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Comment by QasimK | Hacker News Reader

I don’t think the article is talking about sleeping for one hour less. It has examples saying “go to sleep one hour earlier; wake up one hour earlier” - so the same amount of sleep.

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How this reconcile with the school that says people have a natural sleep pattern? For example I cannot fall asleep earlier than 2am. I was actually depressed because of everyone telling me I have to go to bed at 11pm or even earlier and that made me feel sad that I just couldn't. Only through a therapy I learned that it is perfectly okay to go to sleep at 2am. I also found out that in my case I only need 6 hours of sleep max. I was very sad that I almost never had the mythical 8 hours of sleep.

The abstract just says people genetically inclined to wake up early are less likely to have major depressive disorder.

The full text says their data are consistent recent randomized clinical trial that shifted the sleep timing of individuals with an evening diurnal preference.[1] But that study seems to be about making an unnatural schedule more bearable.[2] It should be compared to accommodating people's natural sleep cycles.

[1] https://www.gwern.net/docs/genetics/correlation/2021-daghlas...

[2] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31202686/

So isn't that a common sense? If you are inclined to wake up later than the society expects of you, then you are likely to be depressed because of the pressure?

> that shifted the sleep timing of individuals with an evening diurnal preference

> But that study seems to be about making an unnatural schedule more bearable.

That's sounds like something akin to telling a depressed person "why can't you just be happy?" and then making them watch comedy?

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