As long as i sleep before midnight then everything is cool in the morning.

I have the same issue, if i may call it that. When i was so much younger, in my teens and 20s, that is true. I would often even sleep at 3 or 4am and wake up at 8 am, everything is still fine, i am not sleep nor am i feeling tired. But no that i am 31 yo, i am already feeling a but tired when i sleep past 12 mn. As if waking up at 8am still is lacking! ha ha i don't know about this, i thought as you tend to grow old you are supposed to not need a lot of sleep like the younger ones. ;)

It depends on the demands of your waking life. If you have a hard manuel job then you need more time to recover in order to work well the next day. I used to need 9 hours sleep, now I go to bed late and get 7 but I do have a rest in the afternoons and if I am overtired I will sleep for half an hour. That sets me up for the evening. We all have different sleeping patterns, some people thrive on only a few hours' sleep but they have little cat naps during the day. Florence Nightingale was well known for this when her nursing days were long and hectic.

With me, it's always been going to bed by 1am. like you, I don't need 8 hours of sleep. Even when I was getting up at 6 in the morning to be at work by 8. But I don't know about the 2nd part. i don't know about the second part. i don't think if i sleep for eight yours I'm more tired. It just seems like the later in the morning i get up, the less motivated I am for the rest of the day. I just got unemployed. I still have my alarm go off or I will sleep until ten. Then there's breakfast and before I know it, haalf of the day is gone. So I go to bed at around one and my alarm goes off at 8 and I feel fine.

It is always healthy to achieve 8 hours of sleep everyday but not 8 hours after midnight because if you sleep after midnight 8 hours won't be enough to recover your strength. You will need more sleeping time to recover your normal self. It is actually advisable to have 4 hours of sleep before midnight and another 4 from 12:00 am onward. This is the reason why those who are fond of nightlife and those who are working in graveyard shift can't be as healthy as those who can sleep before midnight.