Is all sleep created equal

[rickastlen]

For the purposes of recovery, would all sleep be just as good? Like, say you go to bed at 6 because you wanted to be up at 4:30 the next day, but you couldn't get to sleep until 12. But the next day, you didn't work and took a 5 hour long nap after you got back home. Is this just as good as 8 hours of uninterrupted sleep?

[Rob Waskis]

Uninterrupted is better, but get as much sleep as you can any way you can get it.

[Buckn]

The body needs some time to reach the deepest level of sleep which brings the best recovery, at least for general purposes. I'm guessing it's the same for strength recovery. Longer periods of sleep = better recovery.

[FatButWeak]

I have heard it said that every hour of sleep BEFORE midnight is worth two after midnight. YMMV

[Dabs]

It's really hard to sleep when you have a baby in the same room that cries in the middle of the night. But that's life.

[fatbencher]

It's really hard to sleep when you have a baby in the same room that cries in the middle of the night. But that's life.

Tell your husband to sleep on the couch. Problem solved.

[stejor]

I have heard it said that every hour of sleep BEFORE midnight is worth two after midnight. YMMV

I also hear this all the time, from people whose opinions I respect. However, it doesn't really make much sense to me. Assuming you have blackout shades so you're not getting exposed to light as soon as the sun rises, what's the biological difference between sleeping from 10 to 6 and from 2 to 10? My suspicion is that people who go to sleep later probably also tend to be drinking, sleeping less, and doing other things that would impact recovery. Therefore, a late sleep time would be correlated with poor recovery, but necessarily causing it. Anyone have data to refute or support my hypothesis?