Reddit reviews Sleep and society

Happy to answer, yeah. I may have miscommunicated this point. When I can "free run" with little obligations, I will typically sleep something like 7:00AM/9:00AM until 3:00PM/5:00PM. This would be my "natural chronotype" or my genetically hard-wired sleeping schedule. This is the diagnoses "DSPS" itself that runs in my family.

However, in order to get by in life, I need to go to work, school, the grocery store, the DMV, etc. This means I will normally lie awake in bed for hours, starting around 12:00AM, finally falling asleep at 3:00AM or so, only to have to wake up at 7:00AM. Even though I only had 4 hours of sleep, though, I am still incapable of falling sleep at 9:00PM-10:00PM like a "normal person" would. This is due to the overriding power of my "natural circadian rhythm," the earlier described 7AM-5PM schedule.

This constant state of sleep deprivation leads to anxiety, stress, depression, weakened immune system (and thus illness), and all kinds of social consequences, like losing friendships and job opportunities.

And this is the frustrating part - if the DMV were open at 3AM and bosses just accepted that I did my work from home in the middle of the night, there would be nothing "disabling" about my condition. And while I know many people who have found successful living arrangements to accommodate their hard-wired sleep schedule, I know many more who cannot hold down jobs, who are scorned by their family for being "lazy," and who have lost many friends and resources because of their inability to participate in daytime life.

So to answer your question, in a world with minimal stresses, I would likely sleep my "natural rhythm," somewhere between 7AM-5PM. Much like I do now, I would just spend my time on hobbies and my research, and it works out well because I wake up about the time everyone gets off work, so I can still maintain a social life. The bank has the worst business hours ever, though, and my classes start at 9AM, so I still have to strike a balance between my preferred schedule and being constantly sleep deprived. I have been hoping to try our biphasic sleeping, or sleeping in two smaller blocks during the day, but am not in a place in life where I can try this.

Thanks for asking, I rarely get a chance to talk about the finer details of my sleeping disorder. Here are some further book suggestions for you. Let me know what your professor says, I'd love to hear about it. What kind of class is this for?

24/7: Late Capitalism and the Ends of Sleep (2013) by Johnathan Crary

Sleep Around the World: Anthropological Perspectives (2013) ed. Glaskin and Chenhall

Sleep and Society: Sociological Ventures into the (Un)Known (2005) by Simon Williams

At Day's Close: Night in Times Past (2006) by Roger Ekirch