Many creative and artistic individuals may have Delayed Sleep Phase and not know it. They simply know that they are very creative during the night and really prefer not to sleep until the morning. New York film maker, Alan Berliner, is one such creative night owl. The bulk of his work is done from 10:00 p.m. to 6:00 a.m. His film, Wide Awake, outlines his struggle with insomnia. www.alanberliner.com    

Using melatonin or light therapy can advance a sleeping or waking schedule, however, individuals like Alan prefer to maintain their extreme night owl schedule as they feel they are more creative through this time.  A recent article in the USA Today HealthSmart Weekend magazine (June 18-21) titled “Inspired at Night” features Alan.

A good strategy is to review the program agenda in advance and decide which sessions or speakers are on your priority list. There may be a critical session at 7:30 a.m. and you’ll have to do what’s necessary to make sure you’re awake and there on time. On the other mornings, you can choose to sleep, wake later and take in the later sessions.

This strategy will ensure that you’re rested and better able to learn and network.

An article by Jeanne Martinson in Convene, a magazine of the meeting industry, addresses this issue.

Both early birds and night owls experience a body temperature high and low every 24 hours. However, early birds achieve their peak body temperature earlier in the day than night owls do. Given that we are most active and alert when our body temperature is highest, one can understand why early birds are more alert and active early in the day, while night owls do not become entirely alert and active until later in the day.

Added to this is the fact that, once they are awake, early birds experience a rapid increase in body temperature and then maintain somewhat of a plateau during the day with a somewhat smaller increase in temperature early in the evening. Body temperature in night owls, on the other hand, increases very gradually from the time of waking throughout the day until a peak is reached later in the evening. For this reason, night owls are usually very slow to get going in the morning, but as their temperature continues to rise throughout the day, they continue to become more and more active and alert.

Early birds reach their peak body temperature early in the evening and then experience a rapid decline. For this reason, they are not alert later in the evening and usually want to sleep. The body temperature in night owls, however, remains high, and does not peak until about an hour after the early birds have reached their peak body temperature. Night owls are, therefore, able to be alert and keep functioning much later into the night.

Throughout the day, the body temperature of night owls is generally lower than that of early birds, though the peak body temperature achieved by both groups tends to be about the same.

Human beings, however, are very flexible organisms and can often overcome natural physiological needs and behaviours. This is the case for night owls who must get up early every morning to go to work. They temporarily overcome their physiological need for sleep and attempt to get on with their daily tasks. In some cases, one might even believe that they were early birds. Early birds, on the other hand, who are required to work late into the night overcome their need for sleep early in the evening, and one might think that they were night owls.

But this ability to be flexible is deceiving. Night owls and early birds who are on schedules other than their preferred ones over a long period of time, will become chronically sleep-deprived and may experience a variety of physical and emotional problems.

Our natural night owl or early bird characteristics can also become accentuated by lifestyle or environmental conditions. Night owls who are musicians or who work in late-night restaurants often find that their bedtime gets extended later and later so that they become even more extreme night owls than they would naturally be. Early birds who work in early morning radio or television find, on the other hand, that they must rise even earlier than they normally would and must go to bed very early in the evening. As a result, they become even more extreme early birds.

But all of this suggests only degrees of adjustment of our natural characteristics and not an actual change. Consider this analogy. If you have dark hair and would prefer to be a blond, you can dye your hair or buy a blond wig. On the surface, you appear to have blond hair, but this is a temporary situation. It does not change the fact that your natural hair color is dark.

So, too, with our biological rhythms. We can temporarily overcome them, but we do not change them. Where there are no other extenuating circumstances or conditions, we will revert to our natural tendencies. This is most readily seen with night owls who will resume sleeping later in the morning during the weekend or when they are on vacation.

“I have to admit I look down on people who go to bed at 9 o’clock at night. I don’t think they’re lazy. I just think “Nine o’clock at night! Get real! You’re missing half your life!” (NO)Cindy

(Early birds) run the world. We have to fit in. Most of those people are imposing their lifestyle on us. Leave me alone and let me do my own thing and quit passing judgment on my life and my performance.” (NO)Kathy

“I have friends that get up at 6 o’clock in the morning and I go “Why do you have to be up at 6 o’clock in the morning?” and they go “Oh, it’s a great time of the day!” Well, if that’s all you’re up for, just to see the sun come up…. To me it’s a waste of time to get up that early just to get ready for a day.” (NO)Neil

In spite of holding less than charitable views about early birds, night owls do perceive both advantages and disadvantages in being an early bird. The perceived advantages are particularly related to finding it easier to get up in the morning and enjoying what the morning has to offer.

“Sometimes, I think “Well, if I got up early, then I would have all that time and I would do all those things and still have all the rest of the day to go.” Early birds have that advantage because by the time I get going, it’s afternoon and much of the day is over.” (NO)Teresa

“When I do get up early in the morning, especially at the lake, it is beautiful, and I’m thinking “Gosh, I’m missing half the day.” So I think they have that over us.” (NO)Rose

Most of the perceived disadvantages are seen to be related to missing out on the nighttime, a time in which night owls glory.

“I think there’s a lot of disadvantages to being an early bird. You have to go to bed at 9 o’clock at night. They’re tired early in the evening. They miss out on a lot of life. If they do socialize, then they’re very tired the next day, so they probably pay for it.” (NO)Cindy

Another night owl, while not perceiving any disadvantages in being an early bird, does, however, sympathize with a situation early birds often find themselves in.

“I think it would be hard for them to understand a night owl. For them to be up early and want to be able to do things and things are not happening, – to get up and be waiting for their spouse or their friend before they can even phone them in the morning. Things like that. To me that would be really frustrating.” (NO)Darcy

Though night owls are often thought to sleep longer than usual, night owls often have the same view of early birds who go to bed relatively early. This was indicated by Alice, who is an early bird with a husband who does not share the same schedule.

“He thinks I need too much sleep.” (EB)Alice

“My roommates, when I was single, would think that it was weird that I went to bed at 5:00 (in the morning.)” (NO)Barb

There is also a belief that if someone has trouble getting up in the morning that something is wrong with them.

“My sister would always say “You’re sleeping half your life away.” They didn’t think it was normal, since I was the only one in the family that would be up those late odd hours. My Mom joked around saying I had some sleeping sickness or something.” (NO)Neil

“I can’t relate to getting tired until 2 o’clock in the morning. If you’re up at 7 in the morning and working all day, why aren’t you tired at 11 o’clock (at night)? I can’t understand it. They should be doing some exercise or doing some crosswords to get tired.” (EB)Catherine

As night owls envy some of the aspects of being an early bird, so, too, early birds recognize that there is some advantage to being a night owl.

“I’m a bit jealous because I wish that I could stay up.” (EB)Alice

Early birds also have some sympathy for night owls, but this is just in a general sense and certainly does not extend to the workplace.

“I would say that they have a problem getting to places first thing in the morning, because my husband is constantly late. They can’t get up and get moving. ” (EB)Anne

“Everything is closed when night owls would want to do something. They would have to get up when they’re tired if they want to get anything done.” (EB)Catherine

These numbers often reflect what could be referred to as “functional” night owls, early birds and intermediates. That is, because of social, cultural or lifestyle factors, we are often obliged to follow schedules not of our own choosing and may, therefore, appear to be, for example, intermediates when we are really “physiological” night owls or early birds.

A study which involved 48 university students in England included 18 (37%) moderate to definite Morning types, 20 (41%) moderate to definite Evening types and 10 (21%) Intermediate types. At the time of the study, these results were considered to be high for evening types because the sample consisted of young university students who tend to follow a night owl type of schedule, but nevertheless, the morning types make up a greater percentage of the group than the 20% generally believed to be representative of the population.

Jeffrey Larson, a family therapist at Brigham Young University in Utah, conducted a study with 150 couples. In this group of 300 people, 134 or 44% were morning types, 96 or 32% were evening types and 24% were undifferentiated.

As is readily apparent, these few studies have established little consistency in the percentages attributed to each type. Certainly, sample size and composition of the group in question is a factor. In addition, the studies were undertaken with objectives other than providing population information. The determination of types in the group was incidental to the testing of other hypotheses. To this extent, the known scientific studies did not sample a broad range of the general population.

It is also important that the same time definitions be used in categorizing night owls, early birds and intermediates. This has not always been the case and may be a reason for some of the inconsistencies in results.

In an effort to determine just what the percentages in the population might be, I surveyed a total of 419 people. Knowing that people were often obliged to follow work and social schedules not of their choosing, I made a point of having them distinguish between their daily schedule and their preferred schedule and used the time definitions established by Horne and Ostberg and used by them to distinguish morning, evening and intermediate types with the Morning-Eveningness Questionnaire.

The first 102 people were surveyed several years prior to writing the book. They were from three different groups, from a number of different urban and rural locations and represented all ages and diverse occupational and economic backgrounds. The majority of the people (317) were surveyed in the year prior to writing the text and represented five different groups from several cities. The groups were comprised of men and women of all ages, occupations and economic backgrounds. They represented various cultures, but were predominately white and middle class.

Overall, the daily schedules followed by most people differ markedly from the schedules they would prefer to follow if they weren’t encumbered by work and family responsibilities. This is most clearly indicated by the fact that on a daily basis fully 85% of the people follow an early bird schedule in the morning, but given any choice in the matter, only 22% would continue to do so. By far, the greatest majority of people would prefer to rise after 7:45 in the morning, but instead they are regularly rising before 6:30 and 7:00 in the morning.

At the opposite end of the scale, 21% of the people would prefer to rise at 10 or 11 o’clock in the morning, but only about 2% have this luxury on a daily basis. Interestingly, the people in the survey who followed this schedule on a daily basis had occupations in the arts or entertainment fields.

When it comes to retire to one’s bed, however, few people are truly early birds in their daily or preferred schedules. Only about 7% of the people choose to be in bed by 10 o’clock in the evening. There is little difference in the number of people who follow this schedule daily and those who prefer this schedule. True early birds simply cannot stay up later in the evening and they will fall asleep at their preferred time.

There are, however, a few people, and the key words are “a few” who are truly early birds and who find themselves staying up an hour or so later than they would prefer because of social, family and community obligations. They then find themselves sleeping an hour or so later in the morning and given the choice would choose both an earlier rising and retiring schedule than they follow on a daily basis.

At the opposite end of the scale, between 11.3 – 13% of the people find themselves going to bed at 12:30 a.m. or later on a daily basis, but given any choice in the matter, this number would swell to 31% of the people. One factor affecting this is our tendency to “phase delay” because of our circadian clock operating closer to 25 hours, but nevertheless, it would appear that many people are going to bed earlier than they would prefer, knowing that this is necessary if they are to be awake and able to get to work in the morning.

By far the largest group in this survey is the Intermediates, but this number is closer to 60% and not 80% as most sources suggest it should be. These intermediates most commonly prefer a schedule that would see them rising around 8 o’clock in the morning and going to bed sometimes around midnight. The next largest group is the Evening Types and the smallest group is the Morning Types.

Determining these types is complicated by the fact that people do not hold true to type for both the rising and retiring criteria. Only 1 – 6.75% of the people preferred an early bird type of retiring schedule, but fully 22% preferred an early bird type of rising schedule. On the other hand, 31% of the people preferred a night owl schedule for retiring in the evening, but only 21% would choose a night owl schedule for rising in the morning.

I would not presume to suggest that the results of my surveys are 100% accurate, but I think it is fair to suggest that night owls and early birds account for a greater share of the general population than most sources would suggest. They are not the anomaly some believe them to be. However, until scientifically-sound, large scale studies are done, we cannot make any more precise statements than that.

Excerpted with permission from Birds of a Different Feather by Carolyn Schur.

Genes in our body determine our sleeping and waking preferences. Scientists have found this to be the case in animals and humans, and now scientific research is underway to determine which genes are the determinants of these characteristics. Karen Wager Smith at Scripps University is one such researcher. She is attempting to verify night owl and early bird behavioral characteristics with the associated genetic markers.

This information will add to our understanding of how behavioral characteristics may be determined by physiological factors, but for night owls, it will be a significant validation of the claim that “I can’t seem to change.” Night owls who try to change their schedules to be more consistent with an early bird schedule are either not successful or find that they become fatigued and even ill. This difficulty is a result of trying to work against our natural physiology. The best solution is to learn how to live comfortably without compromising what you were designed to be.

We all have a natural circadian rhythm which dictates our daily schedule for sleeping and waking. Many night owls are attuned to this natural rhythm and, through experience, have found that they cannot maintain well-being along with being at work early in the morning. Many others, however, unaware that they are naturally night owls, try to maintain an early bird schedule and as a result, become desynchronized.

Are you a night owl out of synch?

Do you -

* Have difficulty waking in the morning?
* Feel tired when you wake?
* Sleep a sufficient number of hours yet feel tired all day?
* Nap after work because you are so tired?
* Start to feel awake later in the evening?
* Force yourself to go to bed early in an effort to wake up early?
* Have difficulty getting to sleep when you go to bed early?
* ‘Crash’ or sleep much later than usual on the weekend?
* Feel depressed?
* Often have headaches? Appetite problems?

If you answered ‘yes’ to most of these statements, and all other sleep disorders and physical and emotional conditions have been ruled out, then you may be a desynchronized night owl. The simplest and most enduring solution is to change both your work and sleep schedule. Though you may think this is impossible, you may be surprised to find that there is more flexibility and openness to such a solution than you may have thought possible. Consider offering to work later and frame this as a business advantage. Or partner with other employees who would be happy to work earlier if you covered the later portion of their schedule.