If you are a night owl when it comes to sleeping, you may be digging yourself into a rut. People who stay up late are more prone to insomnia, more concerned about sleep and have lower quality of sleep compared to those who go to sleep earlier, according to a new study from Stanford University.
The study, lead by Dr. Jason C. Ong and published in the April 15 issue of the Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine, took place at the Sleep Disorders Clinic at Stanford University and had 312 participants.
Each person was classified as a morning chronotype (early bird or lark), an evening chronotype (night owl) or an intermediate chronotype (neither) based on a self-evaluation called the Morningness-Eveningness Composite Scale.
Participants wrote a sleep diary for one week, recording the time they went to bed, the time they got up, the number of times they woke up, and how they rated their sleep quality. The study authors evaluated the participants on their beliefs and attitudes about sleep, and also evaluated them for depression.
Ong and his co-authors found that the night owl group slept longer, and had an irregular sleep schedule when compared to the morning and intermediate group. The evening group also showed a more dysfunctional attitude on sleep and had the highest levels of depression.
The group had more symptoms related to insomnia, even if it had more total sleep time, and was more likely to compensate for it and sleep in.
“They are messing with their biological time clock,” said Guido Urizar, a psychiatrist and Cal State Long Beach assistant professor of psychology.
According to Urizar, night owls try to make up sleep more than early birds or people with a schedule that is closer to the natural day/night cycle, but sleeping during the day to make up for going to bed late will lead to poor quality of sleep because there will not be a substantial chunk of time without distractions.
Night owls also are relatively more concerned about sleep. Self-proclaimed night owl Avery Holleman, a junior industrial design major, always counts up and calculates the amount of sleep he gets.
“I don’t see it in a negative sense, but I’m constantly aware of how much sleep I’ve gotten or going to get,” Holleman said. “And even if I go to bed early, I’ll still sleep until I have to do something or have some obligation.”
This kind of behavior, Urizar said, like having an irregular schedule based on obligations day by day, causes poor sleep quality.
With the strong relation between insomnia and being a night owl, Urizar said, although it is not a major problem, it is still very relevant for students.
The academic environment has its own rhythm, according to CSULB psychology professor Martin Fiebert, and especially before finals – when students disrupt their schedule the most for work and study purposes – it leads to more insomnia.
“It’s hard because they want to do their best,” Fiebert said, “but students come in less alert.”
Behavior, like drinking caffeine at night or not having a set schedule, causes insomnia, but most people attribute insomnia with not being able to shut off their thoughts or a racing of the mind, Fiebert said.
“It all comes down to stress,” said Urizar, who plans to teach a class on the psychology of stress next semester.
For Holleman, being a night owl and having insomnia can seem out of his control.
“It’s not healthy because it definitely has negative side effects, but it’s always harder for me to wake up in the morning and it’s always hard for me to go to bed at night,” Holleman said. “To some extent, I feel like I’ve always been, and always will be, a night owl.”
People who have consistent night owl tendencies are considerably more at risk for health problems, Urizar said, because the insomnia related to such tendencies is a cause of chronic stress. There is a higher risk for cardiovascular disease and for disorders like sleep apnea (when it is difficult to breathe while sleeping). For students, it affects performance in class and makes it hard to memorize and concentrate.
“Students start habits when they are young and when they get older, it’s related to other health problems,” Urizar said.
Both Urizar and Fiebert said that people can teach themselves to alter and fix their sleeping patterns. Students often grow out of the tendency to sleep late when they get older and have job schedules that follow the natural cycle of sleeping and waking, said Urizar, but students can also proactively shift their biological clock.
