In this world we fall into two categories of people – we are morning larks or we are night owls.
The larks like to go to bed early and are a box of birds in the mornings; the owls prefer to stay up late and rise well after sun-up.
Growing up in my house, I was the morning lark and my brother, the night owl. While I was never late for school, it was a daily battle for my dad to get my brother out of bed.
Through trial and error Dad learned the best approach was to simply enter his room in the mornings with a cup of tea, no words spoken. And although Steven usually got to school on time, it was by the skin of his teeth, bleary-eyed and resentful.
Now both in our forties, we’re still much the same. We’ve both done okay in life and neither of us suffer from major health problems. But if the findings in one new study are anything to go by, I’ve probably had an easier time of it in life than my brother. I’m also likely to live longer.
Why? Because I’m a morning lark living in a morning lark’s world and my brother doesn’t fit in. In his ideal world, the day wouldn’t start until lunchtime.
Over a six and a half year period, the University of Surrey and Northwestern University in the US conducted a study of 500,000 Brits aged 38 to 73. The researchers found that those who naturally stayed up late were 10 per cent more likely to die within the six and a half year study period compared to those who were morning people.
They surmised that the ongoing stress of operating in a traditional ‘nine to five’ society was having a massive impact on night owls and could be shortening their lives.
Study co-lead author Kristen Knutson told The Telegraph, “Night owls trying to live in a morning lark world may have health consequences for their bodies.”
She said their internal biological clocks are unlikely to be in sync with their external environment, and this could lead to psychological stress, eating at the wrong time for their body, not exercising enough, not sleeping enough, being awake at night by yourself and drug or alcohol use.
“There are a whole variety of unhealthy behaviours related to being up late in the dark by yourself,” she said.
A professor of chronobiology at the University of Surrey, Malcolm von Schantz, told The Telegraph that we needed more research on “how we can help evening types cope with the higher effort of keeping their body clock in synchrony with sun time.”
It’s now recognised that teenagers experience a change in their internal body clocks. They naturally begin to stay up later and, in an ideal world, would rise later in the mornings too. In the early 2000s Wellington High School introduced a later start time of 10.15am for senior students, after working with Massey University researchers to test the impact of later start times on its students – and finding they benefited greatly.
It’s surprising other high schools haven’t followed suit.
Meanwhile, imagine if you had the option to start your work day later. Imagine rolling in to work at 10am or even starting at lunchtime – being a lark, to me that feels like half the day is already gone, but to a night owl like my brother that must sound incredible.
It might not work for some people, depending on what industry you work in, but maybe it’s worth having a conversation with your employer. It could make all the difference to your quality of life as well as your longevity.
