Nocturnal “night owls” are more at risk of dying than “larks” who turn in early and leap out of bed when the sun rises, new research has shown.
Night owls stay up late but struggle to drag themselves out of bed in the morning.
Scientists who studied a population of nearly half a million Britons found that over a six-year period, owls had a 10% greater risk of death than larks.
The difference held true even after adjusting for expected health problems in owls, such as metabolic dysfunction and heart disease.
Society should wake up to the real difficulties faced by night owls, said the researchers. They called on employers to be more flexible towards staff who suffer when forced to clock in early.
Dr Kristen Knutson, a member of the team from Northwestern University in Chicago, US, said: “Night owls trying to live in a morning lark world may have health consequences for their bodies.
“They shouldn’t be forced to get up for an 8am shift. Make work shifts match people’s chronotypes. Some people may be better suited to night shifts.”
The study, published in the journal Chronobiology International, found higher rates of diabetes, mental disorders and neurological conditions among night owls.
The researchers drew on data from the UK Biobank, a storehouse of medical and genetic information provided by 500,000 people aged 40 to 69 from across the UK.
British co-author Professor Malcolm von Schantz, from the University of Surrey, said: “This is a public health issue that can no longer be ignored.
“We should discuss allowing evening types to start and finish work later, where practical. And we need more research about how we can help evening types cope with the higher effort of keeping their body clock in synchrony with sun time.”
Larks are better able to adjust their body clocks to the light and dark rhythms of the rising and setting sun, said the researchers.
Owls may have a body clock that fails to match their external environment, said Dr Knutson.
Being a night owl was associated with psychological stress, eating at the wrong time, lack of exercise, lack of sleep, and drug or alcohol use.
Genetics and the environment played roughly equal roles in determining whether you are a night or morning person, said the scientists.
One way night owls could help themselves was to ensure they are exposed to light early in the morning, but not at night, according to Dr Knutson. They should try to be disciplined about bed-times and get jobs done early in the day rather than leaving them until late, she said.
Dr Knutson added: “You’re not doomed. Part of it you don’t have any control over, and part of it you might.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here