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.” READ MORE Share This Story

What Else to Read The Ancient Roots of Psychotherapy By Kay Redfield Jamison The healing of the mind may be the oldest branch of medicine. Read More » What Sleepwalking Teaches Us About Trauma’s Effects on the Brain By Baland Jalal Sleepwalking shows us that a person's consciousness is not one dimensional. Rather, it has many unique flavors. Read More » America Is Witnessing Fastest Aging of Any Decade in 130 Years By Mike Schneider / AP The share of Americans 65 or older grew by more than a third from 2010 to 2020 while the share of children declined. Read More » How Nutrition Education for Doctors Is Evolving By Elizabeth Millard Attitudes—and in some cases, curriculum—may be changing. Read More » 4 Ways Exercise Helps Fight Aging By Liz Seegert Physical activity is one of the best things you can do to protect your body as it ages. Here's how it helps. (Originally published in 2021.) Read More »

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

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