What Causes People to be a Morning Person or Night Owl?

Do you tend to be more acclimated to the evening or morning hours? Studies show there could be several factors that would cause each of us to prefer different times of the day depending on our daily activities, and even our body chemistry! While your friends can be more prone to early morning hours, you may find that you are more productive once the sun has started to set. Find out more about what factors can cause people to be a morning person or a night owl with an informative guide from Sleep MD! Schedule your first appointment to visit a highly recommended sleep doctor in Manhattan today to get in depth answers about your personal sleep schedule and habits!

What Makes a Morning Person Versus a Night Owl?

While your personal, daily schedule has a lot to do with the hours of the day you prefer, there is scientific proof that our internal ‘clocks’ can also provide a majority of why you prefer one time over the other. But what contributes to this internal clock that seems to set our whole hourly preference and even our prime productivity and performance hours? Mostly, your internal clock is set through several biological factors; including an actual natural rhythm that everyone is born with and develops during our formative years. Our internal clocks are a mix of nature and nurture; in that it is set by both biological factors in our DNA, and it can also accumulate during our early childhood years based on the schedule of our caretakers. If a patient’s parents were more likely to wake up at a later hour, and go to sleep at a later bedtime, the patient is more likely to be a night owl in adulthood because this is a rhythm and daily schedule that was ingrained at a very early age. The same factors can also be said about patients who had an earlier schedule of waking up in the morning and going to sleep at an earlier hour every night. On a more biological note, the sensitivity of the eyes also plays a large part in schedule preference for patients. Those who had more sensitive eyes were more commonly linked to being morning people, as the daylight that rises each morning has more of an effect on the sleeping patterns for these specific patients. The morning light sends a message to their brain telling them to begin their day. Discover more about your tendency to prefer one time of day over the other when you schedule an appointment with a highly rated sleep doctor in Manhattan from Sleep MD now!

As the patient enters into a more independent lifestyle where daily schedules and nightly routines are not being set by someone else, new tendencies can begin to arise that have more to do with outside influences instead of the internal clock. If work or school hours are not on a consistent and regulated schedule, patients are more likely to prefer the night hours, as a more active schedule often encourages night owl behaviors. Studies have shown that women are more likely to be morning people while men have a higher percentage for being night owls. Patients with night owl tendencies are also much more likely to develop symptoms of insomnia, and sleep apnea. These patients are also far more likely to receive an insomnia or sleep apnea diagnosis and treatment. Evidence has also shown that patients over the age of 60 tend to prefer the morning hours, while patients under the age of 30 gravitate towards being night owls. If you are suffering from poor sleep symptoms such as insomnia or sleep apnea, you may require the help of a certified sleep doctor in Manhattan. Contact Sleep MD today to see when you can schedule your first appointment with a sleep specialist now!

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