Read a concerning article about sleep and now freaking out!

[dakotasmom]

Hi all,

I haven't had to come around here for a while, I've been managing my anxiety and HA well for months now but now something I read really upset me and here I am...

So I was scrolling through twitter today and saw a friend posted a video about a study that said night owls are 10% more likely to die early than people who are not night owls. This scared me really badly because I've been a night owl all my life (I'm 26) and I work the night shift so it's not like I can just stop being a night owl. I have a hard enough time sleeping as it is now I have to worry about early death on top of that :weep:

Sorry if this has been brought up before I just needed to get this off my chest

[RadioGaGa]

dakotasmom

There is a lengthy post headed your way, so stay tuned

[dakotasmom]

Ok I will be patiently waiting for it

[RadioGaGa]

My personal take on this

In the unlikely event this is true for the sole reason of people being night owls, well my mother and I are both in the same boat as you! And I'll be 26 in August.

I've been a night owl for as long as I can remember. If I had it my way, the working day would start somewhere around 11:00 and end at about 19:00. The ideal bedtime, for me, is around 01:00. But, sadly, the working world doesn't "work" like that, and I have to be in the hospital every morning for 09:00.

My mother is where I got this from. She will sit up watching a film to sometimes as late as 03:00!! And be in work herself for 08:30! And my mum is 58. But, when people meet her they think she's, at oldest 40!! She exercises all the time, her resting pulse is around 52bpm and her blood pressure 100/70. And she's on no meds. Her doctor recently told her how "amazing" she was for her age and told her to keep doing what she's doing. And she gets by, very happily on 4 hours sleep. So perhaps not a "true" night owl, but certainly she's close to it and I sometimes believe she'll outlive me! So certainly in her case it has done her no harm (and she's been surviving on 4 hours sleep since my age).

So far, I also seem to be in good health and it's not negatively impacting me.

All studies have limitations

If this information has come from one study, I'd not lend much weight to it at all. And some people panic "but it was published in a reliable source!". I humbly remind people there are also studies published by reliable publishers that we haven't been to the moon.

Problems could arise from the study size, so if the sample is small it would be challenging to find correlation between the data. Large samples are usually required for this reason.
How reliable is the data given? Could it be affected by "recall bias"? Data people report ("self-reported") can not normally be verified independently.

Who or where did they get the study population? There's a "care home" for very disobedient children in my town. On the outside it looks respectable, and is in a respectable area. But it's one step below borstal. The inhabitants are well-known because they're up all night causing havoc, and are involved with drugs... but the social workers can't do anything to stop it. I think the average age is about 16. So if we took this study sample, yes they would fulfil the night owl criteria - but their drug habits would also have an affect on their longevity. There are other contributing factors, which would need to be ruled out before a correlation could be made.

So yes, although by definition we're both up all night - is there perhaps another lifestyle factor (or factors) that may be contributing to us staying up/our early demise?

I will look for this study tomorrow, but this sounds like the sort of scare-mongering story published by The Sun or the Daily Mail. I really wouldn't lose sleep over this.

I would have posted a much longer response but I am conscious of the fact I'm up in 8 hours for work, and I have a lot more Facebooking/Insta/NMP et al to do :shades:

But bottom line, I wouldn't worry no.

[dakotasmom]

Wow thank you so much for this RadioGaGa!

Your reply has really helped to put my mind at ease, your mom's story has helped me to realize that just because someone stays up late it doesn't mean they're unhealthy! I try to use my rational brain when looking at studies because like you said there's a lot of factors that go into having a reliable study but my anxiety brain took over this time and latched onto it! Here's a link to the study if you're interested in reading it https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/04/180412085736.htm

Thanks again for taking the time to ease my fear I really appreciate it!