Night owls may die younger, but more than sleep is to blame

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According to a new study, people who prefer to go to bed and get up later, a sleep chronotype known as the night owl, can die early from the bad habits they develop when going to bed late.

The increased risk of mortality associated with being clearly evening seems to be mainly due to greater consumption of tobacco and alcohol. This is compared to those who are clearly morning people, said the study’s first author, Christer Hublin, a researcher at the Finnish Institute of Occupational Health in Helsinki, in a statement.

The study, published Friday in the journal Chronobiology International, was a follow-up to Finland’s 2002 Twin Cohort study. health related.

At the start of the study, each twin was asked to choose one answer from the following questions: I am clearly a morning person; I’m to some extent a morning person; I am clearly an evening person; or I am to some extent an evening person.

Only about 10% of twins describe themselves as evening people, while 33% say they prefer to stay up late. Over 29% were clearly morning people, while another 27.7% described themselves as somewhat inclined to prefer mornings.

For the new study, researchers looked at death records from a subset (8,728 participants) of the original study. After adjusting the data for education level, alcohol consumption, smoking status, body mass level and sleep duration, the study found that being a night owl increased the risk of premature death of about 9% compared to morning types, who are often called early risers.

We’ve known for a long time that those with a party type preference are more likely to be heavy drinkers, to have alcohol use disorders, and are also more likely to use other substances, including including tobacco, said sleep medicine specialist Dr. Bhanu Prakash Kolla. at the Center for Sleep Medicine at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, which was not involved in the study.

However, a 9% increased risk of early death is significant, he added, leaving room for other evening-type ways of being that could increase mortality risk.

Other possible causes that come to mind include those who are nocturnal and likely have to wake up early for work/school. Consequently, they end up sleeping less, and sleep deprivation can increase the risk, Kolla said in an email.

Everyone has an internal 24-hour clock, or circadian rhythm, which regulates the release of the hormone melatonin to promote sleep.

DaniloAndjus/E+/Getty Images

According to experts, staying up later can go hand in hand with alcohol and other vices that can affect both sleep and health.

Your personal sleep chronotype, thought to be inherited, may determine when this process occurs. If you’re an innate early riser, your circadian rhythm releases melatonin much earlier than normal, giving you the energy to become more active in the morning.

Early risers tend to perform better in school and are more active throughout the day, which may partly explain why studies have shown they have a lower risk of cardiovascular disease, experts say.

In night owls, however, the internal biological clock secretes melatonin much later, which slows the early mornings and pushes peak activity and alertness later in the afternoon and evening.

Night owls may be at higher risk for chronic diseases, according to previous research. A 2022 study found that night owls were more sedentary, had lower aerobic fitness levels, and burned less fat at rest and during activity than early risers.

The night owls were also more likely to be insulin resistant, meaning their muscles needed more insulin to get the energy they needed, according to the study.

Studies have found that night owls may take more risks and are more likely to skip breakfast and eat later in the day. Night owls also have higher levels of visceral body fat in the abdominal region, a key risk factor for type 2 diabetes and heart disease.

Dr. Phyllis Zee, director of the Center for Circadian and Sleep Medicine at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago, who reviewed the 2022 study for CNN, said at the time that there is good evidence that being a late sleeper has been linked to an increased risk of metabolic and cardiovascular disease.

Several mechanisms have been proposed: sleep loss, circadian misalignment, eating later in the day, and being exposed to less morning light and more evening light, all of which have been shown to affect insulin sensitivity, a said Zee, who is also a professor of neurology at Northwest.

If being a night owl worries you, there are things you can do to reverse the shift from night to day at least a bit, Zee told CNN previously: “It’s like having a gene for the diabetes, right? You can change that with your lifestyle, but it doesn’t change it.

First, start by lighting a lot of them, as soon as the alarm goes off. Use natural sunlight if possible or turn on artificial lights, especially those in the blue spectrum, which signal the body to wake up.

The strongest reset for the circadian system is bright light, Zee said. Morning light alters the oscillation of your circadian clock genes at the cellular and molecular level. You also train all of your rhythms, be it his sleep, blood pressure, heart rate or cortisol rhythm to be earlier.

You also want to switch things up at night, Zee said, by removing bright light sources much earlier to help your body start producing melatonin. That means no TVs, laptops, or smart displays unless you use a filter that turns blue light to amber or reddish orange, which doesn’t remove melatonin.

Another tip: Eat much earlier in the evening than you might like, Zee said: My rule: Stop eating within three hours of bedtime. Move your exercise program to the morning or early afternoon and also avoid strenuous exercise in the evening.

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