Science says: we are not made for a 9-to-5 workday

The alarm went off and I threw myself on top of my phone to turn it off, because goodness, why was that thing going off on a Saturday? The explanation was more logical than I thought: it was Thursday. I was running late too, because in an hour I had to start lifting weights at the gym. Believe me: that’s not how you want to start your day.

But how is that possible? You would think that my internal clock understands that today is really Thursday, that a workweek consists of at least five days, and that after eight hours of sleep I should wake up a bit refreshed. None of this happened. I put my sports pants on inside out, spilled my coffee on my sweater, and then forgot another hundred things I should have done. What I said: not smooth.

Research from the New York Times, and double-checked by NRC so true, shows that I am not alone. I had to violently wake my boyfriend from his sleep, I was there myself, but the rest of the Netherlands is also struggling with clocks and alarms. The sleep experts even say that if you have to wake up to an alarm, you actually haven’t slept enough.

Ahaa, that was what was going on this morning. I really went to bed around eleven, but my boyfriend has the habit of only waking up then, so you have to discuss everything for a bit. To let the day go nicely, I grabbed a book and by the time my beloved called that I had to turn off the light, it was already half past twelve. At a quarter to seven, my phone started blaring, which meant I had only slept for seven hours and a quarter. That brings my social jetlag to forty-five minutes, according to the research. Yes, yes, yes, a social jetlag is the difference in the time between when you should wake up and when you actually wake up. I had no idea I had one.

But there is a solution. You should adjust your workday to what chronotype you are. This chronotype indicates whether you perform better in the morning or in the evening. They determine this by looking at your weekday sleep rhythm and around what time you wake up on the weekend. Now, for me, it’s a fixed routine between eight and nine on a day off, which means I start getting into work mode around ten and eleven. That actually seems like an excellent start to the day. May, what about you?

P.S.: By the way, sleeping also makes you smarter; two birds with one stone.

P.P.S.: If you sleep, you might as well do it naked, because that is healthier.

P.P.S.: But too much sleep is detrimental for our brains.