If you are currently reading this at 2 am with a cold slice of pizza in one hand and your phone in the other, I have some slightly stressful news for you. It turns out that being a night owl is not just a quirky personality trait that makes you better at pub quizzes. A massive new study of 300,000 adults has found that people who prefer the moon to the sun have a 16 percent higher risk of heart attack or stroke.
The researchers at Harvard Medical School suggest that “evening people” are basically living in a constant state of jet lag. Your internal body clock is fighting the natural day to night cycle. While you think you are just being productive in the quiet hours, your heart is apparently screaming for a carrot and a 9 pm bedtime.
The 16 Percent Panic
The study published in the Journal of the American Heart Association, found that about 8 percent of people are “definitely evening types.” These brave souls are 79 percent more likely to have poor cardiovascular health. Scientists measured this by looking at the usual suspects like weight, cholesterol, and blood pressure. For some reason, the link between late nights and heart issues is even stronger for women.
It Is Not Just the Sleep
The lead author, Sina Kianersi, pointed out that night owls are more likely to smoke, eat rubbish, and skip the gym. It is a bit of a chicken and egg situation. Does staying up late make you want a cigarette and a burger, or do people who love burgers and cigarettes just happen to stay up late? Either way, the results are the same.
Experts like Kristen Knutson say night owls are not inherently doomed. You are not “broken” just because you prefer the dark. It simply means you have to work twice as hard to maintain a healthy lifestyle. If you can fix your “modifiable behaviours,” you can lower that risk. This basically means you need to stop smoking and start eating like a person who actually wants to see their 80th birthday.
The Dementia Connection
The risks of a weak circadian rhythm go beyond just your heart. If your body clock is constantly disrupted by irregular eating or blue light from your screen, you are also at a higher risk for obesity and type 2 diabetes. Even more cheerful is the recent finding that weak body rhythms are linked to dementia.
Robust rhythms send clear signals for your body to function properly. When you mess with that by staying up for one more episode of a true crime documentary, you are essentially confusing your organs. They don’t know if they should be digesting a steak or repairing your cells.
If you want to live a long life, you might need to start pretending you are a Victorian farmer. Get some sun in the morning, stop staring at your LED screen at midnight, and try to find a vegetable that hasn’t been deep fried.
The moon is lovely, but it is not worth a triple bypass.
Related topics: Health
