A new study indicates that early risers are a let less likely to become depressed than night owls.
For the new study, they randomly selected 200 healthy people with no history of mental illness and asked them about their sleep habits and depression symptoms. They found that night owls were almost three times as likely as morning larks to experience severe symptoms of depression. Even more striking was the comparison with people who went to bed at an intermediate time. Compared to them, night owls were five times as likely have severe symptoms.
On average, the differences in bedtime weren’t huge. Night owls turned in around midnight, while morning larks went to bed around 11 p.m. The same was true of rising time: night owls awoke 40 minutes, on average, later than larks. Length of sleep was about the same for the two groups.
Maybe having kids is the key to reducing the chances of depression among night owls. I haven’t slept in for about three years.
