First physical evidence of why you're an owl or a lark
newscientist.com
First physical evidence of why you're an owl or a lark
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Re: First physical evidence of why you're an owl or a lark
#2I used to think of myself as an owl. I'd hate getting up in the mornings and my most productive hours were somewhere between 11pm and 3am.
I actively started changing my habits a few years ago, meaning I changed my diet to high-fibre+high-protein+high-(good)fat+low-carbs, stopped drinking alcohol cold turkey, get up earlier (~5am) before work to work out and go to sleep earlier (~10pm). This has worked wonders for me, I'm always energised and never drowsy during the day, sleep like a rock and needless to say am much healthier overall.
People think of me as a morning person now, which is probably right although it's weird after having lived like an owl for years. I believe for most people this boils down to habit and changing those is hard. An owl-ish life might not be bad for everybody but from my experience it's very taxing on health and social life and the mental state.
In my case having a regular job and kids certainly gave incentive (aka left not many options) to transform into a lark, but most people can probably do it - if they really want to.
Re: First physical evidence of why you're an owl or a lark
#3This is a horrible title; neither the study referenced nor the body of the article itself makes the claim of a physical cause for being a morning or night person.
The study just says that there were white matter “differences in the frontal and temporal lobes, cingulate gyrus and corpus callosum” of the night owl participants compared to the rest of the study participants.
The first author suggests this might be a result of night owls suffering from “permanent jet lag” — i.e. that the cause goes exactly the opposite way the title suggests. Of course, the study doesn't say that, it's just an educated guess.
Re: First physical evidence of why you're an owl or a lark
#4"For example, research published last month suggests that night owls who cut their exposure to artificial light and boosted their exposure to sunlight found their body clocks shifted towards earlier waking and sleeping"
Where I live there is not much sunlight except for a few months in a year. So I get up at 10:40, hopefully get to work at noon, go to sleep at 2AM. And don't feel so well.
Re: First physical evidence of why you're an owl or a lark
#5I'm still not sure what the benefits of waking up and being functional early are, besides a societal one.
Ignoring my possible work relations, what difference does it make if I respond to emails at 3pm, have breakfast at 5, work until 10, eat again, work until 2am, relax until the sun comes up, and sleep to do it again.
Again, society doesn't work this way and many times there are adjustments to account for this (early meetings, spending time with friends and family, etc.), but is early intrinsically better?
Re: First physical evidence of why you're an owl or a lark
#6"For example, research published last month suggests that night owls who cut their exposure to artificial light and boosted their exposure to sunlight found their body clocks shifted towards earlier waking and sleeping" Where I live there is not much sunlight except for a few months in a year. So I get up at 10:40, hopefully get to work at noon, go to sleep at 2AM. And don't feel so well.
Any chance of moving elsewhere?
Re: First physical evidence of why you're an owl or a lark
#7I used to think of myself as an owl. I'd hate getting up in the mornings and my most productive hours were somewhere between 11pm and 3am. I actively started changing my habits a few years ago, meaning I changed my diet to high-fibre+high-protein+high-(good)fat+low-carbs, stopped drinking alcohol cold turkey, get up earlier (~5am) before work to work out and go to sleep earlier (~10pm). This has worked wonders for me…
I'm in a similar place. I was definitely, emphatically an "owl" and absolutely convinced there was some genetic reason. I would always struggle to wake up but feel really productive in the late evening/early morning. If I tried to maintain a regular sleeping pattern, it would just drift later and later every night until it stopped at about 4/5am. And this has been the case all my adult life since I was a teenager.
However, like you, I just decided to actively change that. I set an alarm to go to bed. Always in bed before 1am, preferably midnight. And it was a miserable month or so getting used to that. But now it's great and I'm actually still in shock that it's worked so well. Mornings are productive again! In a way I never thought they could be. And I've had a healthy amount of weight loss as a side benefit too. It's like what all those sleep researchers were saying was actually true :) [i.e. practice good sleep hygiene and the rest will fall into place]
> An owl-ish life might not be bad for everybody but from my experience it's very taxing on health and social life and the mental state.
And definitely agreed with this, at least for me. But I felt like it was the only way I could be productive and do my best work at the time, but now I know this isn't the case anymore.
Re: First physical evidence of why you're an owl or a lark
#8I used to think of myself as an owl. I'd hate getting up in the mornings and my most productive hours were somewhere between 11pm and 3am. I actively started changing my habits a few years ago, meaning I changed my diet to high-fibre+high-protein+high-(good)fat+low-carbs, stopped drinking alcohol cold turkey, get up earlier (~5am) before work to work out and go to sleep earlier (~10pm). This has worked wonders for me…
Counter anecdote. Night owl here. I was in the army. Forced wake up with no way to stay in bed at 6am or earlier, lights out midnight or earlier (in general - every couple of weeks we would stay up later for something or skip sleep altogether.
Most of my mates would be asleep 3 seconds before hitting the pillow; the other self-proclaimed night owls would take 15 minutes to fall asleep. I rarely fell asleep before 3 am.
After about 4 weeks, I exhausted whatever reserves there were, and started falling asleep at every opportunity during the day (good or not, sometimes while standing up, often instead of eating). After another couple of months, I was able to function with a couple of 15 minute power naps.
This lasted for 8 month until I managed to get a different assignment. Food wasn't according to your plan, but otherwise, I was forced into larking for a reasonably long time. My eyesight deteriorated, and health otherwise declined - but I remained owl throughout
Re: First physical evidence of why you're an owl or a lark
#9I used to think of myself as an owl. I'd hate getting up in the mornings and my most productive hours were somewhere between 11pm and 3am. I actively started changing my habits a few years ago, meaning I changed my diet to high-fibre+high-protein+high-(good)fat+low-carbs, stopped drinking alcohol cold turkey, get up earlier (~5am) before work to work out and go to sleep earlier (~10pm). This has worked wonders for me…
Counter anecdote. Night owl here. I was in the army. Forced wake up with no way to stay in bed at 6am or earlier, lights out midnight or earlier (in general - every couple of weeks we would stay up later for something or skip sleep altogether. Most of my mates would be asleep 3 seconds before hitting the pillow; the other self-proclaimed night owls would take 15 minutes to fall asleep. I rarely fell asleep before 3 a…
Very well possible. This sounds very much like my time at the military, though. Down to the point where I took naps throughout the day whenever I could.
In my case I'm quite sure the main driver was not because I forced a different schedule onto myself, but the dietary changes and probably the excercise.
Of course it's very possible that you are just "more of an owl" (by whatever definition) than I was.
Re: First physical evidence of why you're an owl or a lark
#10All the data I have is anecdotal but here it is: I'm an owl. I do not experience worse sleep compared to normal people, and in my experience my sleep pattern seems to work better than most larks. The things the article attributes to owls are not problems I'm suffering from, but on the contrary some of my lark or normal friends do have them, including unusual tiredness during the day. I usually don't consume tobacco or alcohol (only on certain social occasions).
I'm also fortunate in that I have some brain MRIs of mine and in my opinion there is no marked reduction in white matter anywhere. I do not have the feeling that I'm suffering from permanent jet lag, though I must admit that I seldomly experience jet lag at all (which I guess could mean I have it all the time without noticing it somehow).
And here comes the most poignant bit of the article:
"It's interesting that there are individual differences, but we need
to understand what is causing them and find ways of creating environments
in which those differences can be attenuated," says Dirk-Jan Djik