Lark (person)

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Early Morning (c. 1858) by Moritz von Schwind Moritz von Schwind - Early Morning - WGA21075.jpg
Early Morning (c. 1858) by Moritz von Schwind

A lark, early bird, morning person, or (in Scandinavian countries) an A-person, is a person who usually gets up early in the morning and goes to bed early in the evening. The term relates to the birds known as larks, which are known to sing before dawn. [1] Human "larks" may sleep from around 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. (or earlier), and tend to feel most energetic just after they get up in the morning. They are thus well-suited for working the day shift.

Contents

The opposite of the lark is the owl, often awake at night. A person called a night owl is someone who usually stays up late and may feel most awake in the evening and at night. Researchers have traditionally used the terms morningness and eveningness to describe these two chronotypes. [2]

Charting chronotypes

Till Roenneberg, a chronobiologist in Munich, has mapped the circadian rhythms of more than 200,000 people. [3] Biological processes, including sleep-wake patterns, that display an oscillation of about 24 hours are called circadian rhythms. According to Roenneberg, the distribution of circadian rhythms spans from the very early to the very late chronotypes, similarly to how height varies from short to tall. [4]

As circadian rhythm is independent of the number of hours of sleep a person needs, Roenneberg calculates the rhythm based on the midpoint of the sleep period. [5] A person who goes to bed at midnight and rises at 8 thus has the same chronotype as a person who goes to bed at 1 a.m. and rises at 7; the midpoint of sleep is 4 a.m. for both of these individuals.

People with early chronotypes will usually not be able to "sleep in", even if they have stayed up later than usual. While fit for a "lark-like" societal framework, they find it hard to adapt to a context where "sleeping in" is common: despite feeling refreshed in the morning, they may feel hampered socially when confronted with some kinds of social gatherings (such as soirées) that are often scheduled for the evening, even if most kinds of social events are not.

People with late chronotypes go to bed late and rise late. Forced to arise earlier than their circadian rhythm dictates, they have a low body temperature and may require a few hours to feel really awake. They are unable to fall asleep as early as "larks" can.

Prevalence

A 2007 survey of over 55,000 people found that chronotypes tend to follow a normal distribution, with extreme morning and evening types on the far ends. [6] There are studies that suggest genes determine whether a person is a lark or an evening person in the same way it is implicated in people's attitude toward authority, unconventional behavior, as well as reading and television viewing habits. [7] For instance, there is the case of the Per2 gene on chromosome 2, which was discovered in the early 1990s by Urs Albrecht and colleagues at the University of Fribourg in Switzerland. [8] This gene regulates the circadian clock and a variant of it was found in families that demonstrated advanced sleep-phase syndrome. According to the researchers, its existence in people skews sleep pattern even if the period also cover eight hours. [8]

Age is also implicated in the way one becomes a morning or a night person. It is explained that, developmentally, people are generally night owls in their teens while they become larks later in life. [9] Infants also tend to be early risers. [9]

Career options

Morning larks may be employed as baristas in coffee shops. 2013 Coffee Fest-10.jpg
Morning larks may be employed as baristas in coffee shops.

Morning larks tend to thrive in careers that start early in the morning. Industries that tend to be favorable to morning larks include farming, construction, and working for public utilities. Many employees in these industries start working at or before 7:00 a.m. [10] Some professions are well-known for their early morning hours, including bakers, school teachers, dairy farmers, and surgeons.

Morning larks tend to be less represented among the employees of restaurants, hotels, entertainment venues, and retail stores, which tend to be open until later in the evening. [10] However, morning larks may be perfectly suited to the opening shift of a coffee shop, handling the morning rush at a hotel, or working on the morning news shows for radio or television. Morning larks may also work the early shift in round-the-clock industries, such as emergency services, transportation, healthcare, and manufacturing. [10]

Many large businesses that operate in the evening or at night need employees at all levels, from entry-level employees to managers to skilled staff, whenever they are open. For example, most hospitals employ many types of workers around the clock:

See also

Related Research Articles

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Sleep is a state of reduced mental and physical activity in which consciousness is altered and sensory activity is inhibited to a certain extent. During sleep, there is a decrease in muscle activity, and interactions with the surrounding environment. While sleep differs from wakefulness in terms of the ability to react to stimuli, it still involves active brain patterns, making it more reactive than a coma or disorders of consciousness.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Circadian rhythm</span> Natural internal process that regulates the sleep-wake cycle

A circadian rhythm, or circadian cycle, is a natural oscillation that repeats roughly every 24 hours. Circadian rhythms can refer to any process that originates within an organism and responds to the environment. Circadian rhythms are regulated by a circadian clock whose primary function is to rhythmically co-ordinate biological processes so they occur at the correct time to maximise the fitness of an individual. Circadian rhythms have been widely observed in animals, plants, fungi and cyanobacteria and there is evidence that they evolved independently in each of these kingdoms of life.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chronobiology</span> Field of biology

Chronobiology is a field of biology that examines timing processes, including periodic (cyclic) phenomena in living organisms, such as their adaptation to solar- and lunar-related rhythms. These cycles are known as biological rhythms. Chronobiology comes from the ancient Greek χρόνος, and biology, which pertains to the study, or science, of life. The related terms chronomics and chronome have been used in some cases to describe either the molecular mechanisms involved in chronobiological phenomena or the more quantitative aspects of chronobiology, particularly where comparison of cycles between organisms is required.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Delayed sleep phase disorder</span> Chronic mismatch between a persons normal daily rhythm, compared to other people and societal norms

Delayed sleep phase disorder (DSPD), more often known as delayed sleep phase syndrome and also as delayed sleep–wake phase disorder, is the delaying of a person's circadian rhythm compared to those of societal norms. The disorder affects the timing of biological rhythms including sleep, peak period of alertness, core body temperature, and hormonal cycles.

Advanced Sleep Phase Disorder (ASPD), also known as the advanced sleep-phase type (ASPT) of circadian rhythm sleep disorder, is a condition that is characterized by a recurrent pattern of early evening sleepiness and very early morning awakening. This sleep phase advancement can interfere with daily social and work schedules, and results in shortened sleep duration and excessive daytime sleepiness. The timing of sleep and melatonin levels are regulated by the body's central circadian clock, which is located in the suprachiasmatic nucleus in the hypothalamus.

In chronotherapy, an attempt is made to move bedtime and rising time later and later each day, around the clock, until a person is sleeping on a normal schedule. This treatment can be used by people with delayed sleep phase disorder (DSPD), who generally cannot reset their circadian rhythm by moving their bedtime and rising time earlier. DSPD is a circadian rhythm sleep disorder, characterised by a mismatch between a person's internal biological clock and societal norms. Chronotherapy uses the human phase response to light or melatonin. The American Academy of Sleep Medicine has recommended chronotherapy for the treatment of circadian rhythm and sleep disorders.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Night owl</span> Person who tends to stay awake at night

A night owl, evening person or simply owl, is a person who tends to stay up until late at night, or to the very early hours of the morning. Night owls who are involuntarily unable to fall asleep for several hours after a normal time may have delayed sleep phase disorder.

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A chronotype is the behavioral manifestation of underlying circadian rhythm's myriad of physical processes. A person's chronotype is the propensity for the individual to sleep at a particular time during a 24-hour period. Eveningness and morningness are the two extremes with most individuals having some flexibility in the timing of their sleep period. However, across development there are changes in the propensity of the sleep period with pre-pubescent children preferring an advanced sleep period, adolescents preferring a delayed sleep period and many elderly preferring an advanced sleep period.

Light effects on circadian rhythm are the effects that light has on circadian rhythm.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Second wind (sleep)</span>

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The morningness–eveningness questionnaire (MEQ) is a self-assessment questionnaire developed by researchers James A. Horne and Olov Östberg in 1976. Its main purpose is to measure whether a person's circadian rhythm produces peak alertness in the morning, in the evening, or in between. The original study showed that the subjective time of peak alertness correlates with the time of peak body temperature; morning types have an earlier temperature peak than evening types, with intermediate types having temperature peaks between the morning and evening chronotype groups. The MEQ is widely used in psychological and medical research and has been professionally cited more than 4,000 times.

Till Roenneberg is a professor of chronobiology at the Institute of Medical Psychology at Ludwig-Maximilian University (LMU) in Munich, Germany. Roenneberg, in collaboration with Martha Merrow, explores the impact of light on human circadian rhythms, focusing on aspects such as chronotypes and social jet lag in relation to health benefits.

The Munich Chronotype Questionnaire (MCTQ) was created in 1976 by Till Roenneberg and Martha Merrow at Ludwig-Maximilians University (LMU) Munich. The MCTQ samples sleep and circadian rhythm data from more than 25,000 participants.

Martha Merrow is an American chronobiologist. She currently chairs the Institute of Medical Psychology at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich. Her career focuses primarily on investigating the molecular and genetic mechanisms of the circadian clock. Since joining the Ludwig Maximilian University in 1996, Merrow has investigated molecular and genetic mechanisms of the circadian clock as well as daily human behavior and medical psychology.

Familial sleep traits are heritable variations in sleep patterns, resulting in abnormal sleep-wake times and/or abnormal sleep length.

Diurnal mood variation or morning depression is a prominent depression symptom characterized by gradual mood improvement thorough the day, reaching its peak sometime after twilight. While the main form of diurnal mood variation presents itself as described, a reversed form, with a worsening of mood towards the evening, also exists. While some mood changes are generally experienced by the majority of patients diagnosed with depression, such recurrent mood instability is a consistent predictor of suicidal ideation, and may cause increased mortality. Diurnal mood variation is most strongly associated with melancholic depression, which is also referred to as endogenous or somatic depression. According to the diagnostic criteria outlined in The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) and The International Classification of Diseases (ICD), diurnal mood variation characterized by worsening symptoms in the early morning is recognized as a hallmark symptom of melancholic features in somatic major depressive disorder.

References

  1. ↑ T, C. (1847). Lessons derived from the animal world. p. 269.
  2. ↑ Horne JA, Östberg O (1976). "A self-assessment questionnaire to determine morningness-eveningness in human circadian rhythms". Int J Chronobiol. 4 (2): 97–110. PMID   1027738.
  3. ↑ Cohen, Deborah (2014). "Are you a lark or an owl?". BBC News. Retrieved 2018-07-21.
  4. ↑ Foster, Russell G.; Kreitzman, Leon (2017). Circadian Rhythms: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press. pp. 17–18. ISBN   9780198717683.
  5. ↑ Feiler, Bruce (2016-01-09). "The Lark-Owl Scale: When Couples' Sleep Patterns Diverge". New York Times. Retrieved 2018-07-21.
  6. ↑ Roenneberg, Till; Kuehnle, Tim; Juda, Myriam; Kantermann, Thomas; Allebrandt, Karla; Gordijn, Marijke; Merrow, Martha (December 2007). "Epidemiology of the human circadian clock". Sleep Medicine Reviews. 11 (6): 429–438. doi:10.1016/j.smrv.2007.07.005. hdl: 11370/65d6f03a-88cd-405c-a067-4afbc1b9ba9d . ISSN   1087-0792. PMID   17936039.
  7. ↑ Browning, Geil (2010). Emergenetics (R): Tap Into the New Science of Success . New York: Harper Collins. pp.  13. ISBN   9780060585358.
  8. 1 2 Hooper, Rowan (2018-09-04). Superhuman: Life at the Extremes of Our Capacity. Simon and Schuster. ISBN   9781501168727.
  9. 1 2 Carney, Colleen; Posner, Donn (2016). Cognitive Behavior Therapy for Insomnia in Those with Depression: A Guide for Clinicians. Oxon: Routledge. p. 8. ISBN   9780415738378.
  10. 1 2 3 Torpey, Elka (October 2015). "Career Outlook: Careers for night owls and early birds". U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Retrieved 2018-04-06.
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