Extreme ‘Larks’ Wake Up When Extreme ‘Owls’ Fall Asleep

Our sleep behavior is much more than expressions of ‘night owl’ or ‘morning bird’. Forcing out of bed to go to work or school is not your fault. It’s your chronotype. Whether we wake up before our alarm or stay awake late at night is related to our chronotypes. So, what is chronotype? Chronotype describes whether you are a morning person or an evening person. Its field of study is Chronobiology. Our chronotype is determined primarily by our genes. However, aging and environmental factors also play a role [2]. Unfortunately, business systems and some schools are geared towards morning people.

To briefly categorize the chronotypes, we can divide them into three a morning type, an intermediate type, and an evening type. Morning types are people who wake up at sunrise and are active in the morning. Intermediate types are people who wake up later than morning types and they are active in the afternoon. Evening types are people who wake up later than others and they are active at night. So how can we learn that? You can learn with studies using actigraphy devices or more commonly with questionnaires.

Figure 1: Categories chronotypes

Each chronotype has some specific features. There are some examples here.

  • In a study with university students, smoking and alcohol use probability is higher in evening types than in morning types and intermediate types [3].
  • If we want to examine depression in chronotypes, people with the evening chronotypes are more prone to depression [4]                                             
  • So is there any relation between chronotype and mating? According to an interesting study, Males with the evening chronotype are more successful in mating [5].
  • Morning types are more successful in morning lessons, evening types are more successful in evening lessons and it is the same for intermediate types. In other words, efficiency increases if students attend classes to suit their chronotype [6].

We all live in a different rhythms. Even if we wake up at the same time and do the same things, we cannot be the same people. We cannot get the same efficiency.

To sleep better… For a healthier life… For a more stress-free life… For a more successful life… For better relationships… For a better you… 

We must live with the awareness of our chronotype. If you try to get up before the sun every Monday and fail the next day, stop doing this. Or if you’re studying late at night for your exams, stop doing this. And do what’s best for yourself. Know yourself. Respect yourself. Never mind other successful people. Write your own success story aware of your chronotype.

References:

  1. Roenneberg, T., Wirz-Justice, A., & Merrow, M. (2003). Life between clocks: daily temporal patterns of human chronotypes. Journal of biological rhythms18(1), 80-90.
  2. Urbán, R., Magyaródi, T., & Rigó, A. (2011). Morningness-eveningness, chronotypes and health-impairing behaviors in adolescents. Chronobiology international28(3), 238-247.
  3. Adan A, Sánchez-Turet M. (1995). Smoking effects on diurnal variations of cardiovascular parameters. Int. J. Psychophysiol. 20:189–198. 
  4. Gaspar-Barba, E., Calati, R., Cruz-Fuentes, C. S., Ontiveros-Uribe, M. P., Natale, V., De Ronchi, D., & Serretti, A. (2009). Depressive symptomatology is influenced by chronotypes. Journal of affective disorders119(1-3), 100-106
  5. Randler, C. (2014). Sleep, sleep timing and chronotype in animal behaviour. Animal Behaviour94, 161-166.
  6. Wittmann, M., Dinich, J., Merrow, M. & Roenneberg, T. Social jetlag: misalignment of biological and social time. Chronobiol. Int. 23, 497–509 (2006)
  7. Refinetti, R. (2019). Focus: Clocks and Cycles: Chronotype Variability and Patterns of Light Exposure of a Large Cohort of United States Residents. The Yale Journal of Biology and Medicine92(2), 179.
  8. Roenneberg, T., Kumar, C. J. & Merrow, M. The human circadian clock entrains to sun time. Curr. Biol. 17, R44–R45 (2007).

 Figure References:

  1. Chronotype of people stock vector.Illustration of clock 130404344
  2. Adapted from Roenneberg and Merrow, 2007.

Inspector: Furkan AYDIN

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