The Conversation reports that during the chaos of the coronavirus pandemic there is a rare opportunity for many Americans to sleep in.
Besides connecting with those closest to us, many of us can sleep in and organize lives in ways that suit our biological ticker. Larks can go to bed earlier and owls can snooze in. Families can synchronize their meal and play routines in new ways, honoring the time of their internal clock (what chronobiologists call the ‘circadian’ phase’).
For most of our history we slept with one another when our bodies told us too, not by ourselves and only when work allowed. This may be an unprecedented opportunity to embrace a basic human need to switch off on a regular basis, helping human bodies fight the wars only those bodies know how.
