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January 28, 2026<\/p>\n
2 min read<\/p>\n
Add Us On Google<\/span>Add SciAm<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n Like staying up late? You may be putting yourself at risk of heart problems<\/p>\n A study of more than 320,000 people found that night owls are more likely to engage in behaviors that increase the risk of cardiovascular disease such as smoking and sleeping poorly<\/p>\n By Jackie Flynn Mogensen edited by Claire Cameron<\/span><\/p>\n Staying up late to binge a favorite TV show or go out with friends can be one of life\u2019s simple pleasures. But being a habitual night owl\u2014especially if you are a woman\u2014may be putting your heart at risk, new research suggests.<\/p>\n In a study of more than 320,000 adults, researchers found that participants who described themselves as \u201cdefinitely an \u2018evening\u2019 person\u201d were about 16 percent more at risk of having a heart attack or stroke compared with those who didn\u2019t report a strong bedtime preference.<\/p>\n The study was partially funded by the American Heart Association (AHA) and published on Wednesday in the Journal of the American Heart Association.<\/p>\n If you’re enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.<\/p>\n The findings jibe with existing AHA guidance that people should aim to get a good night\u2019s sleep to reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease. But it wasn\u2019t clear how \u201ccircadian misalignment\u201d\u2014the mismatch between the body\u2019s internal clock and the times at which people actually go to sleep and wake up\u2014might affect heart heath.<\/p>\n Such a mismatch can throw off how our brain responds to reward signals\u2014and that could lead to people engaging in riskier behaviors, the researchers say. \u201cEvening people may be more likely to have behaviors that can affect cardiovascular health, such as poorer diet quality, smoking and inadequate or irregular sleep,\u201d said Sina Kianersi, a research fellow at Brigham and Women\u2019s Hospital and a co-author of the paper, in a statement.<\/p>\n Kianersi and his colleagues found that night owls were more likely to score poorly on the AHA\u2019s \u201cLife\u2019s Essential 8\u201d questionnaire, which looks at a series of eight health and lifestyle metrics, including exercise, smoking, blood pressure and blood sugar. The \u201cevening people\u201d tended to score low because they were more likely to smoke (or live with a smoker) and get inadequate sleep, according to the findings.<\/p>\n If you are a night owl, have courage: the research points to steps you can take to avoid additional heart risks, said Kristen Knutson, an associate professor at Northwestern University\u2019s Feinberg School of Medicine, who was not involved in the study, in the same statement. \u201cThese findings show that the higher heart disease risks among evening types are partly due to modifiable behaviors such as smoking and sleep,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n \u201cEvening types aren\u2019t inherently less healthy,\u201d Knutson said, \u201cbut they face challenges that make it particularly important for them to maintain a healthy lifestyle.\u201d<\/p>\n If you enjoyed this article, I\u2019d like to ask for your support. Scientific American<\/span> has served as an advocate for science and industry for 180 years, and right now may be the most critical moment in that two-century history.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve been a Scientific American<\/span> subscriber since I was 12 years old, and it helped shape the way I look at the world. SciAm <\/span>always educates and delights me, and inspires a sense of awe for our vast, beautiful universe. I hope it does that for you, too.<\/p>\n If you subscribe to Scientific American<\/span>, you help ensure that our coverage is centered on meaningful research and discovery; that we have the resources to report on the decisions that threaten labs across the U.S.; and that we support both budding and working scientists at a time when the value of science itself too often goes unrecognized.<\/p>\n In return, you get essential news, captivating podcasts, brilliant infographics, can’t-miss newsletters, must-watch videos, challenging games, and the science world’s best writing and reporting. You can even gift someone a subscription.<\/p>\n There has never been a more important time for us to stand up and show why science matters. I hope you\u2019ll support us in that mission.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" January 28, 2026 2 min read Add Us On GoogleAdd SciAm Like staying up late? You may be putting yourself at risk of heart problems A study of more than 320,000 people found that night owls are more likely to engage in behaviors that increase the risk of cardiovascular disease such as smoking and sleeping<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":43008,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[58],"tags":[3411,3196,2196,4224,736,3945],"class_list":{"0":"post-43007","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-science","8":"tag-heart","9":"tag-late","10":"tag-problems","11":"tag-putting","12":"tag-risk","13":"tag-staying"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43007","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=43007"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43007\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/43008"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=43007"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=43007"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=43007"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}On supporting science journalism<\/h2>\n
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