'Western society is chronically sleep deprived'

I have to wonder how often the problem is bedtime, rather than wake-up time. In the past year or two I've come to the realization that part of my own inability to get a good night's rest is because my body really does function best when I go to bed at 3am (and consequently wake up at 11), a behavior that I had always thought of as aberrant due to social perception and the realities of maintaining an office job.

I still have the office job and I'm still chronically sleep deprived, but I'm less anxious about allowing myself an extra half hour in the evenings to blow off steam when I "should" be sleeping, now that I think of an early bedtime as one end of a compromise I'm making with myself rather than as a personal virtue that I'm forever failing to uphold.