Watching the chronometer at work

Don’t beat yourself up if you are too sleepy to work in the morning. It’s not necessarily your fault.

It’s not necessarily your fault if you’re too tired to go to work

How many hours of sleep did you get last night? Missing out on rest may explain why you are feeling a bit groggy this morning — a sensation that is common for so many of us.

While turning up for work in a semiconscious fog may be less common for those who consider themselves “morning people”, it is probably familiar to anyone who is naturally inclined to do their best work at night. If you happen to be a “night person”, then you know all too well that attributing that dazed and confused sensation you feel in the morning to laziness would be a major oversimplification.

There is a reason the terms “night owl” and “early bird” are common idioms in the English language, and it has to do, in part, with our genetic makeup. Scientists have their own word for these terms: chronotypes, or our sleep timing. While some people are “morning types”, functioning best early in the day, others are naturally “evening types” and are more productive as the day goes on.

Most people are somewhere in between. Large-scale studies suggest that about 27 per cent of us may be “definite morning types”, 35 per cent are “moderate morning types”, 28 per cent are “moderate evening types”, and 9 per cent are “definite evening types”.

Understanding your chronotype, which is affected by both your environment and your genetics, can help you get to know how your internal clock works, which will allow you to: synchronise important work assignments or social activities with the time that you feel your best; and stop feeling bad about being tired at certain times (it might not be your fault) and, if necessary, adjust your chronotype to better align with your work schedule.

If you are naturally a “night person” — whether caused by environmental or genetic factors, or a combination of both — synchronising your work to when you feel best may be harder to accomplish. The modern workday was not designed to accommodate your tendency to stay up and sleep late. Less than 20 per cent of US employees are active after 6pm, and just 3 per cent are active at 2am, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

These figures are pretty much the same in other parts of the world, with the majority of people working a traditional nine-to-five schedule. This means that you likely have to do your most important work during the day, even if you work best at night.

So let’s focus on this: is it possible to manipulate your chronotype? The answer is twofold, and to understand it, you first need to know a little more about how your body works.

Understanding your chronotype

Your chronotype changes over the course of your lifetime. While young children prefer early morning starts (which often occur day in and day out, and do not adjust themselves during weekends or holidays), chronotype shifts later as childhood advances. During adolescence, a dramatic shift in sleep timing coincides with puberty. This is biologically driven and explains why it is so difficult for students in their teens to wake as early as 5am for school.

If you are just entering the nine-to-five workforce, however, there is some good news. Around age 20, sleep timing swings back, becoming earlier again. Some people even consider this shift a biological marker for the end of adolescence.

If you’re struggling to fall asleep at a reasonable hour and have to wake up early for work, you may be missing out on sleep. While a few missed hours of sleep may seem trivial, over time, it can be a serious problem.

Shortened sleep hours have been associated with a plethora of health problems including cardiovascular risk and shorter life expectancy.

How can night people shift their chronotype so that they fall asleep earlier, feel more energised in the morning and get more sleep in general?

Changing your chronotype

Although COVID-19 has no doubt increased our stress levels, representing a big shock to our quality of life (and for some, sleep), there is at least a silver lining. For those of us who struggle to fall asleep at a reasonable hour and find our wake-up times torturous, working from home doesn’t just reduce the rigidity of the traditional nine-to-five shift, it brings us closer to our bedroom.

There has never been a better opportunity for naps. If your regular work schedule now requires you to stay connected for longer or start the day earlier than you used to, you might want to block out time in your schedule for some pre-bedtime relaxation or a short (about 20-minute) nap earlier in the day.

If naps make falling asleep at night even more difficult for you, which is the case for some, we have a few other suggestions that may help.

You can use zeitgebers (external or environmental cues) to help adjust your body clock to the world around you. The most important cue is light. If you want to advance your body clock to go to sleep and wake up earlier, get exposure to bright light early in the day and try to avoid it at night.

As you’ve probably heard before, this means avoiding the blue glow of mobile phones, e-books and the TV for at least a couple of hours before bed.

Other factors, like the times that you eat and exercise, can also make a difference. To enhance your performance and shift your natural sleep tendencies, try matching activities to your chronotype.

Outside of your own routine and habits, there are a few other factors you might be able to manipulate. One option is to ask your employer if they might consider more flexible work hours, such as a later start time — something that may be more negotiable given the increase in remote work and decrease in morning commutes. If that doesn’t work, looking for work at companies with progressive perks such as nap pods — famously located in the offices of PwC and Google, as well as Cisco — may help to buffer the effects of an early start.

Keep in mind, though, that if you were to stop manipulating these environmental factors, you would likely shift back to your original habits (because of the genetic influences on your chronotype).

Still, understanding your body’s natural preferences and patterns is the first step to improving your sleep quantity and quality in the long term. The sooner you start, the better.

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Alice Gregory is a professor of psychology at Goldsmiths, University of London and the author of Nodding Off: The science of sleep. Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic is the chief talent scientist at ManpowerGroup, a professor of business psychology at University College London and at Columbia University, and the author of Why Do So Many Incompetent Men Become Leaders? (and How to Fix It).
Copryight Harvard Business Review 2020/Distributed by the New York Times Syndicate