experiencelifemag.com Print › | Back › What's Your Chronotype? By Karen Olson June 2009 The exact times of going to sleep and waking up, and of activity and rest, vary according to your chronotype, which indicates the time of day you are alert and prefer to be active. People are generally classified as either a “morning lark” or a “night owl.” “One in 10 of us is an up-at-dawn, raring-to-go early bird, or lark. About two in 10 are owls, who enjoy staying up long past midnight,” write Michael Smolensky and Lynne Lamberg in The Body Clock Guide to Better Health: How to Use Your Body’s Natural Clock to Fight Illness and Achieve Maximum Health (Holt, 2001). The rest of us are somewhere in the middle and lean toward morningness or eveningness. Morning larks, report Smolensky and Lamberg, reach their lowest body temperature about two hours earlier than evening types. They tend to be most productive in late morning, most alert around noon, and most active around 2:30 p.m. They like to exercise in the morning and their mood tends to decline slightly over the course of the day. The moods of night owls, on the other hand, tend to rise substantially over the day. Evening people are most productive in late morning and late evening, most active at about 5:30 p.m., and most alert half an hour later. They like to exercise in the evening. If you need to get up or go to sleep earlier or later than is comfortable for our own natural rhythm, there are ways to gently encourage your body to adapt. If you’re a night owl and you have to start work early, Smolensky and Lamberg suggest that you try sleeping with the curtains open and allowing yourself to be awakened by daylight, getting up at the same time every day, walking outside right after waking and keeping your evenings quiet. Larks who need to stay up later at night can help their bodies, Smolensky and Lambert claim, by spending time outside in the afternoon, increasing evening activity and sleeping with the blinds closed. No matter what your chronotype, exposure to natural light during the day and keeping your environment dark at night can help keep your circadian rhythms running smoothly.

What's Your Chronotype?

The exact times of going to sleep and waking up, and of activity and rest, vary according to your chronotype, which indicates the time of day you are alert and prefer to be active. People are generally classified as either a “morning lark” or a “night owl.”

“One in 10 of us is an up-at-dawn, raring-to-go early bird, or lark. About two in 10 are owls, who enjoy staying up long past midnight,” write Michael Smolensky and Lynne Lamberg in The Body Clock Guide to Better Health: How to Use Your Body’s Natural Clock to Fight Illness and Achieve Maximum Health (Holt, 2001). The rest of us are somewhere in the middle and lean toward morningness or eveningness.

Morning larks, report Smolensky and Lamberg, reach their lowest body temperature about two hours earlier than evening types. They tend to be most productive in late morning, most alert around noon, and most active around 2:30 p.m. They like to exercise in the morning and their mood tends to decline slightly over the course of the day.

The moods of night owls, on the other hand, tend to rise substantially over the day. Evening people are most productive in late morning and late evening, most active at about 5:30 p.m., and most alert half an hour later. They like to exercise in the evening.

If you need to get up or go to sleep earlier or later than is comfortable for our own natural rhythm, there are ways to gently encourage your body to adapt.

If you’re a night owl and you have to start work early, Smolensky and Lamberg suggest that you try sleeping with the curtains open and allowing yourself to be awakened by daylight, getting up at the same time every day, walking outside right after waking and keeping your evenings quiet.

Larks who need to stay up later at night can help their bodies, Smolensky and Lambert claim, by spending time outside in the afternoon, increasing evening activity and sleeping with the blinds closed.

No matter what your chronotype, exposure to natural light during the day and keeping your environment dark at night can help keep your circadian rhythms running smoothly.

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