Are you the type of person who jumps out of bed when the alarm goes off or are you someone who works best in the middle of the night?
Knowing whether you're a morning lark or a night owl can be a great way to get the most out of your day.
Dr. Harry Barry, a GP and mental health specialist, and Dr. Ann-Marie Creaven of the Department of Psychology, UL, joined Claire Byrne on RTÉ Radio 1 to discuss the importance of sleep when it comes to our physical and mental health.
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As strange as it sounds, ideally, we should spend one-third of our lives asleep. Sixteen hours awake per day followed by eight hours of sleep at night.
"When we get to 16 [hours] we start to feel a bit sleepy and start to feel like it's time to go to bed," says Barry. "The problem for us is that mother nature has designed this system where some of us will get sleepy early in the night and will be heading off to bed at 10pm, and then will get out in the morning like larks."
While larks are likely to fall asleep before 11pm and wake up in the morning "full of beans and raring to go", owls have a different circadian rhythm meaning that they won't be able to fall asleep until after 11pm and will be sluggish in the mornings.
While it is possible to train yourself to change your sleeping habits, Creaven says that you are ultimately "working against your biology" and are better off trying to accommodate your natural rhythm.
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When people are living a life that "conflicts with their natural inclination to sleep" it can lead to poor quality of sleep which can lead to further health issues. According to Creaven, owls are particularly vulnerable.
"If you think of an owl, who really comes into their own in the evening time, what opportunities are there for an owl to live that full life when everyone else is going to bed? They're going to take up habits that might involve going out for drinks, maybe eating at odd hours, rather than healthier habits like when you can go to the gym in the middle of the day."
"It becomes a problem when we look at modern life," agrees Barry, explaining that although society is thought to be made up of about 40% larks and 30% night owls (the rest fall in between, leading slightly one way or the other), our daily schedules are not owl-friendly.
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As a result, if an owl needs to be up early to get the kids to school or get into the office, they are more likely to be reaching for cups of coffee to get them through.
"Caffeine, unfortunately, sits in the adenosine receptors in the brain," he explains. This, he says, can be an issue as good sleep should be uninterrupted, with a good night's sleep divided into five 90-minute bursts of sleep.
The first four hours should be 'slow' or 'deep' sleep which is vital for our physical health as our heart and blood pressure get to rest and our body is allowed to recover. The next four hours are important for mental health as this is when our brains "detach our memories from emotions" which helps to lower anxiety and stress.
"There are significant health differences between the owl and the lark, which I think we don't talk enough about," says Dr. Barry.
To find out more about morning larks and night owls, listen back to RTÉ Radio 1.
