Are you sleeping right for your chronotype?

Happy Friday, League!

The other day I came across a study done by Stanford where the researchers were looking to confirm data about how our chronotype (more on that in a moment) impacts our health. What they found was unexpected and I thought it was worth sharing. 

“Chronotype” is a fancy word for our biological clock. Everyone’s is slightly different, and it is baked into many of our cells that dictate which hormones are released and when in our bodies. Hormones dictate many things including sleeping, waking, and when we feel hungry. Numerous studies in recent years have pointed to the possibility that we all have an ideal sleep-wake cycle which can impact our health and that understanding and following it can have benefits. In these studies, they are talking about whether someone is a morning person, a night owl, or somewhere in the middle. 

Throughout my life, I’ve met many people who insist that they are naturally night owls. I have always been curious about this. Some articles have suggested that it’s a normal human difference due to the varying needs early humans would have had, for example, to assign someone at night to watch over the cave while others slept. 

But it turns out that might not be true after all, especially when it comes to our mental health. The study I linked suggested that despite what people believe their chronotype to be, being a “night owl” (someone who stays up late) can still have a detrimental effect on mental health. From the article I linked:
“The worst-case scenario is definitely the late-night people staying up late,” Zeitzer said. Night owls being true to their chronotype were 20% to 40% more likely to have been diagnosed with a mental health disorder, compared with night owls following an early or intermediate sleep schedule. Morning larks who rose with the sun tended to have the best mental health of all, to no one’s surprise.

The researchers found that sleep duration and consistency of sleep timing could not account for these differences in mental health.”

Staying up late and sleeping in, even if you sleep enough hours, can still be detrimental. My hope is that these studies eventually lead to better treatment for sleep struggles. Sleep disorders are one of the most reported health concerns in the US, with as many as 50% of people reporting at least occasional problems with insomnia. I always thought of insomnia as difficulty falling asleep, which I rarely have now, but did when I was younger. Now, I wake up frequently during the night, which is also a form of insomnia. 

The evidence continues to pile up against night work, especially having a major impact on our health. In addition to the mental health concerns mentioned in this study, it has been noted that being awake all night, or too late at night, can increase the risks for numerous health conditions such as diabetes, high blood pressure, and even cancer. Yet our economy still supports many 24/7 occupations. Healthcare workers and first responders, for example, are needed around the clock, and yet their own health is at risk when caring for others. So far the evidence suggests that one is better off changing to a normal schedule on days off rather than continuing with the overnight schedule. However, that tends to cause a form of jet lag that can make life difficult because we need time to adjust to those changes. There is no easy answer. In so many ways our complex lives have led us away from the natural cycles our bodies thrived in for millennia. Our bodies simply can’t adapt as fast as life has changed. 

The best we can do is to continue to practice good sleep strategies whenever we can. On the plus side, they coincide with living a wild life! We covered this in-depth here if you need some ideas.

 
Lastly, where are my people who wake up without an alarm? I am a morning person, without a doubt. The vast majority of what I get done in a day is done before lunchtime. It is when I am the most creative, in the flow, and have ample energy. However, I find using an alarm to be draining and disruptive. On the days that I wake up before my alarm, I feel amazing even if slept fewer hours. But on the days when my alarm wakes me up, I have a hard time getting out of bed, I am groggy for a while after, and I have a harder time getting going for the day, even if I feel well-rested and had enough quality sleep (as far as I can tell).

In the summer, the sun comes up before 5 am and the birds usually wake me up. Winter is another story. It’s dark until long past the time I need to be up, the birds aren’t singing, and the house is buttoned up tight in the cold. It’s very disorienting for me to have to get up in the dark. What are your tips and tricks? I have heard good things about clocks that replicate sunrise. I am a bit concerned my husband will make me sleep in another room! He’s not a night owl but he’s not the early riser I prefer to be, either. How do you navigate that with your partner?

I’ve tried establishing the habit by consistently getting up with an alarm in the hopes that eventually I can wake up unassisted, but I’m so cranky when the alarm goes off that I just lay in bed for a half hour until I have no choice but to get up. 

Sometimes I feel like everything about the way life moves in our modern world works against what would come naturally to us if we lived in accordance with the planet’s seasons and light/dark cycles. We carry on as if days in June are the same as days in December, and I don’t think that is the case for our bodies. But that is what we have and we’re all just trying to figure out how to survive, and hopefully thrive, within it. I’d love to hear how the no-alarm people who need to be up by a certain time are getting it done! Shoot me a reply to this email if you have some thoughts!

Have a wild weekend, and sleep on!

-Kim