Night of the Living Dead

Remember the all-nighters in college, preparing for an exam? How about those party-hardy nights where “I could have danced all night” but wound up doing a whole lot more? Binge drinking anyone? Or just waiting up until those late nights, when the rest of the world has gone to bed, just leave you blissfully alone to catch up on work. For others, it’s more about the time of day that triggers those creative juices. I hear that a lot from writers and fine artists. Nighttime is inspiration time for many; getting up way early just isn’t in the cards. For most night owls, they do not have young children at home who need attending, so work/pleasure determine their late-night habits. But for some, even with kids, work requirements rob them of needed quality time. There are, after all, just those folks who just draw the night shift, from cops, truckers seeking less traffic to hospital workers to people working in media. And they often do have children and spouses.

Aside from those late-nighters engaging in engaging in eating or drinking habits that just make medical professionals wince, are there any other risks associated with being a night owl? Apparently, there are potentially some very serious consequences, like a substantially shorter life expectancy. “A new study of mortality rates of more than 400,000 people finds that individuals who strongly preferred to stay up late were more likely to be dead at the end of a 6 1/2 -year period.

“The findings, described in the journal Chronobiology International, offer the first study linking mortality risk to night-owl sleep habits, according to the authors. The results could help researchers better understand another aspect of the role that circadian rhythms play in human health.

“Scientists have long studied whether night owls are saddled with health effects — some research has linked a preference for sleeping late to higher rates of diabetes, heart disease and obesity, among others. But little was known on whether there was a link between sleeping late and the ultimate outcome: an earlier death.” Los Angeles Times, April 16^th. Ouch! But we do live in mostly a 9-to-5 world, where most scheduling is based on that daylight averaging.

Working the night shift usually pays better, mostly for the inconvenience. But if you live in a family unit, a night-owl might be the only member of that family on such an outlier schedule. Better to be alone if you have to go that way, but how to you tell folks to call or text you only during hours when they are normally asleep? How do you communicate with the rest of the world with such hours? Is that the problem? Dating or being a good spouse? Is it like perpetual jet lag?

The LA Times continues: “‘We wanted to see whether this translated also into an increased risk of mortality, and no one had done that before,’ said lead author Kristen Knutson, an anthropologist at Northwestern University… The researchers were able to study the health outcomes of 433,268 people ages 38 to 73 using data from a cohort study called the UK Biobank Study. They sorted people by whether they were definite morning types (a.k.a. ‘morning larks’), definite evening types, moderate morning types or moderate evening types.

“They compared the different types, adjusting for a range of factors including the study participants’ age, sleep duration and existing health problems. The results showed that by the end of 6.5 years, the definite evening types were about 10% more likely to have died than the definite morning types, Knutson said.

“‘What we found is that the night owls, the definite evening types, were the ones that were at increased risk of mortality compared to the definite morning types — and the middle groups really weren’t,’ she said. ‘So it was really something about being a true evening type that was problematic.’

“It’s unclear exactly why night owls are more likely to die than the early risers in this period — and the study only established a correlation between the two, not cause and effect. But the researchers had some ideas… ‘We think the problem is really when the night owl tries to live in a morning-lark world,’ Knutson said. ‘So they want to be up late but they have to be up early for work and so the time that they’re doing things, like waking up or eating, is not at the correct time for them.’.. That tension between an evening person’s preferred routine and the routine of their environment also tends to lead to more irregular schedules, she said.”

For those owlers who have a choice, it might be time to make a reassessment on lifestyle and work choices… or accept the price of a shorter life for the privilege of living in another time zone among those in the “normal” world. But at least, it should be a conscious choice, not just business as usual.

I’m Peter Dekom, and I fortunately am an early riser (not too early!!!) and what you see in my blogging is generally in the first part of my day.