I'm just curious really... I have a 20 year old friend who stays with me (in the guest room) sometimes. When he has nothing specific planned for the day he often sleeps in until around 2pm. A former 24 year old housemate also used to sleep in late a lot of the time. Other friends of that age-range often don't seem to surface until at least midday. Is there a specific reason why guys of that sort of age-range need a lot of sleep, and/or tend to have a later sleep pattern? It doesn't seem to be just laziness (my friend here at the moment was sound asleep, not just dozing or half awake messing with his phone, and was in bed by 1am). Thanks, Paul
Given the opportunity, I could sleep for 12 hours easily. My record is 18 straight, after staying up for 40 consecutive hours. It wasn't very fun.. Fact is I'm an architecture major, so I've never had a stable sleep schedule. I average 4 hours of sleep a night, which yeah it's unhealthy but it's necessary - I don't have much choice. I don't do energy drinks though. Staying hydrated with water is essential. But I have this mindset that sleep is a massive waste of time. Sometimes I'll go to sleep at 6pm after class, wake up at midnight and then just do work until 6 pm the next day, maybe taking an hour or 2 nap around 10 am. I've realized that with all the technology we have now, the normal work day doesn't have to restrict when I can or can't sleep. To answer your question, though, I'd assume it has something to do with hormone balance and the fact that it's at an age where the brain is just finishing its adolescent development. On weekends I can sleep forever. But it might just be me catching up on my lost sleep. So I might not be a good example.
Guys about that age need around 8-10 hours of sleep a night to be healthy, and generally they don't get it. I should know, I'm the same way. I've adjusted to getting about four to six hours a night, but it really isn't enough. *shrug*
I can sleep for a long time, but I don't really need to. Its mainly because I don't sleep enough during the week, so I catch up.
As long as I'm getting as much sleep as I need on a regular basis (which is a pretty rare thing, though I seem to be managing it this semester), I sleep about seven or eight hours a night. I am something of an early riser compared to my peers, though definitely a late riser compared to my parents and their peers, and I think going to bed late(ish) is what lets me get away with getting seven hours; I sleep more deeply because I went to bed when I was physically tired. I noticed there were two parts to your question: why do people my age sleep in late, and why do they sleep so much? I think they can be answered by two phenomena (which others have touched upon). One reason we have later sleep patterns is that there's a lot we can do at night that's more engaging than going to bed. We can browse the internet (going on forums like this, seeking out novel media, etc.), play video games, watch TV, and even just text people. All are things that involve screens, which simulate the sun, tricking us into thinking it's still the day time, which keeps us from feeling sleepy (at least, that's what I've heard; I'm just an armchair physician). Tou start doing fun things early in the evening, then you get absorbed in what you're doing, forgetting about sleep, and suddenly it's tomorrow. As for why we sleep in so late, it's probably because people our age often don't get as much sleep as they should. I had one semester where I had to get up at 6:30 AM for class every weekday. That didn't work well with me, because I just do not get tired early enough to go to bed at 10:30 PM. (Hell, I can't remember going to bed on the same calendar day I got up any day in the recent past.) So I was constantly sleep-deprived; I joked towards the end of the semester that I had forgotten what being well-rested felt like, but it really wasn't an exaggeration. So when summer break came, I consistently slept for ten hours a night every night for about a month before moving back down to my usual eight. So what with school, extracurricular commitments, jobs, friends, hobbies, the internet (Tumblr and this website take an obscene amount of time out of my day), we're a busy group, and sleep is what ultimate suffers for it, because it's the least imposing of all of our needs.
When I'm working I usually get around 4-6 hours of sleep. When I have a day off I usually get about 7-9 hours.
It's quite easy to sleep in very late sometimes. Especially if throughout the week or for a few days one has to get up early for work, school, etc. But I think younger people in general sleep in later (or longer) due to the hours they keep. Many people around my age stay up until all hours of the night and most do not get up before noon. Plus, I think technology plays a huge part of it too. They don't want to part with their computers or phones or whatever, so they stay up forever and most likely are talking with people that are in the same situation as they are.
The thing I notice about the guys in their early to mid 20s isn't so much that they sleep a lot. Instead, it's that, given the choice, they'll go to bed/sleep as late as they possibly can, and then get up as late as they possibly can. Speaking in generalities, even if they've got a 9-5 job, come Friday, they'll be out until 2am, and then come home and play video games or whatever until 4 or 5. Then they'll sleep until 2pm, get up, and do it again the next day. Not surprisingly, they tend not to be too insightful Monday morning at work. Lex
When I was that age I used to sleep at least 14 hours a day. I literally went to work, came home and crashed. Now, yes, I was pretty depressed, but I remember reading somewhere where people in their early twenties did indeed demand 10-12 hours of sleep. In my case, I'm notoriously sleepy headed!
Admittedly I'm only in my mid-teens, but I notice among my friends that once the school breaks start, everybody is staying up until 12am or so, and sleeping until at least 10am. Thanks to the flexibility of College/University, people in their early 20s have the option of staying up really late and sleeping in very late. Often, as humans, we find it far easier to cram for something or have an event by having it at night and staying up late, rather than waking up early and doing your activity then. Hence, why people stay up late. It is also a lot easier to stay up later than wake up earlier. Due to the fact that the sun rises no later than 6:45am here, and I'm quite light-sensitive, I generally buck the trend and keep a relatively consistent sleeping pattern vs. school times - the only thing I do is go to bed a bit earlier, or go to bed at the same time and wake up later. If I don't, I get woken by the sun/noise (and I do close my blinds). I might be wrong, but this is the reason why your room mates are staying up late. Because they can. They don't need to sleep earlier, so they don't want to.
I need ten hours of sleep to be fully rested. I can be functional on seven or eight. I sleep a lot more than most of my peers because it simply isn't something I'm physically capable of skipping. I have an extremely difficult time getting out of bed if I haven't had the full ten hours, and even really urgent things may not be enough to get me up.
I would definitely say at least 8-10 hours is healthy. However I don't get that much, usually only about 6 hours but I can function with as little as 4. Most people don't get the correct amount of sleep.
This ^^^ If given the chance, I'll stay up as late as I possibly can. I mean, why go to sleep early when I play video games, listen to music, catch up on that show, or etc? Then I end up sleeping pretty late. A prime example of this is me in my "summer" mode. During the summer I pretty much stay up all night and use the sunrise as my signal that it's time to go to bed. Then I end up sleeping until roughly two or three in the afternoon. I completely despise mornings (6-10 a.m.-ish) so I love being able to completely skip them. This also kinda happens during both winter and spring break. I always end up completely messing up my sleep schedules during these times and it takes me like a month to get it back to normal lol. This is basically whenever I have no school though. When I have school, I tend to try to go to sleep earlier, but this doesn't really turn out too well with my insomnia. So during school I basically go to sleep at 1-2 a.m...or at least attempt to. If we're talking about actual hours of sleep, I will sleep 10-12ish hours if given the chance too. Once I hit the 12 hour mark though, it ends up being too much and I wake up not feeling so well. Because of school though, I roughly get about 4-5 hours of sleep a night depending on the day.
It's true that the younger you are, the more hours of sleep that you should get. The typical teenager needs about 8-10 hours of sleep each night. But what you're talking about (and what Lex sums up nicely) is what might be referred to as Parkinson's law for sleep- Sleep expands so as to fill the time available for its completion. If it's your day off and you don't have a lot of other responsibilities, you'll use the opportunity to sleep as late as possible.
I'm in the latter years of my teens, so I can't speak on behalf of the 20-somethings, but I can pretty much sleep throughout the day if it were an option to me. Last night, I went to sleep at around 1 am-ish and I only woke up at 11 am, so close to 10 hours. Beds are just too comfortable, I think.
For me, I'd give 7 - 9, I have 8 on weekdays 11pm - 7am weekends... heh. bit later 3am - 12pm I'm lazy
