If my life was a historical fiction novel, I’d be the protagonist of The Tile Man’s Daughter.*
Like many a blue collar man, my dad was up before dawn with a Kool cigarette and mug of black coffee. The son of a WW2 naval instructor, early mornings were in his blood. He would parade around the house literally banging pots and pans. I can still hear the twang in his voice as he woke the household up announcing “days are for workin’, nights are for sleepin’!” Unfortunately, daddy did not pass down the morning person gene to me, only the self loathing for sleeping in.
The Better Version of Me, who I’m convinced is one good purchase away, is an early riser. She scribbles morning pages as the sun comes up while sipping a steaming café au lait. And what’s that she has on? A matching Alo set? Wow, she must be getting ready to drive to her 5am spin class, listening to The Journal en route. Better Me is a little pillow Puritan, her bright side eyes judging real me who is still (still!) in bed.
Substack, allow me to welcome you into my home on a typical weekday morning.
“Gabby! It’s 7:40! Are you up?” My husband is screaming from the bottom of the stairs. He is a morning person, the only thing he has in common with my dad. I am indeed awake, but not up. I am extremely cozy and I have a cat on me so obviously I cannot move.
7:45. “Come on Gracie, we have to be a part of World.” Yes, I am talking to the cat because have we not confirmed at this point that I am a cat lady? Gracie’s not any more thrilled about waking up than I am. At this moment, I hate everyone and everything and am thisclose to risking it all for another 5 minutes in bed. I am momentarily buoyed remembering the Tree Hut Coco Colada sugar scrub in the shower. The desire to smell like a coconut is enough to get me vertical. I get in the shower, scrubbing up. Oh, and I also have this scalp exfoliator. Maybe just a quick exfo-
7:50. I DID NOT HAVE TIME FOR THE COCO COLADA.
7:55. Panic stricken. I am brushing my teeth with one hand and rifling through clothes hangers with the other. Everything is wrinkled. Why haven’t I taken any of my blazers to the dry cleaners? I can’t wear this dress because I need to wear sandals with it and my feet are not ready for society.
This continues for another roughly 15 minutes before I make it to the car. My commute involves chugging a Monster lo-carb with the windows down to air dry my hair. I stress sing Sabrina Carpenter through clenched teeth, cursing every stopped car and then trying to angrily practice gratitude by focusing on the wild cornflowers in the median.
So beautiful, so wild and free. Dude, you cannot wait until the last second to merge, SERIOUSLY?! Ah, look at the river under this bridge, the morning fog, stunning, WHY ARE WE STOPPING ON THE BRIDGE, PEOPLE? 🎵 Thinkin’ ‘bout me every night, ohh, isn’t that sweet… 🎶
So, you can see, It’s not the best start to the day.
Why am I this way?! It’s the question I ask every morning. As it turns out, there is an excuse explanation.
It’s your chronotype, baby.
In a 24-hour day, our bodies go through a cycle of physical, mental, and behavioral changes called a circadian rhythm. It’s our body’s clock. Throughout the day, environmental signals called zeitgebers help synchronize that natural clock. The primary signal is light, but things like temperature and meal patterns also act as signals. These are factors which we have a degree of control over.
What we have less power over is our chronotype, which is influenced by our genetics. Your chronotype describes your sleep wake pattern preferences. Are you a morning lark? These early chronotypes like to wake up early and feel most energetic in the earlier parts of the day. Night owls, us late chronotypes, feel more active and motivated in the evening and night hours while preferring to awaken much later in the day. Maybe you’re somewhere in the middle, which is referred to as an intermediate type.
Researchers have a handful of tools at their disposal to determine chronotype, including your core body temperature, devices to measure your movements, assessing your dim light melatonin onset and reviewing a sleep diary (Zou et al., 2022). The primary tool, however, is a scientifically designed questionnaire. There are a few online quizzes available to help you determine your chronotype. I suggest this one which is recommended by sleep expert Dr. Matthew Walker. It has the added benefit of not requiring you to enter an email address.
The chronotypes are often illustrated by different animals:
So next time you’re on a hot date, maybe break the ice with a sexy “Hey girl, what’s your preferred sleep wake pattern?” 60% of the time, it works every time*.
This variation in our sleep pattern preferences may go back to an idea called the Sentinel Hypothesis. The Sentinel Hypothesis suggests that our varied sleep tendencies trace to times when humans shared the duties of staying awake and vigilant at night while others slept. Researchers say chronotype variations we see today may “represent a legacy of natural selection acting in the past to reduce the dangers of sleep” (Samson et al., 2017).
While this may have been useful for our ancestors, it’s not especially helpful for us wolves living in a 9-5 world.
Social Jet Lag
We all have our social clocks - work, school, family and friend events. However, when that does not match our body clock we can find ourselves with circadian misalignment. The catchier name? Social jet lag. Social jet lag occurs when your circadian and social clocks are out of beat.
When our internal and external clocks are not aligned, we may find ourselves shifting our sleep patterns between our work days and days off. Researchers note that doing this repeatedly mimics the sleep-wake patterns seen when traveling across time zones, minus the external light-dark changes (Fischer and Hilditch, 2022). Because us evening chronotypes are likely to get less restful sleep during the work nights, we are more likely to sleep later on days off. This increases the social jet leg for evening chronotypes. There are some serious consequences for night owls living in a morning lark world:
Social jetlag is most pronounced in late chronotypes, and has been associated with a wide range of adverse outcomes, including increased risks of obesity (Roenneberg et al., 2012), metabolic syndrome (Parsons et al., 2015), and mental health disorders (Henderson et al., 2019), and notably lower academic performance in high school students (van der Vinne et al., 2015; Zerbini and Merrow, 2017; Zerbini et al., 2017). (Fischer and Hilditch, 2022)
What’s a night owl to do?
Seems like being a night owl is a mixed bag.
A recent study of cognitive function indicated that night owls performed best on intelligence, reasoning and memory tests compared to other chronotypes. High five to my fellow owls! At the same time, another new study indicated that night owl behavior worsens mental health. It even suggests late chronotypes may be better off living misaligned to their sleep preferences for optimal aging (Lok et al., 2024).
As an expert night owl, here is my take.
Respect your chronotype.
I’m done trying to morph into someone who gets up at the crack of the dawn to write, exercise and contemplate life. Likewise, I’m through feeling bad about it! It is those wee hours of the night where inspiration lights me up. There is nobody to impress and nowhere to be. The hours seem to stretch on endlessly with only the moon for company. This freedom offers a door for creativity. The beauty of solitude. It’s a time when I can channel some ancient energy of a body ready to run from a tiger into something productive. How many nights have I sat in front of a computer typing my heart out, blazing through a book, or even conducting a midnight closet reorganization? The precious time to be with myself. No texts. No emails. No phone calls. No rush. Peace.
From a practical standpoint? Night owls, be nice to morning you. They’re going to need you. Organize your sock drawer at 3am on Saturday, because Monday 6am you is going to be pissed when they cannot find a match. Treat morning you to a fancy soap or nice cup of coffee so you have something to look forward to when you have to wake up. Sleep in sweats that are presentable enough that you don’t have to change clothes for your morning walk around the block. Take your exercise class at 7pm. Work with your chronotype, not against it.
Besides, to quote Chappell Roan… everything good happens after midnight!
Your turn!
What’s your chronotype?
Do you wish you had a different chronotype?
Any tips for maximizing your energy levels?
Tell me about it!
Until next time,
References
Fischer, D. & Hilditch, C. (2022). Chapter 15 - Light in ecological settings: Entrainment, circadian disruption, and interventions. Progress in brain research, Vol. 273, Issue 1. https://doi.org/10.1016/bs.pbr.2022.04.001
Kalmbach, D. A., Schneider, L. D., Cheung, J., Bertrand, S. J., Kariharan, T., Pack, A. I., & Gehrman, P. R. (2017). Genetic Basis of Chronotype in Humans: Insights From Three Landmark GWAS. Sleep, 40(2), zsw048. https://doi.org/10.1093/sleep/zsw048
Lok, R., Weed, L., Winer, J, & Zeitzer, J. (2024). Perils of the nighttime: Impact of behavioral timing and preference on mental health in 73,888 community-dwelling adults. Psychiatry Research, 337, 115956. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psychres.2024.115956
Samson, D. R., Crittenden, A. N., Mabulla, I. A., Mabulla, A. Z. P., & Nunn, C. L. (2017). Chronotype variation drives night-time sentinel-like behaviour in hunter-gatherers. Proceedings. Biological sciences, 284(1858), 20170967. https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2017.0967
Zou, H., Zhou, H., Yan, R., Yao, Z., & Lu, Q. (2022). Chronotype, circadian rhythm, and psychiatric disorders: Recent evidence and potential mechanisms. Frontiers in neuroscience, 16, 811771. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnins.2022.811771
Fun post, my results came back as "intermediate" - the dolphin. Go to bed a little early but also sleep in a little because of waking up throughout the night...mmhmmm! 🐬 The social jet lag info is super interesting, I feel like work places should account for this. Maybe one day? Have a good week (yay, a short one!). xx
I have always thought of myself as a morning person and the Morningness-Eveningness quiz told me I'm moderate morning. I think I am a mix of the lion and the bear. I like to get up early but I would not want to have to start work earlier than 8 am and I happily wake up at 6 or 6:15 to walk/run/exercise or have me-time before work starts. I've never heard of social jet-lag that was a really interesting concept, thanks for sharing!