Starting work before 10am isn’t just soul crushing, this scientist says it’s equivalent to torture
According to Dr. Paul Kelley of Oxford University, the most prevalent form of modern torture looks like this
Dr. Kelley and a research team at the Sleep and Circadian Institute have studied and developed a conclusion, that it violates the natural circadian rhythm of the human body to wake up every day for work at 9 AM.
As they point out, the rhythms that regulate human energy levels, brainwave activity and hormone production are directly connected to the light cycles of the planet, not the industrial, factory oriented, 9-5 mentality of the 1800s. Though the 8 hour work day was implemented by factory owners in the late 1800s and seemed to increase productivity for the corporation, it was not a plan, tried and true, for those that wake up and live a modern lifestyle that often includes thinking.
As Kelley told the British Science Festival in Bradford, “We’ve got a sleep deprived society.” He put his theory to the test when moving a British school's start time from 8:30 to 10am and saw grades improve by an average of 19%.
Companies that force employees to start earlier than 10am are putting stress on the emotional and physical systems of the workers, causing increased number of sick days and a lower quality of work. It is also notoriously why Americans spend $40 billion on coffee annually, averaging over 3 9oz cups a day.
As Kelly puts it, "this is an international issue. Everybody is suffering and they don’t have to.”
