USAFrom the book "The Harvard Medical School Guide to a Good Night's Sleep" by Dr. Lawrence J. Epstein:
" Along with sleep length, another aspect of sleep that follows a bell curve is when you feel most comfortable going to bed and waking up. Where these times fall is not a reflection on your character. Instead, it's a nonjudgmental product of your circadian rhythm of sleep and wakefulness. There are three general profiles:
1. Standard sleepers- The sleep /wake rhythm pushes most people to sleep from about 10.30 or 11:30 P.M. to 6::30 or 7:30 A.M.
2. Larks- A small percentage of people have an inborn tendency to go to bed early and wake up early. Larks feel most comfortable going to bed between 9 and 10 PM and waking up between 5 and 6 AM.
3. Owls- At the other end of the spectrum are the people with a natural desire to go to bed late and sleep late. Owls latenight tendency makes it easy for them to stay up long past midnight and sleep until the late morning.
As with sleep length, you can most easily determine where you fit in by determining your sleep pattern during a vacation, after you've caught up on any lost sleep.
It's also possible to come up with a precise, scientific classification if you have a thermometer capable of making a round the clock record of internal body temperautre. The circadian rhythm of body temperature is an effective marker for the sleep/wake cycle and can help you determine if you tend to be a lark or an owl.
For a person with a standard profile, the absolute low point during the twenty four hour period typically comes around 5:30 AM. by contrast, a lark's temperature minimum occurs around 4:30 AM, while an owl's strikes shortly before 7 AM.
One final fact: As we age, we have a tendency to go to sleep earlier and wake up earlier, typically by about an hour. So someone who was an owl as a young man may adopt a standart pattern as a senior citizen and someone with a standard profile may become a lark. This trend can cause social problems for lifelong larks, since they may find themselves waking up in the predawn hours in their later years."
I guess I fall into the standard category although for years I have had trouble going to sleep very early and still would wake up early. What helped me the most with this was using a light box for half an hour each morning as soon as I wake up which eventually allowed me to go to sleep around 10:30 to 11:30 and get up around 7:30 although I wake up and nod off earlier several times before getting up at 7:30. I also found that I must do some relaxation type of activity before bed to sleep good.
sue in ohio
