Another kind of bird: How to determine your chronotype

Last week, I wrote about leveraging physical activity to re-energize during the afternoon trough. This trough is one consequence of our circadian rhythm, the internal clock which alternates between alertness and sleepiness at regular intervals throughout the day, thereby governing our sleep-wake cycle.

Against this background, think about that story of morning larks and evening owls, often told by (alleged) owls who desperately struggle to function in the morning. As it turns out, this is not a story, but serious science: in 2017, three researchers who showed that chronotypes are largely dictated by our genes received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.

Your chronotype is your individual, behavioral manifestation of the circadian rhythm. It determines how your alertness (i.e., energy) rises and falls throughout the day. Larks are full of energy in the morning (climax) and feel exhausted in the afternoon (trough). So do intermediate types, or “third birds”, who resemble larks, but start later. Owls, conversely, experience their trough first, and then reach their climax later in the day.

The fastest way to determine your chronotype is to compare the time when you wake up on workdays to when you wake up on days off (i.e., without an alarm). If there is no difference, you’re probably a lark. If the difference is between 1 and 90 minutes, you’re probably a third bird. And if the difference is more than 90 minutes, you’re probably an owl.

Over the following weeks, I will share insights and practices to help you understand and optimize your chronobiology. These will include shifting your sleep-wake cycle to earlier in the day, timing different types of tasks in accordance with your chronotype, and more. So stay tuned!

Pro tip:
An alternative, more elaborate tool to determine whether you’re a morning, intermediate or evening chronotype is the Morningness-Eveningness Questionnaire (MEQ). It can be taken online here in 5-10 minutes.