When I was growing up, I lived on the same street as my two best friends. We walked to high school together every morning — or at least on the days when I wasn’t late. I didn’t mean to be tardy. I just couldn’t get up early enough to meet our 8am (annoyingly prompt) departure time despite my mother’s attempts to rouse me from a sound sleep.
Later at college, I figured out that I was more distracted in my morning classes yet hyper creative at night. Papers most definitely were cranked out after 9pm.
It wasn’t until I moved to New York and started to work in fashion PR that I owned my nocturnal preference. Having found the perfect career and city to support this lifestyle, I declared with pride that I was indeed a night owl.
With an endless buffet of engaging evening activities to keep an energetic extrovert like me satiated, the problem once again became my ability to spring out of bed and do my best work first thing in the morning. It seemed unfair that professional schedules favored the early birds. How can they be so chipper when the sun is barely up?
Even in those days, I recognized that we must all be “wired differently.” It turns out that we are and it’s by design. We evolved to have a variety of circadian clocks, presumably so that someone would always be up and alert to protect us from predators while others could rest and repair for the next day.1
We might self-identify with certain sleep/wake preferences and even some personality traits (outgoing, innovative, introverted) but did you know much of our circadian patterns are genetically pre-conditioned as well as dictated by our body’s own biological clock?
What’s Your (Chrono)Type?
Oura Ring rolled out new features this week that aligns users with a chronotype and body clock. I’m happy to report it has finally given me some longer overdue validation. While the scientific study of chronotypes isn’t new, now I had something of my own to prove my point.
(Are you a Bear, Wolf, Lion, or Dolphin? take the quiz here and leave a comment with your chronotype!)
According to the analysis of 90 days of my data (measuring body temperature, sleep/wake times and physical activity), I am an Early Evening Type (Oura has 6 chronotypes without the cute reference to animals) and my optimal schedule wants me to be asleep around midnight and awake after 8am.
Which is great except now I live in LA by the beach and have finally acclimated to its mellow vibes and early-to-bed schedule. I can’t seem to escape from this circadian misalignment — first from getting up too early in my youth and now going to bed too early based on the midpoint of my body clock?
If you believe your circadian clock doesn’t matter, think about how you feel the day after the clocks spring forward for Daylight Savings Time. Tired, unfocused, anxious and moody? We might gain an hour of sunlight in the evenings but we lose it from early morning sun which can have serious health implications due to lost sleep.
“The consequences of insufficient sleep include decreases in cardiovascular health, increases in diabetes and obesity, poorer mental health, lower cognitive performance, and an increase in the risk of motor vehicle accidents”
— Adam Spira, PhD John Hopkins Univeristy on impact of Daylight Savings Time and ongoing circadian misalignment
Having an extra hour for “productivity” does not make us healthier and the exposure to light later in the day can affect our melatonin production resulting in poor or insufficient sleep.
Our internal body clocks regulate all of our metabolic and hormonal functions. Circadian alignment can support improved digestion, optimized brain cognition, restorative sleep, balanced mood as well as boost longevity molecules.
Unless we are camping in the woods and going down with the sun sets, it’s fair to assume most of our circadian rhythms are disrupted on a daily basis by the way we live with artificial light, lifestyle stressors, and a rollercoaster of caffeine, alcohol and sugar. We eat too late at night and often highly processed foods which make our bodies work extra hard to metabolize, robbing us of precious time to repair our brain cells and process emotions. It is well documented that night shift workers have higher rates of metabolic disorders, mental illness and cancer.2
Looking for other data beyond my body’s biological clock to back up my night owl designation, I referenced an old 23andMe DNA test which looked at 450 genetic markers associated with being a morning or night person as well as non-genetic factors like sex and age to predict my optimal wake up time. Not surprisingly, it suggested 9:04am in my 20’s and 8:07am in my 40s. (Calling high school friends to say, “I told you so.”)
The take-away: Early birds and night owls can both feel validated by their preferences. Our behavior is somewhat encoded in our DNA and biological patterns. To a certain extent, knowing your general chronotype could help you optimize your performance, productivity, sleep and overall health!
Fascinating Things to Know About Sleep
There are thousands of articles about sleep hygiene (because sleep is complicated and requires attention to a few areas) so I thought the below learnings were more interesting!
Morning Sun Salutation: You’ve likely heard neuroscientist Andrew Huberman explaining the importance of sunlight in your eyes immediately upon waking. It resets your circadian clock and helps your body increase cortisol and serotonin during the day and make melatonin at night.
It’s Okay to Go to Bed Angry: We’ve been told that we should never go to bed without resolving our issues but according to neuroscientist Matthew Walker, REM sleep can be similar to “overnight therapy” as it reactivates emotional and problematic memories and brings it back through reflective dreaming without any stress chemicals present. "Sleeping on it" can soothe and take the edge off those memories so problem solving is easier the next day.3
Melatonin is like a dose of sunset: It’s called the “vampire hormone” and it’s more like a dimmer switch to start the body’s process of winding down than a sleeping pill. I only use it to combat real jet lag when my circadian clock is way off due to an international time change. Cymbiotika Sleep and Beam Dream are two that I like to use on occasion. Otherwise CBD and magnesium are better for more consistent use.
Alcohol destroys your sleep architecture: Booze may be sedating at first but in the second half of your sleep as its metabolized, it becomes activating. It disturbs and fragments sleep by suppressing REM, increasing urine output, worsening sleep apnea and, as a sedative, can be dangerous when combined with Ambien, Tylenol PM and even melatonin.4
Read my previous substack about alcohol called Life of the Party
If this content resonates with you, subscribe, drop a like or share with a friend who might benefit from this information. As always, please let me know how you are doing. (Thanks in advance for being an active part of this community!)
All writing is for informational and entertainment purposes only and is not a substitute for medical advice, diagnosis or treatment.
It’s me, hi! I’m a lion, it’s me! Early bird here, which is now called a Lion. I’ll take it though because in that Big Cat Community, the ladies do all the hunting work while the men laze about.
Hi Celia! You are a brilliant writer and educator. You organize information flawlessly and deliver it in a way that is interesting, informative, easy to understand and entertaining. Love what you’re doing! I look forward to receiving In The Pink. I learn so much from you. Signed, A Fellow Night Owl/Innovator Since High School. I’m working hard to get to bed earlier each night because I enjoy the beauty and stillness of the early morning. Thank you for sharing. Marie