I’ve always wondered this, espeically over summer break or for those who work later but why is going to bed late bad for you if you still get the perfect amount of sleep?
For example, last night I wen’t to bed at like 1:30 AM and woke up at 10:30 am, which is 9 hours? So if I’m getting required sleep, how is it bad for me?
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The only thing that matters is that you get enough sleep. It doesn’t matter when you do it.
I needed your example to understand what your asking. It makes no difference what time you go to bed. Sleeping 2-10 is the same no matter am or pm.
This is probably some silliness adults told you as you were growing up.
Consistency.
It’s better if you have a consistent sleep schedule in addition to sleeping enough.
If you are keeping it 1:30 AM – 10:30 AM all the time that’s fine, but it’s not as good if you do 11:00PM – 8:00AM some days, 2:00AM – 11:00AM other days, 5:00AM – 2:00PM on yet other days.
overall 5am to 10:30am you’re not actually getting good rest unless you’ve got the right environment.
Even w/ blackout shades light sneaks around corners, neighbors run lawn mowers, cars honk their horns, birds tweet. Unless you’ve managed to shutout all stimuli you’re not getting the same quality of sleep you would on a quiet night.
If you are a growing kid I believe it matters because your body releases growth hormones around 10-12 pm. (citation needed)
Otherwise it probably doesn’t matter other than the fact that society kinda runs on certain hours so maybe your sleep gets more distractions during daytime because people are more likely to try to contact you or make noise around you.
Going to bed late being bad is assumed you will have to get up early like for work or when you have to get your kids up for school. But if you get at least 8 hours of sleep you are good.
Haven’t seen anyone mention the fact that by going to bed later you’re staying awake longer even though your body needs the sleep. So Friday night if we stay up til 3am but get 9 hours of sleep or more to recover, we should be A-OK, right? Well no, because staying up until 3am is pushing our body – especially the brain and heart – harder than they normally are, and no amount of sleeping in the next day can help them make a complete recovery. The damage is done.
There’s the idea of sleep debt, but it’s only half true. It’s true that you can count how much sleep you’ve missed, but the “debt” can’t just be repaid by sleeping in. There’s a lot of interest that’s been accumulating too
It really shouldn’t, **however** there are some other somewhat related factors that could affect quality of sleep if you sleep late, such as other people being up and moving around, too much light in the room, not having a consistent sleep schedule, etc.
Your body has expected events it wants to do every night. Think of it like your going to bed routine. You brush your teeth, you floss your teeth, you wash your face, then you get into bed, and you turn off the lights.
Your body does much the same – it has a ton of physical work to do while you sleep. It knows what to do based on an internal clock. If you throw off your internal clock by not sleeping at the expected times it can cause that long to-do list to go partially undone.
If your body can’t do it’s to-do list at night fully, over multiple nights, you end up exhausted. Exhaustion causes you to get sick more easily, make careless errors,and physical injuries go up. Over years you increase your risk of dementia.
Eventually, if you redefine your bed time for long enough, your body will realize that it needs to do the to-do list at a different time. The chemical message runners will start to change their schedules to suit your sleep schedule. However, people who work at night tend to gain weight, have more depression and anxiety, and acquired diabetes. Your body can only adapt so much.
It’s best to fall asleep when you feel naturally tired and wake up when you feel naturally rested. For some people that’s 9pm, some it’s 11pm, some it’s 2am. There’s no perfect schedule. Our society isn’t too friendly to this fact.
It’s not. What’s unhealthy is an inconsistent schedule. If you always go to bed late and get up late, that’s fine, but if your schedule is all over the place, it can be hard on both your brain and body.
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