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Recovery and Sleep Patterns
As I’ve aged, I find that I am less and less tolerant of late-nighters, a situation I too often find myself in from my 80 hour work week (many years now). Not that all-nighters ever felt good even in my 20's.
Hence this article from the BBC that resonated for me:
Night work 'throws body into chaos'
The human body has its own natural rhythm or body clock tuned to sleep at night and be active during the day.
It has profound effects on the body, altering everything from hormones and body temperature to athletic ability, mood and brain function.
Blood tests showed that normally 6% of genes - the instructions contained in DNA - were precisely timed to be more or less active at specific times of the day.
I’m always skeptical of small or one-off studies, and this study involved only 22 people, so by itself it should be greeted with skepticism. However, it certainly meshes with “feeling lousy” if I stay up a bit too late.
