I love sleep. My life has the tendency to fall apart when I’m awake, you know?
- Ernest Hemingway
You’ve probably heard about early birds and night owls before, and how early birds get the worm (yew…). You’ve probably also heard early birds telling night owls to get a grip and try change their sleep schedules to be more efficient during office hours (the infamous 9 to 5). [N.B. the opposite also exist, with night owl telling early birds to make an effort and stay up later to party or engage in social activities] By saying that, early birds just assume that night owls can magically become early birds, as easily as you get to change hair colour by dying them or change skin tone by using tanning lotions. Do you know what all of those things have in common? You can pretend as much as you like, your nature will remain the same. Hair colour, skin tone, and sleep patterns are genetically determined.
Back in the days (i.e., couple of hundred years ago when humans had to stand guard at night), it could have been beneficial for people in a group to exhibit different sleep patterns. The early birds would get up with the sun and get on with some of the daily activities while night owls would be able to stand guard throughout the night. In the same way labours were determined based on genders, it makes sense to assume that they could also have been divided based on optimal active times. The early birds might go hunting and gathering while night owls deal with preparing the game from the hunt, making dinner, and organise nocturnal social activities, like story time around the fire or dancing all night during commemorative times. Who knows, but it made sense to have people active at all time to ensure the good working order of the group.
In our modern societies, however, being a night owl seem to be a drawback. Most jobs require early starts, somewhere between 7 and 9 am. No night owl is able to be fully functional at this time. They actually feel in a permanent social jet-lag, forced to live at a social time that does not suit them. Imagine a world where working hours would be 1-9pm. In such a world, early birds would be at a loss, as their level of activity decreases with the sun, leaving them completely drained 10hrs after waking up (when night owls thrive). For both night owls in our modern societies or early birds in a parallel universe, this phenomenon has as much to do with the time of day as with the number of hours slept. Let me explain.
Every living creature, may it be a plant, a reptile, or a mammal, is born with a biological clock. This clock keeps track of active and rest periods, ensure the necessary biological functions are fulfilled (find nutriments, breath, allocate energy where need, build stocks…). In nature, the biological clocks are usually regulated by the sun: diurnal (Day-Timer) species are active during the day and rest at night; nocturnal (Night-Timer) are active during the night and sleep during the day. And this is all due to one specific hormone called melatonin, which role is to synchronise the circadian rhythm (sleep-wake cycle). In diurnal species (humans are technically diurnal), the melatonin is produced at night, when there is no more sun light, and triggers the feeling of tiredness. That’s the theory.
Modern humans, special and unique as we are, no longer belong solely to the diurnal group, and biological clocks are now on a very specific time-period: your own. Scientists have now found 2 genes involved in sleeping patterns and identified that people that need fewer hours of sleep present a mutation on those 2 genes. A mutation is a variation in the genetic code; a single change in the code of a gene changes the message given by the gene (e.g., hair colour). Now, previous research claimed that a lambda person needs between 7 to 8 hours of sleep per night. The people carrying the mutations on one of those 2 genes, however, could function with just 6 hours of sleep. How big a difference 1-hour sleep can make? A HUGE difference. No matter whether you require 6 or 7 hours of sleep per night, the important is to get the amount of sleep your body requires.
Why is sleeping so important? What can at first appear like a monumental waste of time (do you know how much I can do in 7 hours?) is one of the most basic need for a reason. Sleep deprivation can have some serious consequences. First people lacking sleep tend to be moodier and do not process emotional experiences as efficiently as they usually do. Lack of sleep seems to impair the ability to analyse objectively an emotional experience: everything blows out of proportion way faster when you are sleep deprived and negative emotions feel way more negative. Second, it kind of messes up with the brain, making you less attentive and reducing your attention span, impairing cognitive functions (i.e., your brain). Third, sleep deprivation increases the risks of heart diseases, obesity, and diabetes… but too much sleep results in the same risks (and a higher risk of death….)! Fourth, melatonin has been found to have antioxidant properties, cleaning the brain from biological wastes, and to help regulate blood-pressure.
Sleeping allows our brain to reset after the day, to process and store daily experiences in our memory, clean up biological wastes thanks to the melatonin, and your body gets a chance to “repair” itself (e.g., dealing with aching muscles, checking everything is working properly). Because of that, it is important to sleep the right amount, which is… the one your body knows it needs! Listen to your brain, it knows best, and both sleep deprivation and over-sleeping can be dangerous. Studies have shown that it is possible to recover from our sleep debt if it has been accumulated over few nights. Then, a few nights of good sleep can help the body fully recover. If the debt has been accumulated over weeks to months, recovery is much slower, and the body needs a lot of good sleep to feel fresh again. How to get good nights of sleep then?
A good sleep is not only allowing yourself to sleep for the optimal amount of time (your personal, optimal amount of time), but it is also ensuring that you have good quality of sleep. Researchers have recently found that napping 2 to 3 times a week reduces risks of heart attacks; they have not found why yet or how napping helps but it does. Careful though, they are talking about power-naps of 20 to 30 minutes top. What if you do not usually fall asleep in 30 min? Well, I personally found that it is not necessarily about sleeping per se (the whole goal of power nap is resting without entering deep sleep), but it is more about taking the time to be still for 30 min and chasing the thoughts from my head. Playing music can help relax, take your mind off the wandering thoughts, and allow you to just chill doing nothing. Find your thing. Having a constant sleep routine/schedule has also been shown to help improve sleep quality. And yes, “constant” apparently includes weekends: it seems that we’re supposed to wake up roughly at the same time EVERY DAY, and nap in the afternoon… I’m all about a sleep schedule during week days, but I find that this one tends to conflict with having a social life… which also help taking your mind off the daily worries! Then, we have night rituals: a set routine designed to make you disengage from the stress of the day and bring closure to the daily events. It can be going for an evening walk or reading before bed and involve disconnecting from any glaring screen about 1 hour before bed (the light of the screen can be act as sun light on the brain and prevent the release of melatonin). Finally, having a morning routine, something you look forward to doing as you wake up, helps getting out of bed in the morning (or so scientists say). I don’t know how many people look forward to going to work, so I guess it means getting up early enough to include a morning activity we’re excited about before work (e.g., reading time, morning walk/run, knitting time). Find what works for you.
Final fun-fact: personality differences have been found between early birds and night owls. Early birds are usually more proactive and optimistic, as well as being less prone to addictions (well done them). Night owls have been found to be more creative and risk-taking, leading to potentially seizing more opportunities. It is of course not a golden rule, and human personality is determined by a lot more than solely our sleeping patterns.
On that note, good night all!
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