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First physical evidence of why you're an owl or a lark

newscientist.com

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Re: First physical evidence of why you're an owl or a lark

#31

Post by flatfilefan »

tifareth wrote: post #16
flatfilefan wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have heard a permanent jet lag explanation by a longer than 24h daily biological clock cycle. So a person has 8 hours sleep and can go on for 18 hours before she is tired.

This is my life, every single day. In order to maintain a semi-regular sleep pattern, conking out for a full-night's rest is not optional because the following night I -will not- sleep. Case in point - I have to be up in five hours for work. I went to sleep two and a half hours ago and I'm still awake. Oftentimes, it feels like the worst kind of torture. I am living in two worlds and in one, I am barely better than a…

A lesser evil might be to wake up every time an hour or two earlier than what would have been natural. This way you would be tired in the following evening. Almost guaranteed.

Re: First physical evidence of why you're an owl or a lark

#33

Post by kbajorin »

Udo wrote: post #10

All 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 o…

You've missed the point. This is not about those that live healthy lives as nightowls, but those that do not. Can we attenuate the differences among the owls to figure out why some are unhealthy and others are not. Furthermore, can we figure out the attributes that larks have, that on the whole seem to make them healthier than owls. Then, maybe we can adjust the lifestyles of the unhealthy larks to have them lead a healthier life.

Re: First physical evidence of why you're an owl or a lark

#34

Post by alan_cx »

LaGrange wrote: post #30
jameswburke wrote: post #5

I'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 (ear…

One word: sunlight.

Which you can still get while asleep, which possibly compares well to people who work all day in only artificial light in big buildings.

Re: First physical evidence of why you're an owl or a lark

#35

Post by Udo »

kbajorin wrote: post #33
Udo wrote: post #10

All 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 o…

You've missed the point. This is not about those that live healthy lives as nightowls, but those that do not. Can we attenuate the differences among the owls to figure out why some are unhealthy and others are not. Furthermore, can we figure out the attributes that larks have, that on the whole seem to make them healthier than owls. Then, maybe we can adjust the lifestyles of the unhealthy larks to have them lead a h…

> This is not about those that live healthy lives as nightowls, but those that do not. Can we attenuate the differences among the owls to figure out why some are unhealthy and others are not.

That's not what the article is suggesting, and attenuating differences to figure out the differences makes absolutely no sense, not even semantically. The attenuation of differences in this context means that the intent is to standardize the populace, nothing more, nothing less.

> Furthermore, can we figure out the attributes that larks have, that on the whole seem to make them healthier than owls.

And I'm pretty sure I said I don't believe certain points the article claims at face value. I don't think you can call this incredulity "missing the point". This assertion that larks are healthier than owls, which seems to be at the bottom of all this, should at least have more empirical data behind it (preferably gathered by people with less bias).

> Then, maybe we can adjust the lifestyles of the unhealthy larks to have them lead a healthier life.

Now you're just contradicting your own comment. Did you maybe mean to say "owls" there?

Re: First physical evidence of why you're an owl or a lark

#36

Post by liotier »

galaktor wrote: post #9
beagle3 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> 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.

The ability to take naps anywhere whenever the occasion rises is a core military skill - soldiers never know when the next sleep opportunity will occur...

Re: First physical evidence of why you're an owl or a lark

#37

Post by MarcusVorenus »

weland wrote: post #11
galaktor wrote: post #2

I 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: I also tried to shift from my extreme night owl schedule to something more reasonable, particularly due to social reasons. I struggled with it for four years -- including dietary change, workouts and alcohol abstinence, and eventually gave up. I managed to get myself into the lark schedule three or four times for various periods of time (2-3 weeks minimum, about 6-7 months in the longest streak) but…

Consider sleeping with the curtains open, your circadian rhythm is sure to shift to a lark schedule then.

Re: First physical evidence of why you're an owl or a lark

#38

Post by LaGrange »

alan_cx wrote: post #34
LaGrange wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One word: sunlight.

Which you can still get while asleep, which possibly compares well to people who work all day in only artificial light in big buildings.

For vitamin D, sure, but not for other psychology-related issues. The problem with office workers not getting enough sunlight is very real, though, especially in winter months.

Re: First physical evidence of why you're an owl or a lark

#39

Post by tokenadult »

The reported study doesn't deliver what the headline promises, because the study design doesn't show the direction of causation. A cross-sectional study with one date of observation of adult behavior, like this one, cannot show whether brain differences cause the sleep pattern differences, or whether the sleep pattern differences cause the brain differences. The human brain is reshaped and rewired by experience--that's what the brain is for, adapting to the environment--so it's not clear what causes what here. See the online article "Warning Signs in Experimental Design and Interpretation" by LISP hacker and Google director of research Peter Norvig[1] for more information on missing details to look for in preliminary reports on research studies.

[1] http://norvig.com/experiment-design.html

Re: First physical evidence of why you're an owl or a lark

#40

Post by [deleted] »

MarcusVorenus wrote: post #37
weland wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Counter-anecdote: I also tried to shift from my extreme night owl schedule to something more reasonable, particularly due to social reasons. I struggled with it for four years -- including dietary change, workouts and alcohol abstinence, and eventually gave up. I managed to get myself into the lark schedule three or four times for various periods of time (2-3 weeks minimum, about 6-7 months in the longest streak) but…

Consider sleeping with the curtains open, your circadian rhythm is sure to shift to a lark schedule then.

[deleted]
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