Anything besides personal experience?
- mannykannot 10y ago
  Well, I can say for myself that the younger me adapted faster to timezone changes than I do now. That adaptation is presumably driven by the diurnal rhythms of the destination, but given that a fair amount of modern life is conducted under artificial light (and artificial darkness, for those who sleep in), it seems plausible that sleep patterns could be modified to some extent, through adjustment to the already-artificial diurnal cycle.

maccard 10y ago

If you're in your twenties, you've probably spent 8+ years building up a habit of sleeping late. It's expected that it would take you a reasonable amount of time to break that. As an anecdote in the opposite way, I am a sort-of night owl (my peak hours are roughly 10:00pm to 1:30am). As a teenager I was a late night, late morning (4am to 2pm) sleeper. Around 17, I started training at 7am, meaning I had to be up at 5:45 every morning. When I eventually quit after about 4 years, it took me another 4 years to un-learn the habit and move back to being an evening person.

komali2 10y ago
I don't mean to nitpick, but I don't think it takes very long to break a sleep habit. I travel quite a bit and so am not only changing my actual sleep hours significantly (i.e. going to bed at what used to be my 4pm or whatever) but also changing them based on local timezones (so this job requires me to go to bed 2am local time, vs another job where I can go to bed 10pm local time). Anyway point is I'm usually adjusted within a week. And I certainly adjusted from my "classes start at 7am" in highschool schedule to my "classes start at 12pm" schedule in college near instantaneously.
- eric_h 10y ago
  I've always found the best way to deal with jet lag is just to stay up until it's a normal time to go to bed in one's current timezone. Depending on where you are going/arriving from this can be quite a long stretch, but it generally gets me set on the local timezone within about two days. It helps that I'm not very good at sleeping on airplanes unless I've been awake for >30 hours
  - maccard 10y ago
    It also helps to pre-empt it a little. The last few times I've flown long-distance, I've tried to adjust my sleeping a day or two in advance of flying and had very little problems.
- TheOtherHobbes 10y ago
  Your personal anecdotes say nothing useful about the experiences of other people. I get pretty wiped out for a week when the clocks go forward or back. I'm only marginally productive when the sun is up, but get a huge amount done from about 8pm to 2am. But so what? That's me. I don't expect the rest of the world to be the same. Sleep is clearly very individual. Standard school/office hours are a hugely inefficient waste of the potential of tens of millions of people. It should be possible to design a more flexible system. But we still have ridiculous notions that early risers are somehow the model of virtue, and everyone else should aspire to the same hours.

mannykannot 10y ago

You are right to say that we should not jump to conclusions, but it is appropriate to ask to what extent the phenomenon is affected by culture - for one thing, that would raise the question of whether, and to what extent, students might modify their behavior in response, possibly nullifying the effect after a while. The paper itself seems to consider the effect to be largely genetic in origin, which I assume is probably a well-supported conclusion from other studies.