Numerous studies have shown that when we need sleep is as genetic as our height.  Getting enough sleep is important for everyone, but telling me when I should be sleeping is totally inappropriate.  There was a great article in the NY Times about a year ago on this.  Some people are better staying up late, while others are better going to be early -- the thinking is this goes back to the cave-person days when some people had to stay up at night to stand watch, so we evolved to have this kind of internal clock.  Telling a late night person to go to bed early is like telling them to grow taller.

I need 8-9 hours of sleep, and it's best when I go to sleep between 12 and 1 am.  My body definitely has a clock, and if I go to a new time zone for even a few days, I still end up falling asleep at the same clock time.

Western medicine seems to try to fit everyone into the same mold, but we are all different.  I find that most of what Dr. Mercola says takes this into account -- finding my metabolic type and eating for it has made a huge difference in my life.  However, he takes two steps backwards when telling me I should get to bed early.  Understand that like with food, we have different sleep requirements and optimal health starts with understanding yourself and that your needs can be vastly different from the next person....

As the hours of daylight/darkness change throughout the year, so does the "clock" time of midnight (halfway between sundown and sunup), so 10-12 PM has to be calculated by proportional hours, not the clock.  Clock time is an abstract which our bodies do not know about. ...

Kim, I can totally sympathize with you. I have been that way since I was a baby and as an adult finally came to terms with the fact that my circadian rhythm is just not in sync with the rest of the world. It's something known as Delayed Sleep Phase Syndrome. If you really want to shift your sleep cycle, you will need to use light therapy, and you will need to be strict about your sleep habits. My normal sleep cycle (if left to my own devices) would have be going to sleep around 3am and sleeping until noon, when I will wake up totally refreshed and ready for the day. But, using light therapy, I can shift my cycle to have me going to bed by 11pm and waking at 7am. I was relieved to have participated in a study at NIH about this some years ago, and to discover that this was just part of my physiology, and not a problem of discipline. When my daughter was born, everyone told me that I would have to change, but fortunately, she seems to have inherited my tendencies, so nursing through the night was never a problem. If your child is waking early in the morning, and you need to wake too, then look into trying the various forms of light therapy to help shift your cycle, and then stick to it regularly....

It is amazing how we tend to skimp on sleep. Everything else seems more important. there was a time I needed at least 9 hours per day to reduce stress and prevent some serious conditions from flairing up. Now with improved health perspectives, I am able to get along with about 8 hours for optimal health....

Has anyone found out that they need  less sleep overall once they start going to sleep by 10? As in, their sleep quality improves overall and thus they can naturally need less sleep. I currently average about 7.5 hours of sleep and do not use an alarm clock and have a job that starts later, so I can sleep in when I need a little more sleep. I follow all the secrets of a good night sleep that apply to me (except of course, the going to bed at 10 part.). I am a 22 year old female with no serious health concerns and I follow many of the suggestions on this website.

Thanks ahead of time if anyone has a comment.
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Duane -
I would agree that there are many personal variables with regards to sleep habits.  However, I just want to throw in for discussion the Chinese medicine form, which states that specific detox processes occur during the hours of 10pm and 2am.  They cannot work efficiently, or at all in the case of someone who is awake and active or eating during those hours, if we are not in a decent REM cycle at that point.  I have always been a "night person" myself, but have found as I trained myself to follow the natural rhythms of the sun and moon, nature, in the long run I do better.

That being said, it's important to get sleep with whatever pattern works for you.  Better to get sleep outside that time period of 10 and 2 than none or poor quality sleep....