"My bad. I was sleeping."

Whenever people hear you work night shift, it's basically the first thing they ask--  "But when do you sleep?"

You would think the question would get old.  Yet, somehow, it never does.  One of the recurring topics at work is sleep.  How much we slept, or when we slept, or what we managed to productively get done, instead of sleeping.  All while we are chainsmoking, popping caffeine pills, or drinking energy drinks--  as needed.

I assume this is a Maslow's hierarchy thing, sleep being a basic need.  When you don't have one of the lowest-tier needs, it's your focus. 

Most of us sleep several hours a day, somewhere between 2 and 6.  Some of us split the sleep into a short "post-work" sleep, and a "late afternoon" sleep; some of us just wait til around 2 or 3 PM then sleep as long as we can; some of us have no pattern whatsoever.  I've recently started sleeping from "after I take a shower and chill awhile" til "about 1 pm," which comes out to about 4 hours.  Assuming I didn't stay late.  Or go home early and go running--  there's NOTHING like the pre-sunlight hours for running.

Then, every few days, or whenever our bodies finally go for it, we will sleep for a vast, VAST amount of time.  Like, 6-10 hours.  Vast!  In a way, it's good, since you get some rest.  But at the same time, you get used to having 20 waking hours per day, a luxury of time for all your interests and hobbies.  Time for work, downtime, working out, playing piano, eating lunch, going to the park, shopping, seeing friends, playing online, discovering new artists on Spotify.  Half of which you sacrifice, if you are able to sleep that day.  The 20-hour-day becomes your new standard, and the days where you "lazily oversleep" are an infringement on your funtimes.