It's not just emergency workers who endure perma-lag (Image: Ken Schles/Gallery Stock)
Read more: "The night: The nocturnal journey of body and mind"
SOMETIMES, there just aren't enough hours in the day. Most of us have pulled an all-nighter at one time or another. There are even those who make a habit of it: Thomas Edison reputedly worked without sleep for days on end when in the throes of invention, as did his arch-rival, Nikola Tesla.
But for most of us, pushing on past bedtime takes real effort. Our body's master clock – a collection of about 50,000 neurons in the brain's suprachiasmatic nucleus – responds to external cues, such as light, and coordinates the cellular clocks in our organs and muscles. It influences the rhythms of our autonomic system and spurs our endocrine system to secrete hormones associated with everything from sleepiness to stress – and ...
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