Human chronotypes - larks and owls
We often in everyday life use concepts such as "owl" or "lark" in order to explain the dependence of our fatigue, or vice versa, performance, on the time of day. Of course, this does not mean birds, but human chronotypes.
The chronological type of a person, or chronotype, is determined by the peaks in the activity of the nervous system depending on the time of day. The life of any living organism on Earth obeys certain rhythms. The peak is inevitably followed by a decline, during which the energy required for the next peak is accumulated. The study of chronotypes began in the 70s of the twentieth century, and at first it was accepted rather skeptically. However, in the course of observations, it turned out that this has not only scientific, but also practical significance, since the coincidence or non-coincidence of working hours with the peaks and falls of a person's activity determines the quality of his activities, which on a global scale affects both the economy and other spheres of society. …
Determination of a person's chronotype: who are you, an owl or a lark?
The chronological type of a person is determined by the peaks and troughs of his performance. So, larks are those people whose peak falls in the morning hours and extends to the entire first half of the day. With the onset of dusk, such people begin to decline, and until midnight they usually sleep sweetly in order to wake up again the next day with sunrise.
Owls are a type of people whose peak of activity occurs in the afternoon and remains in the evening. Owl people wake up much later than sunrise, usually at 10-11 am, or even by noon. Before lunchtime, their performance is low, and by 15 o'clock it begins to gain momentum, reaching a peak after sunset. For owls, midnight is a "childish" time, and when the larks are snoring sweetly, owls are quite capable of completing important work.
Sometimes a third type of people is also distinguished, they are called arrhythmics. Arrhythmics are those whose performance does not depend on the time of day, who are equally productive in the morning and in the evening. Many believe that this is ideal, but observations show that such people are more likely to suffer from neuroses and depression. Doctors explain this by the absence of the necessary recessions, when the body must rest and gain strength.
According to the estimates of Western experts, at present, owls make up about 45% of people, larks - 25%, and about 30% of people either consider themselves to be arrhythmic or have not decided.
Invented owls?
Chronobiologists, scientists studying temporal rhythms in living beings, have established for certain that it is the larks that live by the natural biological rhythm. All life on Earth obeys the solar rhythm, and man is no exception. For a long historical period, so that there, almost all of its history, man was directly dependent on the sun. People simply could not afford to get up late, because one way or another, all the main activity fell on daylight hours. Those who get up early and work hard go to bed early too, and the exceptions only confirm the general rule. Currently, people living in a tribal way in corners remote from civilization spend their entire life in the rhythm of a lark, focusing on the world around them.
Nevertheless, owls are by no means fictions, as statistics say, they represent most of the inhabitants of the countries of Western civilization. The owl chronotype emerged with the advent of electricity. Of course, nocturnal revelers existed before, but then they were just idle people, a small stratum of, as they would say now, majors. As human activities developed that did not depend on sunlight, the number of owls increased.
Changing chronotype
Does this mean that a person's chronotype can change? Certainly. A small child is usually a morning person, because this is how his parents organize his life. When a person has free choice, they can change their sleep and wakefulness patterns - often after graduation. Finally, a person discovers for himself the liberties of a free life, and one of the attributes of the freedom acquired from his parents is precisely the graph shifted to the "owl" side. When young children appear, life again becomes an early riser, then if the need for early getting up disappears, the person returns to the comfortable owl lifestyle for him, and in old age most people like to wake up early, returning to the lark. Thus, the chronotype of a person is not something definite once and for all,and if circumstances call for it, it can always be rebuilt.
The world of owls is made for larks
Surprisingly, despite the fact that the vast majority of people of active, able-bodied age are owls, the way of social life is arranged precisely with the larks in mind. Government agencies, kindergartens, schools, shops, clinics - everything works in the rhythm of a lark, but that's bad luck, owls also work there. Many experts, not without reason, believe that this is one of the reasons that a modern inhabitant is so prone to stress, because chronic stress is provided by constant time trouble. However, unfortunately, they have not yet figured out how to make it comfortable for both.
Which is healthier - being an owl or a lark?
The fact that it is more natural to be a morning person, and therefore useful, is beyond doubt. A person who lives in the same rhythm not only with nature, but also with society, of course, is in a winning position. As for owls, opinions were divided. Many specialists, including psychologists, do not find anything wrong with such a lifestyle, as long as the person himself is comfortable living this way. Nevertheless, few owls manage to build their lives so that they are really comfortable, because willy-nilly they have to adjust if they attend the same educational institution, for example.
Often people consider themselves owls not because of the chronotype, but for the banal reason that they do not know how to organize their time. As a rule, they go to bed late not at all because this way suits them, but because they cannot tear themselves away from the TV, favorite computer toy or just surfing the Internet. Such people hardly get up in the morning, walk the couples at the institute, are always late for work, are in prostration until lunchtime and finally get together in the evening in order to then repeat the pathological cycle from the beginning. When the day off comes, they sleep off for all the weekly suffering, explaining to others and to themselves this way of life as a chronological type of owl.
This lifestyle is a direct path to nervous disorders caused by chronic lack of sleep and stress. Its consequence is constant overwork, psycho-emotional stress, and, as a consequence, insomnia, chronic fatigue syndrome, neuroses and depression. I must say that the objections of doctors against owls are based precisely on this, but strictly speaking, such people are not owls, they are victims of their own inability to organize life rationally.
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