Sleep (part deux)

I do, of course, hate to post anything that suggests that Darren might only be mildly crazy rather than completely insane, but this seems like a good follow-up to the recent post on sleep habits:

About 1 in 10 of us is like Dilbert's Adams. The scientific literature calls such people larks (more palatable than the proper term, early chronotype"). In general, larks report being most alert around noon and feel most productive a few hours before they eat lunch. They don't need an alarm clock, because they invariably get up before the alarm rings - often before 6 a.m. Larks cheerfully report their favorite mealtime as breakfast and generally consume much less coffee than non-larks. Getting increasingly drowsy in the early evening, most larks go to bed (or want to go to bed) around 9 p.m.

Larks are the mortal enemy of the 2 in 10 humans who lie at the other extreme of the sleep spectrum: "late chronotypes," or owls. In general, owls report being most alert around 6 p.m., experiencing their most productive work times in the late evening. Owls invariably need an alarm clock to get them up in the morning, with extreme owls requiring multiple alarms to ensure arousal. Indeed, if owls had their druthers, most would not wake up much before 10 a.m. Not surprisingly, late chronotypes report their favorite mealtime as dinner, and they would drink gallons of coffee all day long to prop themselves up at work if given the opportunity. If it sounds to you as though owls do not sleep as well as larks in our society, you are right on the money. Indeed, late chronotypes usually accumulate a massive "sleep debt" as they go through life.

Source: Brain Rules, p. 157

Comments

I think that this is one of the differences between me and Darren. I'm an owl, he's a lark, though much less so than he was a few years ago. When he gets back from BC later this week, I'm sure that he'll have more to say on the matter.

Female Accomplice