Issue of the day It’s best to be up with the lark

ARE you a night owl or a lark? If it’s the latter then it turns out this may be good news for your health and your career, but if you burn the midnight oil, you may need to finetune your routine.

Early to bed, early to rise …?

If you abide by the saying coined by one of America’s founding fathers, Benjamin Franklin, then research has found it may indeed be true that this has the potential to make you “healthy, wealthy and wise”.

What was studied exactly?

A research team at the Center for Life Course Health Research at the University of Oulu, in Finland, compared those who go to bed earlier with “night owls”, aware that the pattern of keeping irregular hours has intensified during lockdown.

They found that …

… larks perform better at work and have less chance of suffering health issues that can lead to early retirement.

It’s down to genetics?

In their report, published in the journal Occupational & Environmental Medicine, researchers said that although environmental factors – such as family life, work schedules, daylight exposure and of course, living through the pandemic – do play a part, genetics and whether or not you are a morning or evening “chronotype” are crucial.

Chronotype?

Sleeping patterns and behaviour vary based on age, activity levels and sleeping conditions and these patterns are described as “chronotypes”; the circadian rhythms that define individual levels of alertness and activity during the day.

What did the team look at?

They focused on 12,000 people born in northern Finland in 1966, analysing their working life, work performance levels, sleep patterns and health, and then linked the data to national social security and pension payment databases. They looked at 2,700 men and 3,200 women who were still working in 2012, monitoring them for four years to see who had stopped working and taken a disability pension.

During this period?

It emerged 84 people received a new disability pension and in all, 17 people died, including three of those who had taken a disability pension. About 46 per cent of men and 44% of women were early birds, another 44% of men and women were somewhere in between, and 10% of men and 12% of women were night owls.

Therefore?

Night owls had worse ratings for all variables related to sleep and health, including shorter sleeps, insomnia and high levels of “social jetlag” – where you try to catch up on lost sleep on your non-working days. About 28% of men and 24% of women who were night owls reported underperforming at work.

And so?

They say it is important that night owls adopt a healthy lifestyle, get enough sleep and work during hours that suit their chronotype.