New sleep study: I’m a night owl, so I’m interested when I come across studies about what happens to people who habitually stay up late.
Sometimes they can be disturbing, and sometimes they’re innocuous. But sometimes — like the latest one I’ve read — they come with a silver lining.
Today’s study comes to us from the medical school at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands. It involves tracking the sleep habits and health outcomes of nearly 24,000 people over 10 full years.
Let’s give you the results up front: good, bad, and the reason to look on the bright side.
Writing in The Journal of Prevention of Alzheimer’s Disease, the Dutch researchers said they tracked the sleep habits and the degree to which they displayed cognitive decline over the same period.
The results were disconcerting on their face for night owls; people who habitually stay up late wound up with faster cognitive decline than those who go to bed early.
But, there was an unexpected twist. The less education night owls had, the less likely they were to experience similar levels of cognitive decline over the study period.
That finding begs for an explanation, and researcher Ana Wenzler, a Ph.D. candidate in the university’s department of epidemiology, offered a few:
First, as we saw in another recent study, people who stay up late are less likely than their early-to-bed peers to exercise during the day.
Second, people who go to bed early simply sleep through many of the times when other people smoke, drink, and eat unhealthy foods most often.
Finally — and this might be the most interesting — the increased correlation between more education and more cognitive decline for night owls might stem from the fact that, statistically, more educated people wind up trapped in a daytime work hours environment, even when their natural rhythms might be better served by a different schedule.
As Wenzler explained in an accompanying statement:
“That probably has to do with their sleep rhythm. They are often people who have to go back to work early in the morning and are therefore more likely to sleep too short, giving their brains too little rest.
We suspect that lower- or middle-educated people are more likely to have a job that allows them to take their sleep rhythm into account, such as a job in the hospitality industry or one with night shifts. If this is not possible, your brain does not get enough rest and you are more likely to adopt bad habits.
It would be nice if more consideration was given to evening people who now have to work early: for example, by giving them the option of starting later.”
This is the part I look at as a silver lining. Because, even as workplaces have evolved during the 10 years or so that the study period covered, many highly educated night owls have, in fact, adjusted.
More of us work remotely, more of us work for ourselves, and more of us have worked out flexibility. We’ve actually given ourselves “the option of starting later” if it fits our schedules better.
In my personal situation, that’s exactly what’s happened. If you go back to the earlier parts of my career, I was chained to an inflexible schedule at work. As an example, I had a job that required me to battle a Los Angeles commute and be sitting at my desk by 7:30 a.m. each day.
Let’s just say it was a struggle.
Today, I’m fortunate in that I answer to nobody but myself, and so I set my own hours. I probably put in a lot more time each week than I once did when I was on someone else’s schedule, but the hours I work are better suited to my natural chronotype (or “biological clock”).
Of course, we’re hearing about this study just as many big companies are swinging the pendulum back the other way, requiring employees to be in the office more often, and limiting remote work and flexibility.
Maybe that’s a competitive opportunity.
Great employees come in all chronotypes: night owls and early birds alike. If you can be more flexible, maybe the best ones will be more likely to want to work for you.
Call it another silver lining.
7 other things worth knowing
Lawyers for Jeffrey Epstein’s estate gave Congress a copy of the "Epstein birthday book," including a letter with Donald Trump’s signature that he has claimed doesn’t exist. The Wall Street Journal in July reported on the letter bearing Trump’s purported signature, which contained typewritten text framed by the outline of a naked woman. Trump had called the letter “a fake thing” and filed a lawsuit against the Journal’s reporters, alleging defamation and saying the letter was “nonexistent.” (WSJ)
In a few eventful weeks, the Trump family’s wealth increased $1.3 billion from two crypto ventures, each less than a year old. The sums rival the values of long-held golf and resort properties that had been synonymous with the Trumps, whose fortune now stands at $7.7 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. (Bloomberg)
Americans are more positive toward capitalism than socialism, but the 54% viewing capitalism favorably is down from 60% in 2021 and near that level in most prior years. Americans remain more negative (57%) than positive (39%) toward socialism, with little movement in these attitudes over time. (Gallup)
The Supreme Court on Monday at least temporarily lifted an order prohibiting immigration agents from making indiscriminate stops in the Los Angeles area that challengers called “blatant racial profiling.” The court’s unsigned order gave no reasons, but its three liberal members dissented: “We should not have to live in a country where the government can seize anyone who looks Latino, speaks Spanish and appears to work a low wage job,” Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote, joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson. (NYT)
Trump laid into Tom Hanks online for supposedly being “destructive” and “woke” after West Point canceled plans to give an award to the two-time Academy award winner in honor of his veterans advocacy and for having produced shows like "Band of Brothers," about the 101st Airborne Division: "Our great West Point (getting greater all the time!) has smartly cancelled the Award Ceremony for actor Tom Hanks. Important move! We don’t need destructive, WOKE recipients getting our cherished American Awards!!!" (The Guardian)
Independent analysis by a trusted consumer advocacy group has found that several of Australia's most popular, and expensive, sunscreens are not providing the protection they claim to, kicking off a national scandal. There has been a massive backlash from customers, a probe launched by the country's medical watchdog, multiple products pulled from shelves, and questions raised about the regulation of sunscreen around the globe. "It's definitely not an issue isolated to Australia," said cosmetic chemist Michelle Wong. (BBC)
Hikers who climbed a Colorado mountain got more than just a sweeping view at the top. A man in an ice cream cone costume unexpectedly was handing out frozen treats. No one seemed to know the man who carried ice cream sandwiches and bars and dry ice in a 60-pound pack up Huron Peak. But spread quickly to hikers still making their way up the more than 14,000-foot mountain that's one of Colorado's tallest. (KSL)
Thanks for reading. Photo by Dmitrii Zhodzishskii on Unsplash. I wrote about some of this before at Inc.com. See you in the comments.
My comment today regards the Supreme Court's ruling that ICE can indeed racially profile in its efforts to remove illegal aliens from our country. Racial profiling is a logical move when you're targeting a demographic. Israel years ago, stopped the hijacking of their airlines by initiating a racial profile program that targeted young Arab men. If you are targeting white collar crime, do you target black and brown people in the "projects" or do you focus on white men in large businesses? Over the last several decades of both Democratic and Republican Presidents they have allowed upwards of 30 million illegals into our country. The vast majority of these illegals are non-white and non-Anglo-Saxons who don't speak English. It's only logical that you target non-white non-English speaking people. If a foreigner enters our country legally, they must learn English a good indicator that they are here legally. If you are working to lower the incident of accidents involving drunk driving, you target bars and night clubs not churches.
As for West Point kowtowing to the woke whims of a clearly deranged mind, for shame! It’s probably just as well that my great uncles, all three of whom went to West Point and went on to successful military careers, are dead so they don’t have to witness this insanity that’s gripped leaders of all kinds, so much so they can’t bend over fast enough.
Like Bill, I’m a night owl and always have been. It was tough when I had a couple of jobs that began either at 7:00 or 8 AM but I worked through it. I am glad now though that sleeping in is my norm and 5 hours of sleep my usual.