Why only you can only really model your sleep on two different animals. <\/p>
Have you taken one of those online quizzes that assign you an animal based on your sleeping style? According to some, there are four types of sleep<\/a> animal: wolf, lion, bear and dolphin. But in 2022, Fitbit introduced sleep profiles<\/a> that identified users as giraffes, bears, dolphins, hedgehogs,\u00a0parrots or tortoises.<\/p> These animals don\u2019t seem to relate to the sleeping habits of the people they\u2019re assigned to \u2013 unless those \u2018dolphin\u2019 sleepers only allow half of their brains to sleep at any one time, as the mammals do in the wild. You won\u2019t find any of those sleep animals in the scientific literature, though. Only two are generally accepted by the scientists: morning larks and night owls.<\/p> These refer to a person\u2019s chronotype<\/a>, which is their natural preference for sleeping and waking across a 24-hour period. Chronotypes are thought to exist on a spectrum that runs from morning types (larks) to evening types (owls). About 14 per cent of adults are thought to be larks while 21 per cent are owls, with the rest of us falling somewhere between the two.<\/p> Studies have shown your cognitive abilities and your energy levels have links to your chronotype<\/a>, with morning types more energetic and able to perform better on tasks before midday and evening types feeling a gradual increase in energy and ability over the morning and afternoon, before peaking nearer the end of the day.\u00a0<\/p> Understanding your body\u2019s preference can help you plan your days around your natural sleep habits \u2013 if you have the ability to tweak the time you start work, for example, or your wake-up time isn\u2019t decided by when your kids get up.<\/p> There are genetic factors at play, though. Scientists have identified key \u2018clock\u2019 genes that predispose a person\u2019s chronotype toward \u2018morningness\u2019 or \u2018eveningness\u2019, or neither. But your chronotype is not fixed, like your eye colour.<\/p> Large studies have shown that chronotypes change over a lifetime.\u00a0As children we tend to be early risers, but there\u2019s a sharp rise toward eveningness in teenagers<\/a>. Then, after the age of about 20, we gradually become more lark-like, until, in our late 50s, we\u2019re getting up and going to bed about the same time we did when we were 10 or 11.<\/p> You\u2019re not completely at the mercy of your genetics and your developmental state, however. Your chronotype is heavily influenced by your environment, particularly the amount of light you see at different times of the day. This is because your body clock is constantly taking in information and adjusting your circadian rhythms. This process, known as entrainment, is how we learn to cope\u00a0with new time zones and why jet lag<\/a> doesn\u2019t last forever.<\/p> Morning light<\/a> is especially key for setting sleeping patterns. The more morning light you\u2019re exposed to, the more likely you\u2019ll wake earlier the following day, and vice versa. So if you\u2019re prone to sleeping in on a Sunday morning, you\u2019re making it much harder to get up at an earlier time when Monday comes around.\u00a0<\/p> If you fall toward the \u2018night owl\u2019 end of the spectrum you can alleviate some of the grogginess of getting up early by exposing yourself to a lot of light in the morning, even if it\u2019s artificial, and by adjusting your workload (where possible) so that the more demanding tasks fall later in the day.\u00a0<\/p> Read more:<\/strong><\/p> Asked by: Esme Newman, via email<\/strong><\/p> To submit your questions email us at questions@sciencefocus.com (don’t forget to include your name and location)<\/em><\/p> <\/body><\/html>\n Why only you can only really model your sleep on two different animals. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":37182,"template":"","categories":[1],"acf":{"readingTimeMinutes":"3"},"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2023\/12\/heres-what-your-heath-trackers-sleep-animal-actually-says-about-you.jpg",1200,800,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2023\/12\/heres-what-your-heath-trackers-sleep-animal-actually-says-about-you-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2023\/12\/heres-what-your-heath-trackers-sleep-animal-actually-says-about-you-300x200.jpg",300,200,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2023\/12\/heres-what-your-heath-trackers-sleep-animal-actually-says-about-you-768x512.jpg",768,512,true],"large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2023\/12\/heres-what-your-heath-trackers-sleep-animal-actually-says-about-you-1024x683.jpg",800,534,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2023\/12\/heres-what-your-heath-trackers-sleep-animal-actually-says-about-you.jpg",1200,800,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2023\/12\/heres-what-your-heath-trackers-sleep-animal-actually-says-about-you.jpg",1200,800,false]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"importmanagerhub@sprylab.com","author_link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/author\/importmanagerhubsprylab-com\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"Why only you can only really model your sleep on two different animals.","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed\/37181"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/rss_feed"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37182"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37181"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37181"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"