2024-09-03 08:48:19
When is the right time to go to bed? US researchers have investigated this question – with surprising results.
In chronobiology, a distinction is made between owls and larks. The chronotype of the owl is night owls, they have a hard time getting into bed in the evening and getting out of it again in the morning. Larks, on the other hand, are morning people. They like to get up early, but they also get tired earlier in the evening. So which is healthier?
To find out, researchers at Stanford University analyzed the data of 74,000 people from the UK Biobank. 19,000 saw themselves as morning people, almost 7,000 as night owls, and the rest were somewhere in between. After evaluating the subjects’ actual sleep behavior (duration, regularity, sleep time), they determined their mental health status based on their medical records.
They found that night owls have an increased risk of developing certain mental illnesses such as depression or anxiety – and this is the case when they live according to their chronotype. This astonished the researchers, as it was previously believed that it is healthiest to align your daily rhythm with your own chronobiology.
However, if night owls actually went to bed very late, the probability of being diagnosed with a mental disorder was 20 to 40 percent higher than for the same type with an early or medium sleep rhythm.
Those who described themselves as night owls but still went to bed early had a clear advantage here. It seems that it is better for them to live against their own rhythm. The early risers tended to have the best health.
The researchers can also identify the nighttime tipping point. They recommend turning off the lights by 1 a.m. at the latest, because staying up late doesn’t seem to be good for mental health. Why is that?
Study leader Jamie Zeitzer believes it is likely due to the poor decisions people make in the early hours of the morning. Many harmful behaviors occur more frequently at night, including suicidal thoughts, violent crimes, drinking and drug use, and overeating. Other studies have also found that being awake at night is associated with an increase in impulsive and maladaptive behavior. It is suspected that this is due to changes in brain chemistry.
Zeitzer stresses that advising night owls to go to bed before 1 a.m. is easier said than done. They can change their sleep patterns to a certain extent (such as getting up early for a while), but that won’t change their chronotype. “Biologically, it’s like a rubber band: you take a day off and then go back to where your body wants to be,” he says.