You Should Stop Going To Bed Late If This Happens To You
Do you often find yourself awake in the middle of the night, long after everyone in your family has gone to bed? If so, you are not alone. A 2021 survey conducted by AmeriSleep found that around 29% of respondents typically go to bed past midnight.
It is natural for some people to go to bed late. According to Discovery Magazine, many evolutionary biologists believe that communities were more likely to survive if people had different sleep schedules. That way, there would be people to stand guard when everybody else was asleep. A 2017 study published by Royal Society looked at a modern hunter-gatherer tribe. Researchers found that over the course of 220 hours, there was only an 18-minute window when all 33 tribe members were sleeping at the same time.
That being said, sleeping late can interfere with our modern schedules. With the way our society is set up, it can be hard for people to practice a healthy lifestyle when they go to bed late (per ScienceDaily).
This is when you need to go to bed earlier
You know that a late sleep schedule isn't right for you if it interferes with your ability to maintain a healthy lifestyle. A 2020 study published in Chronobiology International found that many night owls get insufficient sleep and have poor eating habits. Not getting enough sleep can interfere with your performance at work and contribute to a number of health problems, such as heart disease, kidney disease, diabetes, and hypertension (per National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute). As The New York Times points out, people have few healthy options if they want to eat out in the middle of the night. There are also few athletic classes available in the middle of the night.
Dr. Andrew Varga, assistant professor of sleep medicine at the Icahn School of Medicine, says that these lifestyle patterns may be why people who go to bed late have considerably higher rates of hypertension (per Health). Night owls also have a higher risk of cardiovascular disease and even early death, according to a 2018 study from Northwestern Medicine and the University of Surrey.
Some people can make a late sleep schedule work for them, but if yours makes it difficult for you to practice healthy habits, you may want to start going to bed earlier. A 2019 study published in Sleep Medicine discovered that after shifting to an earlier sleep schedule, night owls experienced less depression and stress, and better cognitive and physical performance.