Human chronotypes: larks and owls

08 February 2023, 13:48 | Health 
фото с e-news.com.ua

We often use such concepts as “owl” or “lark” in everyday life in order to explain the dependence of our fatigue or vice versa, performance, on the time of day.. Of course, we do not mean birds, but human chronotypes..

The chronological type of a person, or chronotype, is determined by the peaks of activity of the nervous system depending on the time of day. The life of any living organism on Earth is subject to certain rhythms.. A peak is inevitably followed by a decline, during which the energy needed 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 mismatch of working hours with peaks and recessions of human activity determines the quality of his activity, which on a global scale affects both the economy and other spheres of society.

Determining 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 who have a peak in the morning and extends throughout the first half of the day.. With the onset of twilight, such people begin to decline, and before midnight they usually already sleep sweetly, so that the next day they wake up again with sunrise.

Owls are a type of people whose peak activity occurs in the afternoon and persists into the evening.. Owl people wake up much later than sunrise, usually at 10-11 am, or even by noon.. Before lunch, 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 larks sweetly snuffle, 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 both 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 neurosis and depression.. Doctors explain this by the lack of necessary downturns, when the body needs to rest and gain strength..

According to Western experts, at present, owls make up about 45% of people, larks - 25%, and about 30% of people either consider themselves arrhythmics or have not decided.

fictional owls? Chronobiologists, scientists involved in the study of time rhythms in living beings, have established for certain that it is larks who live by the natural biological rhythm. All life on Earth obeys the solar rhythm, and man is no exception.. Throughout a long historical period, what is there, almost all of its history, a person was directly dependent on the sun. People simply could not afford to get up late, because one way or another, all the main activities fell on daylight hours. He who gets up early and works hard goes to bed early too, and exceptions only confirm the general rule.. At present, people living in a tribal way in corners remote from civilization spend their whole lives in the rhythm of a lark, focusing on the world around them..

However, owls are by no means fiction, as statistics say, they represent the majority of the inhabitants of Western civilization.. The owl chronotype originated with the advent of electricity. Of course, night revelers existed before, but then they were just idle people, a small stratum, as they would say now, majors.. As human activities developed that did not depend on sunlight, the number of owls increased..

Changing chronotypeDoes this mean that a person's chronotype can change? Undoubtedly. A small child is usually a lark, because this is how his parents organize his life.. When a person has free choice, he can change his sleep and wake patterns - often this happens after graduation. Finally, a person discovers the liberties of a free life, and one of the attributes of the freedom gained from parents is precisely the schedule shifted to the " When small children appear, life becomes lark again, then, if the need for early rising disappears, the person returns to the comfortable lifestyle of an owl, and in old age, most people like to wake up early, returning to the lark. Thus, the human chronotype is not something once and for all certain, and if circumstances so require, it can always be rebuilt..

The world of owls was created for larks. Surprisingly, despite the fact that the vast majority of people of active, working age are owls, the way of social life is designed specifically for larks.. State institutions, kindergartens, schools, shops, clinics - everything works in the rhythm of a lark, but that's bad luck, owls work there too. Many experts, not without reason, believe that this is one of the reasons why a modern resident is so prone to stress, because chronic stress is provided by constant time pressure.. However, unfortunately, they have not yet figured out how to make it comfortable for both.

What is healthier - being an owl or a lark The fact that being a lark is more natural, 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, then opinions are divided. Many experts, including psychologists, do not find anything wrong with such a lifestyle, as long as the person himself is comfortable living this way.. However, few owls manage to build their lives in such a way that they are really comfortable, because, willy-nilly, they have to adapt 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 such a lifestyle suits them, but because they are unable to tear themselves away from the TV, their favorite computer toy, or simply surfing the Internet.. Such people hardly get up in the morning, skip couples at the institute, are always late for work, are in prostration until lunch and finally gather their strength in the evening, in order to then repeat the pathological cycle all over again.. When the day off comes, they sleep off for all the weekly suffering, explaining to others and to themselves such a way of life with the chronological type of an 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 result, insomnia, chronic fatigue syndrome, neurosis 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 reasonably.

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