Is Rising Early a Virtue or an Ego Trip?

In this success worshipful culture, the fourth great lie may be “I never sleep more than four or five hours a night.” Yet, as this story in the New York Times reveals, many who make that claim take cat naps in the afternoon and sleep away their weekends. More importantly, research shows that the main benefit of rising early may be the self-satisfaction of believing that one is more virtuous that late-sleepers. But for what? The Times points out that reseachers have yet to find a correlation between sleep habits and income, and there are many very successful people who routinely go to bed at three in the morning and sleep until noon. What it comes down to, is seems, is style. That and an unwillingness to buy into the cultural bias against sleeping late.