Why Sleeping Late At Night Is Bad
What time do you usually go to bed at night? Sleeping late at night has become the trend in our culture today, but please bear in mind that our basic physiology has never changed at all from the days of our ancestors. We still need 7-8 hours of sleep a night minimum, but there’s more to it. We can’t be sleeping late either. Which is why I’m TRYING hard to sleep earlier and below I outline why I think sleeping late is bad.
I have been going to bed at around 2 AM. I have been sleeping at this time for the past few years, and many times, it was even later than that! Now I realize why it’s bad to be sleeping so late. Apparently, when you sleep late, your body unleashes a ton of destructive hormones like cortisol, into your bloodstream. Cortisol is a stress hormone; too much of it, and it can seriously affect your cell health. This explains why all this while, after 12 AM, my body always felt increasingly “wasted.” Not just sleepiness, but a general sense of lethargy seeping through my entire body.
When you force your body to stay up in the wee hours of the morning, your body reacts by releasing a lot more cortisol into your bloodstream. This influx of cortisol is exactly what you don’t need. Cortisol increases blood pressure, weakens the immune system, slows down growth and cell renewal, and interferes with sleep by reducing serotonin levels. Some authorities even call cortisol the “death hormone.” Now that’s why doctors have been saying getting less sleep increases your mortality rate!
Also, going to sleep late disrupts the production of melatonin. As we know, melatonin production is in full swing after midnight. Therefore, if you don’t get into bed, you’re basically telling your body to produce less melatonin, and this can affect your circadian rhythm in many ways. It is akin to jet lag in many respects, but just imagine doing this every night, and you should know the answer.
Another aspect of sleeping late comes from the spiritual standpoint. I found it interesting to read that ghosts or demons are all out in full force during the “witching hours,” which most authorities say starts from 12-3 AM. Hmmm, hallucinations are often a byproduct of prolonged sleeplessness, so could they be related? Could it be, some of those apparitions are indeed caused by hallucinations due to not sleeping?
When I read the horrid experiences of people who have very bad insomnia, I often tend to think that those who can sleep normally but make it a habit of sleeping late; these are the ones who don’t really appreciate what they’ve got. Sleep is a precious thing indeed, and no amount of modernization in our society or culture can change its importance in our lives. So please, whatever it takes, go to bed early and try to get enough sleep. That’s what I’m trying to do now. No more going to bed after midnight if I can really help it.
Wow…I’m going to bed early tonight after reading all that! Pretty interesting stuff!
good, thank you for telling the turth about sleeping late at night. i want to change my bad habit on sleeping late. i don’t want ot sleep late any more. thank you so much.
It’s 3 am and i wanna go to bed!
Hey Elvis,
That’s very late!
Thank You….i also wanted 2 change my habbit but didnt know the truth…NOW I AM GONNA
@ Nik
There are many GOOD reasons to sleep earlier, trust me
Its 3:02AM now and i want to surf the net more but i am going to sleep NOW.
wow!ok…
that’s true …
going to bed now.
What if u go to bed late, but still sleep for 7-8 hrs?? is that bad??
Hi bert, your liver starts detoxifying after about midnight (that’s what a lot of experts say). So sleeping late places a strain on the liver and body. Also your melatonin production is in full swing, so it could skew your cycle. If you’re going to sleep for 7-8 hours, isn’t it better to sleep earlier and wake up earlier than to sleep late and wake up late? One thing I know is people who sleep late and wake up late often have bad breath as a result
but assuming you are getting the right amount of sleep.
why would it matter after you’ve doing that for a long time?
(1) Your body clock will eventually adjust to that clock
(2) It’s just as if you are in another time zone
@ Jim
It has something to do with your internal circadian rhythm which is also mostly synchronized with the time zone you are in. Things like your hormone production and metabolism are all affected in some way, whether its big or small. And that’s also partly the reason why people get jet lag. As for adjusting after a long time, I’ve slept early and I’ve slept late, and there is always a difference which you’ll come to know if you pay more attention to your body, which as I’ve said is tied into hormone production and metabolism among other things.
Is it not true that if everyone slept at the exact time (say eight o’clock), that a person in Texas would still sleep at a different time than a person in California because of the time zone difference? Saying that, then doesn’t it prove that the position of the moon when you go to sleep is irrelevant to the sake of your health? I mean, HONESTLY, if you sleep at 2 AM and wake up and 10 AM (that’s eight hours of sleep) EVERY day, then your routine is pretty much the same as everyone else’s except time is shifted. You’re not forcing yourself to stay awake if you have the same exact amount of awake-time as everyone else, and the same amount of sleep-time as everyone else.
The notion that the position of the moon (or ‘time’, pretty much) when you go to sleep affects your health seems incredibly ridiculous to me. I see no point in sleeping at any other time than you want to sleep, unless you plan on getting up early the next day. I understand how the ‘eight hours’ rule could affect your health–but the time you go to sleep? Not so much.
@ Glaiza,
Thanks for your comment. There is no hard and fast rule that you must sleep at an exact time, but I would also like to point out that for me personally at least, I feel the moon cycle DOES have an effect on our body. The difference might not be apparent, but if you make it a habit to sleep really late at 2-4 am every night, it does have a bearing on your health, at least for most normal people. For example, you should note that no top athlete makes it a habit to sleep really late every night, even though they might have the luxury to do so (unlike us stressed, normal people), because they will tell you it will affect their physical performance, one way or the other.
On another note (but which would require a whole lot of explanation altogether) moon phases are real, which is why we have astrological zodiacs based on the position of the planets for thousands of years, but which our “modern” society has cast off for some reason or other, most noticeably within the past (and very short) 100 years. Our “internal time” is also influenced to a certain degree by external forces, so although you can indeed swim against the tide, it may be wiser to go with the flow, so to speak.
I suppose I could have taken this article more seriously if it stuck to a scientific viewpoint, rather than talk of ghosts and witches.
I’ve been going to bed late for a long time, but for the past 1 month, I’ve tried sleeping at around 12 am ….I do feel more energized in the morning now, plus I wake up earlier as well. Some colleagues of mine stay up real late, drink and drive, and these guys look terrible the next morning, lol!
Well Brendon, you are at liberty not to take that part seriously. I just infused a little color into the article, that is all. A staid and scientific tribute to big pharma and was not what I wanted. Neither something “politically correct” as well.
Maybe it’s a viscius circle: when ones sleeps late, one is tired in the morning and this makes him/her be less ready to make a change.. ? anyway I always sleep at 1 or 2 am but my bedroom is completely dark so I can sleep 8 or 8 1/2 hours a day. And I have a good memory, and I am creative but I usually procrastinate my things and I have kind of dark circles in my eyes (very attractive eyes but with dark circles ;( ). The fact is that I feel that I have to keep on going till that hour each day and somehow I enjoy so much what I do then: read, lear English, play chess, google important things for me… anyway I guess that this is a feature of anxiety… or maybe is just a bad habit. I used to be a bulimic and I am very passionate, and I look younger than my age (I always did), and I am usually late in my dates like trying to take as much as possible of the time, of the hours… I am creative too but I would like to be an early bird than a night owl…
Or maybe staying late creates a hormone (or another component)
that keep night owls doing the same thing night after night.. anyway I like to feel creative .. yes people say I am but my parents don’t understand that if I wake up late is not because I am sleeping too much but that I slept late!