Maligned as lazy and ill-disciplined, night owls now have science to back up their penchant for late nights and later mornings, writes
direct the early-riser and their haughtiness towards the cold, hard facts of science. According to some very clever men and women in cardigans, there’s this thing called “delayed sleep-wake phase disorder”, or DSP, and what a welcome acronym it is.
Apparently people with DSP have a genetic thing that causes their circadian rhythms to be a bit wonky — our body clocks are basically delayed by a couple of hours, meaning our to-bed and wakey times are out of whack with about 60% of the population (DSP affects around 40%). So it’s not our fault.
Fortunately, my profession allows me flexi-hours because I work from home. But what about the DSPers of the corporate world, where firing off emails before 7am is seen as heroic and admirable? What about DSPers forced to attend 8am meetings having gone to bed only five hours earlier? I think we’re still a long way from the time when the night owl’s circadian quirks will be accommodated. But, as technology gradually begins to draw us away from The Office as an official, be-all-and-end-all place to work and do business, perhaps there’s hope for the next generation of late-risers. Perhaps, in 10 or 20 years, night owls will be doing business almost exclusively with other night owls, at night, and develop a kind of Freemason handshake that’ll allow one night owl to recognise another, instead of through the more traditional way which is to recognise each other’s bloodshot eyes and caffeine abuse.
Because it is a kind of club. While the early-risers have the sunrise and birdsong, the night owls have the deep post-midnight hush of the suburbs that is so conducive to reflection and creative thought; we have the calls of the creatures of the night (including, obviously, the owl’s haunting hoot); we have the intense solitude that comes from the feeling that we’re the only one awake in a world that is fast asleep, gone, off in another realm, and so for a few hours every night we own the world in its entirety.
The Carpe Noctem Club * — exclusive, enchanting, a little lonely, but incredibly creative and productive and, now, finally, approved by science.
* Seize the night