“ Despite his best efforts, Cliff, 28, could not get to sleep until about 7 a.m. It had been this way since he was a teenager. He was a healthy and successful young scientist — except that he didn’t arrive at the lab until 5 p.m., just as his co-workers were preparing to leave. Although he got his work done by pulling all-nighters, he became isolated from the group. Sleeping pills didn’t work. Nighttime alcohol bouts got him to sleep sooner, but only by two to three hours — a bummer on many levels. Significantly, Cliff was not depressed.”
Sleeping (or Not) by the Wrong Clock - Opinionator Blog - NYTimes.com
I am really irked by the fact that this article implies that anyone with a sleep pattern outside of the “normal” one has something wrong with them, and that this should be fixed immediately, using medication or light therapy or burning at the stake if need be, because anything is better than sleeping at odd hours.
Just because the majority of society runs in a certain timeframe such as, say, 9 am to 5 pm (which even varies country to country in Europe, as many people in Poland, for example, work 8 to 4), doesn’t mean that one cannot find a way to work on a completely different schedule and be just as productive and significantly, not depressed.
Sure, before the widespread prevalence of artificial light and 24-hour Chinese take-out, when farm animals needed milking or feeding at a certain time, it made sense that all individuals conformed to a certain sleep schedule. But today, there are so many occupations one can pursue that allow for a more natural approach to sleep - namely, following one’s natural clock.
The article, however, does make one very relevant point:
“People sleep best when the internal clock is in sync with the workday rest/activity cycle. When there is a mismatch, the likely results are insomnia, depressed mood and daytime fatigue.”
The mismatch in this case was a second example: a man, George, whose natural circadian clock dictated that he fall asleep at 1:30 am, but his job required him to be up by 7. He was found to be (not surprisingly) mildly depressed.
But why couldn’t George, instead of signing up for experimental light therapy, talk to his employer about devising a schedule more in tune with his circadian clock? Why couldn’t the New York Times, in addition to running this article, run a piece advocating more workplace scheduling flexibility?
Perhaps this just hits a personal nerve, more than anything. I wrote about my own whacked-out sleep schedule over a year ago, and since that time my theory has only been confirmed. Were I in a position to be self-employed (which is really the only option for non-standard sleepers), I would be working from about 2 in the afternoon until 2 in the morning, with a break for a couple of hours midway. Worst of all, I know I would get twice as much done, with a much higher standard of quality, than I do at present. If employers allowed this kind of individual schedule setting, the increase in productivity - and thus the economic impact - would be mind-blowing.
Bottom line: There is no “wrong” or “right” clock - each person works according to their individual circadian rhythm, which most people figure out by the time they’re young adults. In the past century, the workplace has radically altered to accommodate personal variance in so many aspects - why can’t schedules based on natural sleep patterns be next?
