I’m pretty old (31) and I still go to bed at 2 am during the week and get up at 9:30. I have to be at work at 10 am but I’m male so I can pull it off ( 5 minutes in the shower, 5 minutes to get dressed and get myself ready, 5 minute drive so I usually still arrive at work early).
On the weekends though, I go to bed around 5 am and sleep in until 1 or 2 in the afternoon.
I get up between 3:30 and 4:00 every day. And I’m usually asleep at 9:00 or so. It’s mostly due to the fact that we just got into the habit of bonding in the morning before work. I take a nap every day. This is my favorite thing about getting older.
I’ve read numerous times that old people need less sleep. I think it’s because they usually expend less energy than they did in their working/child rearing years. I’d bet that very active elders prolly sleep more than the more sedentary ones.
People are different and “old” means different things to different people. My sleeping patterens have changed througout my life due to a lot of factors and I’m sure some of those changes are related to changes in body chemistry. And just like everything else human, some people’s body chemistry changes more than other people’s body chemistry as they age.
It used to be very hard for me to get going upon rising regardless of how many hours of sleep I got. I was a slug-a-bed and what time I went to bed or how long I was there made no difference at all. Now, in my mid-fifties, I wake up and I’m ready to go immediately. Again, it has nothing to do with what time I went to sleep or how long I’ve been sleeping. I’m simply “more awake” when I wake up than I used to be. I don’t “sleep in” because I don’t feel sleepy.
Crap. I nap now, and still can’t stay awake past midnight. I’m 44.
Time was I went to bed around 0300 and woke up around 11 am. I was also unemployed, no kids, and an easy class load. Good times. <sigh>
My grandmother used to sleep until noon–her whole life. She had daily help for her kids, though. No such luck here…
I was always told that sleep as opposed to rest was for the mind to sort out its data input for the previous day.
Higher I.Qs require more sleep(and thats what I told the police and thats what Im going to tell the jury)
Older people need more rest but less sleep.
Teenagers have lots of sleep because they re lazy little sods Harrumph.
'Nother geezer here. (66) For me it’s 7 pm to bed and 6 pm to rise. Sometimes with an hour or two of reading around 2-3 am. I love to sleep, and then watch the sun rise. Early morning also gives me time for hatching plots against the youngsters!
Think I’ll take a nap now…
Kids are different. Everything they eat turns into hair. We do not waste time on such trivial uses of energy.
I always figured once I no longer thought of sex I could use more energy to concentrate on other things. Any day now . It has to come.