There are people who, before the sun rises, had breakfast, cleaned the house and organized the day. But for most people, getting up with the first rays of the sun is a feat. In fact, some people are just the opposite - they are much more efficient and productive at night.
In this regard, science has created two opposing groups: early risers (larks), who wake up early and make the most of the morning, and vespertini (owls), whose performance increases throughout the day. Recently, a new study conducted at the Research Institute of Molecular Biology and Biophysics of the Russian Academy of Sciences revealed that there is actually much more to these chronotypes and that some people should never get up early in the morning.
"Lethargic" people and "energetic" people
These researchers looked at 130 people who had to stay awake for 24 hours with the aim of analyzing their energy level. So they found that there are people who can go all day with a low energy level, which they classified as "lethargic", while others could stay more active despite sleep deprivation and regardless of the time they woke up. the latter were classified as "energetic".
These new categories indicate that it would be harmful for people with less energy to get up early in the morning. In fact, their problem would be that their circadian rhythm is not well synchronized with the natural light-dark cycle.
Basically, sunlight is a kind of natural clock that stimulates our body by making it stop producing melatonin, the hormone that causes sleep. Thus we are able to maintain an adequate level of attention during the day. Conversely, when the light goes out, melatonin levels rise and we slowly doze off.
In early risers and energetic people, the peak of most activity comes mostly at noon, when sunlight is at its most intense. However, evenings, or lethargics, would not be so well synchronized with the light cycle, so their performance would slowly increase over the course of the day.
These differences are due, among other factors, to our DNA. According to research conducted at the National Center for Neurology and Psychiatry in Tokyo, the PER-3 gene, one of the genes of our biological clock, determines the propensity to get up early or late, as well as our energy level during the day.
Why should you know and adapt your pace to your chronotype?
Knowing your chronotype will allow you to function following your natural circadian rhythm, which will affect not only your productivity, but also your mood and health. In fact, it has been shown that when there is a mismatch in the circadian rhythm the person is more likely to suffer from obesity, diabetes and some cancers. Also, taking advantage of the moments of increased productivity will allow you to do more with less effort, which will have a positive effect on your mood.
In fact, the circadian rhythm is so important that some doctors at the Paul Brousse hospital in Paris have come to say that chemotherapy must be applied in correspondence with this cycle because it is known that the cells of some types of lymphoma tend to multiply more among the 9 and 10 in the evening. Conversely, intestinal cells tend to do so at 7 am and bone marrow cells at noon. Therefore, if chemotherapy is applied at these times, it will be more effective and less toxic.
