Early Rising Tied to Heart Problems

One confounding variable is that sleep lab studies show there really are morning people and night people. Interesting point. That classification may not hold true when you look at parameters such as platelet aggregability, vasomotor tone, fibrinogen levels, etc., all of which are increased (at least in the general population) in the morning hours.

I thought I read somewhere that waking up naturally (without an alarm clock) is more heathy than the suddenness of the alarm. I'm a 6am workout swimmer, I get up at 4:50. Some mornings, especially in summer, I will actually wake up just a few minutes before the alarm. And sleeping until 7am does seem like sleeping in, although I usually get up around 6 on weekends for a run.

Gull - how about those who live in the north. Very short days. I was in Yellowknife the NWT northern Canada I worked there for a few years. The sun in the winter came up very late was up for a couple of hours and then set. On the other hand in the summer the sun set and a couple of hours later it came up. The people who lived there had very short life spans.

I thought I read somewhere that waking up naturally (without an alarm clock) is more heathy than the suddenness of the alarm. I haven't used an alarm in years and like you, on the rare ocassions that I do set one, I'll wake up before it goes off. I also swim (most days) at 6:00 am. I usually wake up around 5:00. The only time this program gets messed up is when the time changes to daylight time in the spring. It will take a week or so before I get re-adjusted and start waking up on time again.

I get up at 4:30 for a 5:00 am practice. I went to the 8:00 pm practice once because of travel and missing practice the next morning, and all I could think during the whole practice was that I should be getting ready for bed. My job requires me to come in every once in a while to monitor a release of new programs into production. The times we have come in vary. Lately it has been at 11:00 PM on Friday nights, but a few years ago, we would come in at 3:00 am on Sunday mornings. Even before I began swimming again, I much preferred the Sunday morning to Friday night releases. My husband is a night person (also a runner :shakeshead:). After I have been up for several hours on a Saturday morning, I watch him stumble to the kitchen for his coffee and I think "that is exactly how I feel after 10:00 at night". That observation confirmed to me that I was a morning person (like I didn't already know :whiteflag:). I am another who feels like sleeping until 7:00 is sleeping in. Some weekends I wake up naturally at 5:30 (I would rather sleep until 7:00). :coffee:

The story said sleep deprivation is what is leading to heart disorders. So if you're getting eight hours of sleep each night, you should be OK. Other studies have definitely linked lack of sleep with a higher risk of heart disease. I can't stand these health reports. So many confounders...Did the authors adjust for other risk factors? What was the distribution of age? When did the participants go to bed? What was their overall level of fitness? What was their basal temperature when they rose earlier? Getting up at 6 is different than getting up at 4:30. Keep swimming!!!

The only time this program gets messed up is when the time changes to daylight time in the spring. It will take a week or so before I get re-adjusted and start waking up on time again. For some reason, most of Arizona doesn't do daylight time, we're on MST year-round. So in the summer, the sun rises very early. Whenever the rest of the country switches, it gets debated here, but nothing gets done. I do notice more traffic on the freeway after the fall switch, since our call centers have to adjust their start/end times to everyone else.

I wonder what is worse, getting up at 4:45 am working out for 1.5 hours daily or sitting on your behind, munching on doritos and krispy kremes, weighing 290 like most Americans, getting no exercise but sleeping in? I'll take my chances.

Gotta watch out for health reports without all the details!! I remember maybe 10 years ago a study came out that showed that children who slept (since they were babies) with a nightlight were more likely require glasses. Turns out that the study did not account for genetics. Upon further review, parents who wore glasses were more likely to use nightlights so they could see their children! Go figure, the kids with parents who wore glasses were more likely to wear glasses themselves!

My husband is a night person (also a runner ). After I have been up for several hours on a Saturday morning, I watch him stumble to the kitchen for his coffee and I think "that is exactly how I feel after 10:00 at night". And I thought all FAFs were nightowls ... :shakeshead: I guess you see a lot of that runner hubby. :lmao: I slept until 9:00 am once over the Labor Day weekend. It was so blissful.