Thursday, May 25, 2023

Early birds, get off your high horse

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Why waking up earlier isn't necessarily better

I rarely have a hard time getting up in the morning, but I’ve always been more of a night owl. I’ve been told this says a lot about me: I’m a procrastinator, I’m unmotivated, I’m disorganized, and on and on. I bought this—and the morality myths about those who wake up early—for a long time.

Now, I'm suggesting we throw out not just these stereotypes, but the entire binary altogether. New research, which appears to connect being an early riser with a stronger belief in God and religiosity, got me thinking about the way that chronotypes—our natural sleep patterns—are studied. These are my main takeaways after talking to experts who have conducted this type of work:

  • Chronotype isn’t binary. It’s a spectrum, and labeling ourselves as either early birds or night owls isn’t helping us or science. Because it’s the main way we talk about our sleep habits with one another, looking at just two categories has become the simplest way for researchers to collect self-reported data from participants. In other words, we’re just not very accurate when placing ourselves on spectrums.
  • Chronotype research often leaves out a key variable: time of day. If you gather a group of people earlier in the day, those who naturally have more energy at that time are more likely to shine. In one of the few studies that has accounted for this, Brian Gunia, a sleep researcher, professor, and associate dean at Johns Hopkins’ Carey Business School, found that “morning people are most ethical in the morning, and evening people are most ethical in the evening,” he says. “Maybe it's more of a fit between chronotype and time [of day] than it is this idea that morning people are better or worse.”

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AN EXPERT VOICE

"With contact dermatitis, the more you are exposed to a substance, the more likely you are to develop an allergy. In the U.S. we sell Neosporin over the counter, which includes an antibiotic called neomycin. This antibiotic is not sold over the counter in a lot of other countries. In the U.S., we have about a 7% allergy rate to neomycin and topical antibiotics, but in other countries it's almost unheard of. That's because they don't sell it over the counter, so people are not exposed to it."

—Jeff (JiaDe) Yu, dermatologist at Massachusetts General Hospital and president-elect of the American Contact Dermatitis Society

A quick programming note: The Health Matters newsletter will be off on May 26 and May 29 in observance of Memorial Day.

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Today's newsletter was written by Haley Weiss and edited by Angela Haupt.

 
 
 
 
 
 

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