Are You an Early Bird or a Night Owl?
Everyone knows there are early birds and night owls. We each have our preference for the time of day (or night), but why is it that some of us can jump out of bed while others keep hitting snooze?
Age Plays a Role
Many of us think of our preference for the morning or night as being innate and about us as individuals, but our age also plays a role.
Teenagers generally both stay up and wake up at later times. That might seem obvious to anyone who’s been a teenager, but teenagers aren’t just doing this by choice. Teenagers aren’t just choosing to stay awake because they want to. They’re wired that way. Physiologically, they find it harder to fall asleep and wake up at earlier hours.
Because of this, early mornings in school can genuinely be difficult for many teenagers, and schools have started to take notice. There’s a growing movement to move school start times to later in the day when teenagers will naturally be more awake. The hope is that these changes will go a long way to helping teens focus better in the classroom, and so far, evidence suggests that it does.
It’s not just young people whose age affects their sleep either. Elderly people also experience changes in their sleep patterns. In general, as people get older, they will start to wake up at earlier hours. They may also struggle falling and staying asleep, which can lead to them getting less sleep than younger people.
The Science Behind Morning and Night People
But beyond our ages, some of us really are just morning or night people while others are somewhere in between. Our preference is called a chronotype. Scientists know that chronotypes are real, but there’s no simple answer that explains why we have these differences. There is likely a genetic basis for it, but it’s a topic that scientists are still researching.
In the future, hopefully we’ll know more.
