Night owls 'have unhealthy habits' that could lead to early death
If you love scrolling through TikTok until the early hours of the morning, dropping off to sleep around 3am and rolling out of bed at midday, you're probably not going to like this article.
Previous research suggests those who go to bed later tend to have a slightly increased risk of death from any cause, particularly heart disease.
A new group of scientists from the University of Helsinki wanted to find out why this was.
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The researchers gathered data on nearly 23,000 twins over the course of more than 37 years in Finland, assessing the impact of an individual's chronotype — the body's natural preferences to sleep at a certain time — on their health.
Participants were 24 years old at the start of the study, which lasted from 1981 to 2018.
They were asked to pick from four possible responses: “I am clearly a morning person,” “I am to some extent a morning person,” “I am clearly an evening person” or “I am to some extent an evening person.”
They were also asked questions about their education, alcohol consumption, smoking status, BMI and sleep duration.
The results revealed that 7,591 participants identified as an evening person 'to some extent,' while 2,262 said they were 'clearly an evening person.' For morning types, the numbers were 6,354 and 6,769 respectively.
More than 8,700 participants had died by the end of the study in 2018, but the research found very little correlation between when a person tended to go to bed and mortality.
So why do evening people have an increased risk of mortality? Well, it's not so much to do with when people go to bed, more the likelihood that night owls have unhealthy habits.
Night owls drank or smoked more than their early bird counterparts and were also less likely to regularly get eight hours of sleep.
Sleep medicine specialist Bhanu Prakash Kolla told CNN: “We have known for a long time that those who have an evening type preference are more likely to be heavier drinkers, have alcohol use disorder, and are also more likely to use other substances including tobacco.”
The negative impacts of alcohol and smoking are widely known, but there is also growing evidence that sleep duration and quality can also greatly impact your health, and night owls are likely getting less sleep.
Kolla continued: "Those who are evening types will likely need to wake up early for work/school therefore end up getting less sleep and the sleep deprivation can increase risk."
The findings suggest that the chance of dying was nine percent higher among night owls than early birds, with smoking and alcohol largely contributing to their deaths.
So essentially, the night owls out there don't need to panic, so long as they avoid smoking and excessive drinking and make sure they're getting enough shut eye.
Bec Oakes