Do you find it difficult to get up in the morning and then grow more alert as the day goes on? Are you at your most alive and energetic in the evening?
If so, you probably have the chronotype of a ‘night owl’ as opposed to a ‘morning lark'. This means your circadian rhythms are such that your optimal time of functioning is later in the day.
If you've been following the science news about the implications of being a night owl, the messaging has tended to be rather demoralising.
Over the last couple of decades, a slew of studies has suggested that larks tend to be happier than owls; that owls are more vulnerable to depression and other mental health difficulties; and even that night owls are more likely to exhibit so-called dark-triad personality traits, such as psychopathy and narcissism.
Added to that, you might have heard the productivity gurus preaching that to get ahead in life, you should do things like rise earlier in the morning and get your most important work done early in the day.
None of this comes easy to night owls. However, there are things you can do to help if your habits veer towards the nocturnal.
And if you are a night owl, you'll be pleasantly surprised to hear the findings from a huge new British study involving data from two cohorts featuring tens of thousands of people.
Led by researchers at Imperial College in London, the results showed that people with a night owl chronotype had "superior" cognitive function compared with their early-rising counterparts.
As the researchers put it: "Morning types consistently showed the lowest cognitive scores in both cohorts, with scores improving for intermediate types and reaching higher levels for evening types".
The study can't speak to why night owls aced the cognitive tests, but one interpretation is that people with this chronotype have a mental edge, if only they're given the chance to perform at a time that suits them.
Unfortunately, as you've probably noticed, society is often not so obliging – many of us are forced to comply with the early morning routines of employers, teachers and others, whether it's that online Zoom meeting with international colleagues at the crack of dawn or school assembly held at 9am on the dot.
Being forced to behave against your chronotype in this way causes what experts call ‘social jetlag’. All of this raises the question of how you can best adapt as a night owl in a world that sometimes can seem as if it's ruled by larks.
Respect your chronotype
Perhaps the first thing to consider is that you should respect your night owl tendencies. "It's very important not to just abandon your chronotype," says Russell Foster, Professor of Circadian Neuroscience at the University of Oxford and author of Life Time: The New Science of the Body Clock, and How It Can Revolutionize Your Sleep and Health. "You're biologically programmed to go to bed late and get up late".
In other words, your preferences are not simply a lifestyle choice – they're a genuine manifestation of your underlying biology.
"We know that certain polymorphisms in the gene pool can lead to a late chronotype," says Martha Merrow, Professor of Chronobiology at Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich.
Age is another important factor. "On average, at the age of 20, one is almost 2.5 hours later in sleep timing, according to biological drive, relative to young children or relative to adults from around the age of 50 years old," says Merrow.
Read more:
- Can’t stop your brain racing at 3am? Try these suggestions from a GP
- Why do I always find things to do late at night?
- Is it possible to be too tired to sleep?
Use light exposure to shift your circadian rhythm
One factor shaping your chronotype is the amount of daylight you are exposed to, and when you are exposed to it. This points to a way you can help yourself adjust to the demands of being more active and alert in the mornings.
Foster suggests setting your alarm clock so that you can get plenty of daylight exposure early in the morning – make sure to open the curtains or even go outside for a bit – and at the same time, do your best to avoid exposure to daylight late in the day.
It will be "hellish" at first, he says, but gradually the morning light exposure will advance your body's biology clock, making you feel more alert earlier in the day while avoiding dusk light exposure will prevent your internal clock from being delayed.
Merrow adds that you go even further by restricting your exposure as much as possible to blue light in the evenings – blue light being the wavelength of visible light that your circadian system is most sensitive to.
She recommends using glasses that block blue light, especially if you tend to watch TV or use digital devices in the evening.
"If you put these on, you will often easily note feeling sleepy earlier as the alerting effects of blue light are muted," she says.
"I don’t endorse any specific brand, but these glasses are easy to find over the internet, they usually have plastic, wrap-around orange lenses and they are quite cheap."
Make sure you get enough sleep
One of the main reasons that experts recommend that you treat your natural chronotype with respect is that not doing so can cause you harm.
Short-term, you might struggle to concentrate and think clearly during those early starts. Caffeine can help, but it's just a temporary remedy.
Longer-term, because of the stress and loss of sleep, Foster warns that living out of step with your circadian rhythms is associated with cardiovascular problems, immune diseases and inflammatory illness.
That's why it's important to manage your light exposure, to try to shift your biological clock forward as much as possible, so you find it easier to rise in the morning and you can also sleep earlier at night.
If you burn the candles at both ends, by forcing yourself to rise early but maintaining your late-night sleep schedule, then that's what will cause the health problems. It's essential that you do what you can to try to get the sleep you need – this varies by individual, but usually, this means at least six to seven hours.
At a basic level, if you are making yourself rise early with an alarm clock, it's important to try to fight your night owl impulse to also stay up late at night.
Use napping wisely
At least in the short-term, one way an owl living a lark's life can compensate for their lost sleep in the mornings is to take a short nap – ideally in the late morning or early afternoon, so that it doesn't interfere with your sleep drive at night-time.
"A short 20-minute nap has been shown clearly to improve your performance during the second half of the day," says Foster. Any longer and you risk suffering from a kind of sleep hangover that will leave you feeling groggy.
Foster recommends the coffee napping hack whereby you drink a coffee before taking a nap. You get to enjoy the benefits of a short nap and then when it's time to wake up – don't forget to set an alarm – the caffeine will kick in and help you feel alert again.
It might take a lot of discipline and conscious effort, but night owls don’t necessarily need to suffer quite so much from living in a lark’s world.
Read more:
- Tired all the time? Here’s how to kick sleep deprivation for good
- Poor quality sleep may scupper our attempts to keep weight off
- Why do I always get an energy crash in the afternoon?
About our experts
Prof Russell Foster is head of the Nuffield Laboratory of Ophthalmology and the Sleep and Circadian Neuroscience Institute at the University of Oxford.
His research has been published in the journals Sleep Medical Reviews, Journal of Comparative Psychology and PLOS Computational Biology.
Prof Martha Merrow is a researcher in molecular chronobiology at Ludwig Maximillian's University in Munich.
Her research has been published in the journals Current Biology, Chronobiology International and The Journal of Experimental Medicine.
