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W<\/span>e all know that early birds get the worm. But who wants a worm? Not me. <\/strong>For most of my life I have identified as a night owl, clambering out of bed as late as possible and not so much seizing but reluctantly easing into the day.<\/p>\n US work culture is not really optimal for night owls. Rather, it favours CEOs who get up at 4am and run a marathon while the rest of us hit the snooze button. Still, I always consoled myself with the idea that night owls are actually more intelligent and creative than their early bird counterparts. Franz Kafka and Thomas Wolfe wrote at bedtime; Bob Dylan recorded at night. Even scientific studies indicated it was true.<\/p>\n However, something weird has happened. Due to a combination of existential dread, cutting out alcohol and having a small child who wakes me up at an ungodly hour, I\u2019ve started to go to bed earlier and earlier. These days, a 9pm bedtime is perfection. The idea of routinely staying up until the wee hours, as I used to, is now horrifying.<\/p>\n This shift has me questioning everything. Is it actually possible for your body clock to change? Am I really turning into an early bird or have I just been forced into a child-dictated schedule? And if I am an early bird, does that make me a lesser being? I went on a mission to settle the owl-versus-lark debate for once and for all.<\/p>\n My first discovery: you can\u2019t help who you are; your optimal bedtime is hardwired into you. \u201cWe all have an internal biological clock, or a circadian rhythm, that controls numerous physiological outputs, including alertness levels, sleep, hormone levels and blood pressure,\u201d says Kristen Knutson, an associate professor at Northwestern University who specializes in sleep research. Your \u201cchronotype\u201d, meanwhile, is your circadian preference: the scientific way of saying whether you\u2019re a morning lark or night owl. Someone with an early chronotype will naturally find it easier to go to sleep early than someone with a later chronotype.<\/p>\n While it is difficult to fundamentally change your chronotype, it does naturally shift as you age. Anyone with a small child will understand why I don\u2019t bother with an alarm clock any more \u2013 my four-year-old rudely wakes me up at 5.30am instead. But biological clocks delay as puberty hits, says Knutson: teenagers \u201chave a later chronotype. Then, as we get older, our chronotype tends to drift earlier and earlier. By the time we are in our 80s, we are an early type.\u201d<\/p>\n We all go through this same cycle, but from different starting points. \u201cIn young adults, morning and evening types can differ by as much as approximately four hours in how their biological clocks affect their behavior,\u201d says Hans Van Dongen, director of the Sleep and Performance Research Center at Washington State University Health Sciences Spokane. It\u2019s not entirely certain why these differences exist but, along with possible evolutionary reasons, there\u2019s probably a genetic component. \u201cChildren born to evening-type parents are more likely to be evening types, and likewise for morning types,\u201d says Van Dongen.<\/p>\n Back to that all-important question, though: does being a night owl make you more creative and intelligent?<\/p>\n One 2007 study found \u201cthat evening-disposition is correlated with the ability to apply divergent thinking strategies to visual content\u201d \u2013 a science-y way of saying \u201cmore creative\u201d. In a 2009 study called \u201cWhy night owls are more intelligent\u201d, psychologist Satoshi Kanazawa checked the bedtimes of 20,745 adolescents against the results of an intelligence test. He found people with higher intelligence were more likely to be night owls, and posited that it might be because it\u2019s \u201cevolutionarily novel\u201d to stay up late.<\/p>\n More recently, researchers at Imperial College London studied UK data on more than 26,000 people who had completed various intelligence tests. The 2024 paper found that those who stay up late had \u201csuperior cognitive function\u201d to morning larks.<\/p>\n Graphic with three lines of text that say, in bold, \u2018Well Actually\u2019, then \u2018Read more on living a good life in a complex world,\u2019 then a pinkish-lavender pill-shaped button with white letters that say \u2018More from this section\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n However, all the experts I spoke to were cautious about making definitive links between chronotype and traits like creativity, intelligence or sociability. While they make for good headlines, all of these studies have important limitations.<\/p>\n That 2009 study, for example? Van Dongen notes the \u201canalysis is based on how late individuals choose to go to bed \u2026 [and] cannot rule out the possibility that adolescents with higher IQ choose to study longer into the night and require more sleeping in for recovery on the weekend, or are involved in more or different after-school activities.\u201d<\/p>\n (I emailed Kanazawa, the study\u2019s lead researcher and an academic at the London School of Economics, to get his take on this criticism and got a reply saying: \u201cYeah, like I\u2019d speak to someone from the Guardian.<\/em>\u201d It turns out that Kanazawa, who once claimed that a study showed black women to be less attractive than women of other races, is somewhat controversial and definitely not a Guardian fan.)<\/p>\n So my beliefs about night owls were built on shaky ground. But the stereotypes of creative geniuses burning the midnight oil and early bird CEOs could still be relevant. \u201cThe timing of the biological clock determines more than just when people like to go to bed and get up and when they feel most alert during the day,\u201d says Van Dongen. \u201cIt also determines in part the kinds of activities they may end up participating in and the experiences they get exposed to.\u201d If you naturally get up early, it may be easier for you to thrive in a corporate work environment, for example.<\/p>\n One thing sleep experts all seem to agree on is that trying to force a routine that is at odds with your biological clock is unhealthy. In fact, it could send you to an early grave.<\/p>\n In 2018, Knutson, of Northwestern, co-authored a study that found night owls have a 10% higher risk of early death and more health problems compared with early risers. The study couldn\u2019t determine the underlying reasons, but Knutson notes the issue may have something to do with \u201ccircadian disruption caused by desynchrony between their internal clock and the external world\u201d. In other words, she says, \u201cit is difficult for a night owl to live in a morning lark\u2019s world\u201d.<\/p>\n skip past newsletter promotion<\/p>\n Practical advice, expert insights and answers to your questions about how to live a good life<\/p>\n Privacy Notice: <\/strong>Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.<\/span><\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n Being a night owl may come with other risks. A 2024 study from Stanford Medicine researchers found that being up late is not good for your mental health, regardless of chronotype. The reasons are unclear, but researchers suspect it\u2019s because unhealthy behaviours such as drinking alcohol or eating junk food are more likely late at night.<\/p>\n Similarly, University of Groningen researcher Ana Wenzler worked on a recent study that found staying up late is linked to cognitive decline. Wenzler notes that at least 25% of the effect was because of lifestyle rather than anything intrinsic; again, you\u2019re more likely to make poor choices late at night.<\/p>\n While you can\u2019t change your chronotype, you can try to work in harmony with it. But to do that, you first have to understand which type you are, and it\u2019s not always obvious. Looking back, I thought I was a night owl for many years just because of my habits. I was young and went out a lot. Yet once I stopped drinking, my body clock seemed to shift.<\/p>\n But it\u2019s not like I\u2019m waking up with the birds like Snow White, ready for the day. In fact, I\u2019ve started to think I\u2019m neither a morning person nor an evening person, but something in the middle. Which, apparently, is possible. According to sleep specialist Dr Michael Breus, someone whose chronotype sits firmly in the middle is a \u201cbear\u201d. And us bears actually dominate: by some estimates, half the population is in that category.<\/p>\n So how do you figure out your natural biological clock? Wenzler says the way to determine a person\u2019s chronotype is to measure the melatonin levels in their saliva \u201cthroughout the day to see when the melatonin goes up\u201d. Melatonin is a hormone your body secretes to signal to you that it\u2019s night; morning people release it earlier.<\/p>\n Obviously, saliva tests won\u2019t be practical for most people. In the absence of a home science lab, says Wenzler, try sleeping without an alarm for a week. Stay away from depressants and stimulants like alcohol and coffee and avoid artificially extending your natural bedtime by doomscrolling or bingeing TV, and your body will find a natural rhythm. You\u2019ll wake up whenever your body deems best.<\/p>\n I would have tried this experiment myself, but you can\u2019t really get rid of your alarm clock when that alarm is a small child.<\/p>\n Finally, if you are certain you\u2019re a night owl, but have to get up early for work (or, in my case, entertain a hyperactive four-year-old in the wee hours), can you tweak your biological clock? Sort of!<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s possible to shift, but usually only modestly,\u201d says Matthew P Walker, director at the Center for Human Sleep Science at the University of California, Berkeley. Walker mentions a 2019 study that \u201cadvanced night owls by about two hours in three weeks using structured routines: morning light, fixed mealtimes, earlier exercise and caffeine cutoff. People reported better mood and performance in the mornings, though most drift back if the changes aren\u2019t maintained.<\/p>\n \u201cOne could not imagine anyone sticking to this regimen in perpetuity,\u201d he adds, and these findings indicate that people should operate in tune with their chronotype, not against it. \u201cYes \u2013 the early bird may catch the worm. But the second mouse gets the cheese!\u201d<\/p>\n Now try telling that to your boss.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" We all know that early birds get the worm. But who wants a worm? Not me. For most of my life I have identified as a night owl, clambering out of bed as late as possible and not so much seizing but reluctantly easing into the day. US work culture is not really optimal for<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":28576,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[1715,442,446,13627,516,16972],"class_list":{"0":"post-28575","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health","8":"tag-birds","9":"tag-early","10":"tag-night","11":"tag-owls","12":"tag-science","13":"tag-superior"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28575","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=28575"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28575\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/28576"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=28575"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=28575"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=28575"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}What makes someone an early or late riser?<\/h2>\n
Is there any evidence night owls are smarter than early birds?<\/h2>\n
The dark side of being a night owl<\/h2>\n
Can you hack your chronotype?<\/h2>\n