Who would swim at Five in the morning??

Who says he's been to bed yet?

Faith can move mountains, but dynamite works better.

Most people who are not spending their life watching TV as a main part of their activity are capable of doing that. Also not everyone sleeps 8+ hours per day. The academic people generally sleep less since their life involves a quest which constantly demands brain power.
TV is a great attribute in your sleep pattern. That is simply due to its mechanics. IT is a light source being shined in your eyes. The fatigue from TV is far beyond reading books, writing or tother activities centered on visual. The light emitted from TV does a lot to make your body feel it needs sleep. That is a main reason for people not reading on screen as much as they can on paper.
The second attribute to tiredness is sound, or in general INPUT. Loud music is worse. Any input to your brain has to be processed and filed. If you have sources of input around you at all times then your brain reaches a FULL capacity faster and requires more time to process. Granted most of the data of everyday input is junk and is discarded but it is still processed by your brain to determine that.
Diet is another matter. The more you are fit and eat a regular balanced diet the lesser fatigue you have.

While it is somewhat genetic, I sleep 4-4:30 hours/day. I don't own a TV but the days that I watch movie on computer I can tell the difference in my feeling of being tired. The back of the eyes feeling empty and tense on shoulders.
I generally go to bed around 2 AM, up around 6:30 and work most of the day. Painting on canvas or graphic work on computer. My personal time is generally from 7 PM to midnight-1 AM. I read about an hour before sleep. If I need to get up at 4:30 AM I can easily do that by going to bed by 12AM. Unfortunately, I have no access to a pool that is open that early.

I get up at 2:45 A.M. to go for a run or work out every morning. I leave for work at 4:30 A.M. and then I arrive home at 2:00 P.M. I eat dinner and relax then head to bed at about 7:00 P.M. It took some getting used to, but it's not a bad schedule.

Sorrys, ma'am. I've learnsed a lesson about not ogling cans that I won't soons forgets.

i think everyone can achieve this. it just take time.

years ago, i used to work during the night and day, so i woke up at 7pm , go to work at 10pm and i was back at 8;30am at home. the next week, it was the same thing except i was working at 3pm to 10pm. and the 3rd week, i was working at 7;30am to 3pm.

been like 5 years that i have another job and i still wake up sometime during the night and cant fall asleep.

what a stupid boring thread this has become. Let's all tell everybody else our mundane and boring sleep patterns. Sleep when youre dead, 'nough said

"I rule the Midnight Air, The Destroyer."

I work out most days at 1 to 2 in the morning. I see nothing wrong with running at 5 in the morning let alone swimming.

Are you referring to the opening scene where Prof. Langdon is swimming in a pool?

Is so, he is approached by someone in street clothes, carrying a briefcase, which Langdon immediately identifies as sporting the insignia of the Vatican.

Langdon says something to the effect that "A swim would do you good, it must be five o'clock in the morning in Vatican City."

Now we don't know what city Langdon is in-- although the H on the wall of the pool is probably supposed to make us think it is Cambridge, MA, home of Hahvahd! However, if so, if it is daylight in Cambridge, then Rome should be six hours ahead. Or to put it another way, if it is 5:00 a.m. on Wednesday in Rome, it should have been 11:00 p.m. Tuesday evening in Cambridge.

However, if Langdon was on the West Coast for some reason, it would only have been 8:00 p.m. in LA on Tuesday night. In that case, the sun might still be out and he could be swimming at the end of his work day.