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Your circadian rhythm is exactly that and it’s YOUR circadian rhythm. It’s specific to a person. This is why you find some people who are morning people and some who are evening people.
It’s best if you can live your life according to your circadian rhythm. One of the problems with our lives is that for some reason we’ve all decided the work day is 9:00 to 5:00.
For some people that’s great, for other people it would be best if they worked noon to midnight.
But if you don’t have to follow this routine, then it’s best to settle into your own circadian rhythm. You can determine your circadian rhythm by simply not using a wake alarm for a month. Learn to get up when you wake up and go to sleep when you’re tired. And that will indicate your normal circadian rhythm.
Some people believe observing how they used to sleep as children could point to their circadian rhythm. But this is not guaranteed because a circadian rhythm can change through a lifetime.
There’s advice from scientists recommending not to send teenagers to school so early. And studies show that if you have a later school day start test scores and classroom engagement improves. Thus, high schoolers would be better off because, in general, the teenage brain does not do well so early in the morning.
Sleep is a very interesting topic and it’s becoming the subject of more studies. Primarily because of all these cool little sleep devices we can wear to bed that can detect body movement and breathing. So, people are learning about their own sleeping habits by wearing those devices to bed.
No. You can’t catch up on your sleep loss. You can’t pull an all-nighter and then expect to sleep more the next day and magically catch up. You will catch up eventually.
Depriving yourself of sleep for one night will have impacts on your physiology for many days. And you will feel it more, the more the age advances.
