Sleep Expert: Making People Work At 9am Is 'Torture'

If putting on pants and dragging yourself to the office at 9am every morning feels like torture, that's because it is, according to leading sleep expert, Dr. Paul Kelley.

In a statement validating every grumpy, early morning comment ever made, Dr. Kelley said, "Making people aged under 55 start work before 9am is akin to 'torture'... it leaves bodies exhausted and stressed. Your liver and your heart have different patterns and you're asking them to shift two or three hours. This is an international issue. Everybody is suffering and they don't have to."

An honorary clinical research fellow at Oxford University's Sleep and Circadian Neuroscience Institute, Dr. Kelley recommends staggered start times at workplaces, perhaps with the 55 and up crowd starting earlier (and leaving earlier, presumably), and everyone else getting a 10am or later start.

The sleep academic said pre-9am work hours only posed a threat to performance until the age of 55, when humans start needing less sleep.

"We've got a sleep-deprived society. It is hugely damaging on the body's systems because you are affecting physical and emotional performance systems in the body."

Nap pods could also do the trick. Just saying.




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Michelle No is an editorial assistant at Supercompressor. She'd like nothing more than to snuggle back into bed with a hot chocolate right now. Follow her on Twitter and Instagram.