From my own nearly lifetime experience of depression, I can say that staying up late or not sleeping, helps me feel less depressed or reduces the intensity of feeling; if I lose too much sleep, the next day, I feel incredibly sleep deprived and fuzzy but not as depressed.
I have lifetime clinical depression, fairly well controlled by medication now, and am a confirmed nightowl. If I didn't have to work I wouldn't get to bed before 2 or 3 am. When I was in college I often went to bed after breakfast (ah, those were the days). Fact is, after about 7 pm I just start feeling better. Maybe it has to do with a serotonin cycle, I don't know, but when I feel good I just want to keep feeling that way. Being awake at night does this for me, early rising doesn't.
2
As a general rule I won’t voluntarily be somewhere before noon or 1 pm. I don’t exactly hate mornings, it’s more that I find it hard to be around people until I’ve been awake at least an hour or two.
4
This is from the study itself: "Results were similar when we restricted analyses to women who reported average sleep durations (7–8 h/day) and no history of rotating night shift work at baseline." --- So, the night owls living against their natural body clock were compared to larks who were not? Would love to know more about that.
7
As a confirmed night owl, I can say that living in a world designed for larks is enough to make any night owl depressed.
The moralistic pressure can be immense and make one begin to wonder about their worthiness in society....
But, my theory is, that during the evolutionary process, way back in the day, someone had to be awake at night to "guard the cave" and all the larks should be grateful to us night owls for keeping them safe and, maybe unfortunately for us, allowing them to now be dictating the wake-sleep cycles for everyone.
23
You're right about the moral pressure. "Morning people" believe that their habits or proclivities are "right". There is no moral or scientific basis for feeling so, but they do lord it over the rest of us, gleefully scheduling 7:30 meetings.
5
As an extreme night owl my entire life —even as an infant according to my mother — I echo the questions already asked by others.
Personally, I think this increased depression is from being forced into the usual workday schedule. Days or weeks that I have to be at work by 7 or 8 am are dreadful — I’m essentially non-functional with dulled thinking. I can tolerate a few days but if I have to be at work by 8 am every day for months I invariably get depressed even though I was exposed to the same light as the morning people. Though not my preference, I can tolerate arriving at 9:30 for a month but every morning is painful. In recent years, I’ve had more control of my schedule. I can sleep till 10 or 11 most days and work till late at night when I hit my peak. I’ve not been depressed at all on that schedule.
I haven’t read the paper so the authors may have addressed this but it would be interesting to note whether there were chronotype differences in the symptoms of depression that people had — not just whether they met criteria for depression. For example, were morning people more likely to get melancholic depression vs atypical depression? What about weight gain vs weight loss with the depression? Lots of interesting questions to explore!
I just hope that this article doesn’t serve as another impetus for self-righteous morning people to claim that it’s good for night owls to morph into early risers. If any “larks” do this to me, this “owl” will flip them the bird....
31
Since at least Great Horned Owls are apex predators, we can always just stay up and eat the Larks.
14
The article doesn't say if the night owl chronotype is sleeping on their own body clock's intrinsic rhythm or trying to fit into the "nine to five" world which is not possible for most people with Delayed Sleep Phase Syndrome. This article could use some elaboration.
21
Yes -- I would like to know if there is the same risk of depression if night owls sleep according to their body clocks. And do day people see an increased risk of depression if they have to work nights?
3
I wonder if it has to do with:
a) The different activities night owls vs morning people are more likely to engage in during the waking hours.
b) The fact that night owls are far more likely to get less sun exposure. That someone who is awake for more hours of daylight.
6
Maybe it’s that so many things in our society are biased toward morning people. Work schedules, transit schedules, school schedules. It just hits night people harder. It is hard to be a night person in this world. Do night people who are truly able to control their schedules have a similar prevalence of depression as morning people? Is anyone asking that?
13
Great points. (a) is self-reinforcing. I think night owls are probably by nature more inclined to solitary and often sedentary activities, which in turn reinforce their night owlishness. These activities may promote depression or least be less likely to ward it off than early-bird, gym-going, socializing early birds. (Yes, I know there are night owls who go to the gym at 3 am, but that's still pretty solitary; and hanging out at the bars until 3 a.m. may be sociable but it is questionably healthy.)
(b) has occurred to me before. As a confirmed night owl, I am aware that I get only 5-6 hours of sunlight in December. I don't feel particularly SAD :-) in the winter, but others of my kind might.
5
Re: (b) Sun exposure definitely lifts my mood, and I've heard the same from friends. In theory a light box might have similar effects; I haven't tried and I doubt I'd have the patience for it.
The obvious follow-up question is - what can we night owls do about this?
* Melatonin helps me fall asleep at a more "normal" hour, to some degree, without leaning on prescription drugs.
* Going back to work (I retired 5 years ago at 66) would force me to get up at 7:30 AM again; but that seems like an extreme measure.
Other suggestions?