During college, I used to play WoW. I think my biological clock was messed up because of it, not because that was my natural biological rhythm. Also, because of the amount of hours I put into WoW, I did not have many hours left to study, affecting my academic performance. Thus, I wonder if the performance is really linked to the biological rhythm, or rather that the biological rhythm is a sign of activities impacting academic performance.
I'm with you there. I think the article is bullshit. We are in control of when we go to sleep, and ultimately that determines our circadian rhythm. Not some mysterious unknown force. The correlation with alcohol and drug abuse is a cause not a result.
I was very much in the camp of playing video games all night long but I didn't kid myself about early class times being the cause for my struggle.
* Disclaimer: IANA doctor/biologist. Point me to a study that says we can't control when we go to sleep (aside from other health factors including insomnia).
Both. And the social strain of not being able to meet people that work on regular schedules.
I seem to recall that working just regular night shifts (eg 2300-0700) will cut an average 5 years off your life. Rotating shifts with half+ during night is even worse.
While I would like to agree with the article and say it's something else's fault, it's totally my own doing that I stay up late watching TV or playing games. It's not my "biological" clock keeping me up, it's the stimulus I'm getting that's keeping me up, especially with games. I'm sure if I pulled myself from a screen starting at 9pm, I'd be asleep by 10 or 11 instead of 1:30am
Yep, this. During summer internships in college I easily transitioned to a fully-functioning 11PM-7AM sleep schedule, but university's manifold distractions pushed me to a 2AM-10AM schedule. And in high school I was chronically exhausted because I'd stay up playing Counter Strike until 12AM every night (in retrospect this probably also limited my achievement in XC and track...). Of course this is all anecdotal.
There's also the well documented impact of blue/led light on keeping your brain awake. You definitely get into chicken/egg scenarios with playing games all night, but having a clear screen time cut off every night helps me and my family get to sleep on time.
This is what I suspect as well. Having been a teen, it seems very likely that a later start time wouldn't help some people who would just stay up later. Now maybe not as many people would do that, but then the issue is more that they just need to turn off the lights and go to sleep earlier.
With great power comes create responsibility. Artificial light is a powerful thing when it comes to messing with natural sleep rhythms.
Well, the biological rhythm can be impacted by much more than just late-night activities. I'm not talking about short term things like jet lag. I'm thinking more chronic things like insomnia, chronic illness/malnutrition, emotional trauma, etc all come to mind. So it would be unfair to place all the blame on students playing WoW or partying instead of studying, for example.
