Being a “lark” or early riser has its advantages. A study carried out by scientists at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago, Illinois (USA) looked at the effects that the wet nurse could have on health and mortality. Its results will make it not so alarming to go to bed early to go to sleep.
By evaluating the sleep habits of more than 430,000 adults over a 6.5-year period , experts found that night owls are more likely to develop diabetes and neurological and psychological disorders. And that’s not all; The study also found that night owls are 10% more likely to die earlier than early risers.
What are the reasons behind this increased risk of illness and death?
According to the authors, being a night owl could interfere with our biological clock, the mechanism that regulates physical, mental and behavioral processes in a period of approximately 24 hours.
Our biological clock responds mainly to the light in our environment : light tells our body that it is time to be awake, while darkness tells our body to go to sleep.
But when the watch turns off, for example, through exposure to light when we should be sleeping, which is typical for night owls, it can have negative effects on our health.
“It could be psychological stress, eating at the wrong time for your body, not getting enough exercise, not getting enough sleep, being up at night alone, maybe drug or alcohol use. There are a wide variety of unhealthy behaviors related to staying up late in the dark alone, “explains Kristen Knutson, leader of the work to Chronobiology International magazine.
Still, it’s not all negative for night owls. Knutson says that people who like to go to bed later can benefit from more regular bed times, and adopt a healthier lifestyle. Perhaps unsurprisingly, he points out that transitioning from a night owl to a lark could also be beneficial to your health.
However, in previous research, researchers found that whether we are larks or night birds is just as important to genetics as our environment, suggesting that people with a genetic predisposition for nightlife can benefit from flexible work hours.
“If we can recognize that these chronotypes are, in part, genetically determined and not just represent a character flaw, jobs and work hours might have more flexibility for night owls,” Knutson notes. “They shouldn’t be forced to get up for an 8 am shift, but rather have work shifts match people’s chronotypes. Some people may be better suited for night shifts .”
“This is a public health problem that can no longer be ignored,” explains study co-author Malcolm von Schantz of the University of Surrey in the UK.
Referencia: Associations between chronotype, morbidity and mortality in the UK Biobank cohort. Chronobiology International 2018. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/07420528.2018.1454458
