“Owls are cool, they can stay up all night”, gushes 6 year old Abhinav. What Abhinav doesn’t yet know is that there is a strange species of humans, known as ‘Night Owl’s’, who can stay up all night! Abhinav would definitely find them cool too!
‘Night owl’ is a term given to people who have an affinity towards the dark hours and tend to stay up quite late into the night. The owl as a bird stays up all night hunting prey because it’s known to sleep through the day! Humans, who tend to stay awake late into the night, do so without the knowledge of its side effects on their body.
Many of us feel the need to steal those ‘precious’ few hours of the night for:
- Completing pending work
- Reading
- Surfing
- Watching television
- Playing video games
As in our minds, we have perfectly justified reason for doing the above due to which we tend to usually sleep only after the clock hands look alarmingly close to 1 or 2 am! While it may not cause any immediate effect on our body, it is harmful in the long run.
In today’s fast moving world, where all of us are ready to give an arm and leg for that one extra hour, sleep has most definitely taken a backseat. By staying up late we are gaining that one more hour for completing our work, having uninterrupted time (read: no disturbances) and most importantly the feeling of assurance that we have completed something before going to bed.
However the side effects of sleeping late experienced by our body tend to cancel out the ‘high’ of having achieved something by staying up late:
- Tiredness: The body feels tired and lethargic when its usual quota of ‘rest time’ i.e. sleep at night, is not fulfilled. You experience physical and mental fatigue.
- Stress: Staying up late, can cause high levels of stress to be experienced by the body due to the release of Cortisol or the stress hormone.
- Lagging schedule: As you have been up late into the night, you are bound to have a delayed start to your day, thereby effectively lagging behind schedule.
Weak memory: Lack of sleep causes a weak memoryas a sleep deprived and tired brain is bound to hamper your ability to recall past events.
- Microsleeps: Lack of sleep causes us to experience ‘Microsleeps’, when the brain shuts down for a time period of 10-60 seconds. Microsleep involves a person who’s awake, yet mentally he’s asleep (to put it simple, he’s sleeping with his eyes open) it is one of the main reasons for accidents during the night time.
- Obesity: Yes. Staying up late does cause weight gain, as opposed to the popular myth of weight loss. Lack of sleep releases the ghrelin hormone or the hunger hormone, which results in bing eating, also staying up late can cause metabolic changes in one’s body.
- Attention attention!: Staying up late can cause mental fatigue as a result of which one’s ability to pay attention is severely hampered, resulting in abysmally low attention levels in adults and children alike.
- Delayed healing: White blood cells which act as our body’s defense system help in the healing of wound. A sufficient amount of sleep is needed to regulate the white blood cell count in our body and staying up late affects this process, causing a 20% decrease in the count thereby delaying healing.
- Skin loses glow: Sleep helps in building up tissues and cells of our skin, whilst lack of sleep can cause damage to the cells making the skin appear ragged and de-moisturized. Visible effects are puffy eyes, dark circles and wrinkles.
- Acid reflux: Staying up late can wreak havoc on your digestion. Digestive juices are released when your body is asleep and staying up late can confuse the body’s internal functioning to cause acid reflux the next day.
Adequate Sleep is vital for the human body as it helps maintain the body’s core temperature while regulating the hormones and metabolism. Sleep is important for the proper functioning of the internal mechanisms in our body.
Following are a few sleep inducing tips to the ‘night owls’: -
- Maintain a disciplined ’timing’ for going to bed: Try and stick to a particular time frame for going to bed. E.g.: - Between 10.30 pm – 11 pm. Doing this helps the body develop a sleep rhythm, aiding a good sleep in the process.
- Finish your work at least an hour before you go to bed: Finishing your work an hour before, gives you a chance to mentally unwind. Also going to bed in a relaxed state of mind will help you fall asleep quickly rather than just waiting for sleep to come.
- Avoid snacking just before bed time: For a good sleep, avoid snacking just before bed time as this raises your blood sugar level and delays sleep, thereby causing you to stay up late.
- Hot showers before bed: Hot showers before going to bed help in raising the body’s temperatures thereby aiding a good sound sleep.
- Darkness helps: Our body’s sleep patterns are based on a circadian rhythm, harsh lights entering your room during the room might disturb this cycle. Hence it is very important to ensure that your sleeping quarters are dark with little or no light illuminating it during the night time.
- Avoid T.V: Avoid watching Television as it stimulates your brain, delaying sleep in return. Try journaling at night, as it helps calm down your thoughts and aids a sound sleep.
- No caffeine: Avoid caffeine laced food or beverage items right before bed time as they keep up awake late into the nights.
If one were to weigh the pros and cons of staying up late, it would be an unanimous decision to let the tag of ‘Night Owls’ be best left to the owls itself!
