Unless I have to be somewhere for work in the morning, I almost always go to bed at 3:00am, set the alarm for 10:30am, and usually roll out of bed at 11:00am. If I have to be somewhere in the mornings, I usually get in bed about 7 hours before I plan to get up. I've been this way for a while, but it works well for me and my wife because we both spend most of our time at home (I'm a freelancer, and she was a freelancer before currently not working while waiting for the baby to arrive). I get my alone time at night, and she gets hers in the morning. This will all change next month when poopypants arrives!
I couldn't help but notice the time variations from weeknights to weekends. That's not good for your health, according to some research. I've heard that in news reports in the past, but I don't recall the ill effects it supposedly has.
I used to have all sorts of problems sleeping when I thought I needed to go to bed at 10:30pm or something in college (can you tell I wasn't the party type back then?). I used to lay there all night wanting to sleep. Then I figured out that it was because.....I wasn't sleepy!
Nowadays, I am lucky that I have no internal clock. I can go to bed at any time, and will sleep the full 8-9 hours, or whatever I need at the time. On the rare occasion, I can't get to sleep when I go to bed early, but it's rare.
I have found one thing to be true from the article you posted: you have to relax a bit before going to bed. If I work right up until I get in bed at 3am, I will lay there for a while, because my mind is still working on a project or thinking about some other way to do the project. If I take the last hour and watch TV, surf the net, or do something else, it's much better. Oh, and stay out of PRSI before bed.
