Why Can’t I Sleep at the Right Time? Answers from the Science of Circadian Rhythms and Chronobiology
By Eleanor McGlinchey, PhD
What are circadian rhythms
If you’ve been around this blog before, you’ve heard me talk about the processes that regulate sleep. One of those processes is the circadian process. It runs on a roughly 24 hour cycle and one of its jobs is to dictate to your body the best times for alertness and wake time, which is often synced to daylight in the geographical location that you currently live in the world. However, you may have noticed that I said it runs on “roughly” a 24 hour cycle. In other words, there can be quite a bit of variability in the precise length of an individual’s circadian cycle and that will often have impacts on how that individual experiences circadian fatigue and alertness throughout the day and night.
Being a morning person versus night person
You may have heard the descriptors that someone is a “night owl” or a “morning lark”. Although these two types of birds have strong circadian rhythms in the animal kingdom, they do not follow a 9-5 schedule of daily work! Most owls naturally do their work of hunting at night and sleep during part of the day. At the other end, there are larks or other types of early birds that wake up before dawn and begin their work of chirping or singing loudly with the sunrise. There is nothing wrong with these birds, however, many humans who follow similar patterns of sleep and alertness have a difficult time adapting to work and social schedules when their owl or lark tendencies put them at odds with friends or jobscolleagues with a different circadian rhythm.
How do I know if I am an owl or a lark?
You might already know this about yourself but if you are interested in learning more about your “chronotype”, there are assessments you can take online. The Munich Chronotype questionnaire (https://www.thewep.org/documentations/mctq) can help you better understand the biological underpinnings that may be driving your sleep timing behavior. This questionnaire uses the days when you don’t need to use an alarm to wake up (e.g., vacation days) to determine the timing of your biological clock. However, you can also get a sense of your circadian preferences by looking at the timing of your daytime activities and alertness. The Morningness-Eveningness questionnaire (https://chronotype-self-test.info/index.php?sid=61524&newtest=Y) is a helpful tool for understanding the times that you might prefer to do things like work or social activities. You may find that some of these preferences have changed over time. For example, many adolescents and young adults prefer to do work and social activities later in the day but this preference may move earlier and earlier as we age.
Can I change my chronotype?
Do not despair if you find that your sleep and wake times are not aligned with the world around you. Although you cannot change all the biology driving your circadian clock, you can make some behavioral and environmental changes in order to enhance your alertness during the times you want to be awake.
Here are some helpful ideas to get you started.
Wake up at the same time every day, even on weekends and holidays.
This will help your body to sync to the 24 hour cycle that you want to maintain.
Seek out bright light first thing when you wake up.
Your circadian clock is very sensitive to light. Bright lights will help your internal clock to know that it is “morning.” Sunlight is best but artificial lights are also capable of helping to reset your circadian clock. Even if you may be waking up before it’s fully light out, especially after Daylight Savings - something like the light from your phone (e.g., checking your weather app when you get up) helps!
Try to engage in alerting activities soon after you wake up.
This could be exercise or a social activity like meeting a friend for coffee. These activities will help to train your body to give you energy during your “morning”. (Morning is in quotes here because technically you could make your morning anytime during a 24 hour day.)
Keep lights dim in the few hours leading up to your desired bedtime.
As mentioned before, our circadian clocks are very sensitive to light. Keeping your lights dim will help your body prepare for nighttime. (Similar to #2 above, trying to get off your tech before bed is really helpful here too!)
Don’t give up!
The first few days and nights of your new schedule might not feel great. You may be familiar with this experience as it is similar to the feeling of jet lag when you are traveling to another time zone and trying to adapt to local time. Just like jet lag though, you should give your body more than a few days to adjust. Bear in mind that if you are trying to make a big change - you will need even more time to recalibrate (like trying to adjust after an international flight versus a local one).
If you find that you are following all of these tips for at least 2 weeks and still having trouble, it may be that you have a more extreme circadian rhythm disorder. The most common is Delayed Sleep-Wake Phase Disorder, which is characterized by extreme late bed and wake times that cause impairment in daily life. A sleep specialist can help you adjust your schedule with a combination of medication or supplements and other forms of therapy.
We love night owls
We know there can be a strong social pressure and respect for early morning birds, as they are often associated with self-discipline, being a go-getter, and even moral fiber. Yet this has more to do with a social narrative that centralizes productivity and the maximization of time than personal character. Trying to adjust your circadian rhythm has less to do with buying into that story and more to do with helping you engage and flourish with the people and world around you.
About the Author: Dr. Eleanor McGlinchey is a night owl but also a big fan of morning sunlight. This has led to a compromise between her chronotype and circadian preference such that she aims to wake up about an hour after sunrise but often has to talk herself out of doing too many activities in the evenings. However, you will still find her out and about or watching shows past her bedtime from time to time.