Do you usually get up before 10 am? How does it make you feel and would you opt to get up later than that if you could?
Many people believe that waking up too early is something that could be seriously throwing us off. Sure, we are used to the basic 9-5 but is that basic 9-5 benefiting us or bringing us down?
According to Dr. Paul Kelley of Oxford University moving work and school starting times to after 10 am could be the change we need to set ourselves off right and realign with our bodies internal clocks. A few years back Dr. Kelley spoke at the British Science Festival in Bradford and there he noted our sleep times as a huge society issue and mentioned how sleep-deprived society is.
Dr. Kelley said as follows during his time speaking at the event noted above:
“It is hugely damaging on the body’s systems because you are affecting physical, emotional and performance systems in the body.”
“Your liver and your heart have different patterns and you’re asking them to shift two or three hours. This is an international issue. Everybody is suffering and they don’t have to.”
“We cannot change our 24-hour rhythms. You cannot learn to get up at a certain time. Your body will be attuned to sunlight and you’re not conscious of it because it reports to hypothalamus, not sight.”
“This applies in the bigger picture to prisons and hospitals. They wake up people and give people food they don’t want. You’re more biddable because you’re totally out of it. Sleep deprivation is torture.”
“Just by changing the start time you can improve the quality of life for whole generations of children.”
Not getting the sleep you need can lead to things like anxiety, frustration, anger, weight gain, and so much more. If just one extra hour of sleep each day could make a big difference in our lives, isn’t it worth trying out? The more you dive into the research surrounding our Circadian Rhythm the more sense this kind of thing makes.
We cannot change our body-clock so forcing ourselves up earlier than we should, because it is causing tension within our bodies. Dr. Kelley tested his theory on this kind of thing in several schools across Britain through which students were pushed back to come into school at 10 rather than 8 in the morning. This not only made them more productive, but it also improved the level of attendance and boosted their moods. No negatives were noted and everything went over quite well.
To learn more about this topic please check out the video below while it mostly covers teenagers, it touches on some very important parts of this topic. In it, Dr. Kelley covers just how serious it is for us all to get the rest we need. What do you think about all of this? Does this make you want to get a few extra hours of rest each morning? It sure makes me more than ready to stop seeing the sunrise each morning.