The Early Bird Advantage

We’ve all at some point debated whether we are night owls or early birds. Some have probably experimented and found out their type. However, I’m here to convince you that early birds have an advantage. 

If you’ve ever wanted to improve your sleep and researched sleep, you might’ve heard of the hormone Melatonin and neurotransmitter Serotonin. Melatonin is also called the sleep pressure drug and Serotonin keeps you awake. What sunlight does is, when you are exposed to it, it tells Serotonin to rise and Melatonin to fall. Serotonin controls the Circadian Rhythm, your body’s internal clock. By exposing yourself to sunlight after you wake up, you tell your clock to tell you to wind down in about 16 hours. Throughout the day, Melatonin slowly rises and Serotonin slowly falls, causing you to become sleepy at just the right interval. Your question may be, why can’t I do that when I wake up late? I’ll just catch the sun at a later time. 

There’s two problems with that. Number one is how we have aligned work times. A lot of professions are day workers, typically 9-5. The later you wake up, the less time you have to expose yourself to sunlight. Even if you can workaround that, another problem arises. Late sunlight is not as healthy as morning sunlight. Morning sunlight has an ideal amount of UVB rays, which help produce Vitamin D in our body. These rays increase throughout the day, and the excess causes skin damage without adequate protection. It’s the same case for our eyes. The gentle sunlight in the morning doesn’t affect our eyes whereas midday sunlight can be harsher on our eyes.

This is not to discourage you from being a night owl; as I mentioned, early birds merely have an advantage.