After all this time, people are still debating nature vs. nurture: whether humans are blank slates, shaped by their external environments, or whether they’re completely determined by their genes. A complex question, and one I’m not particularly interested in. I’m more than happy to ascribe my flaws to my mother (either my genes or my upbringing) and my few good character traits to, well, to me and to my great strength of character.
One of these so-called flaws is to be a night person, night owl, slugabed, call it what you will. But I’m tired of the moral dimension given this trait. I blame the hostility toward my lifestyle to the ubiquity of proverbs like “The early bird catches the worm,” and Ben Franklin’s annoying “Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise.” Bad things happen to those who sleep by day: just look at Little Boy Blue asleep in the hay with the cow getting in the corn and all. And let’s not forget Dracula and the other children of the night — not exactly positive images for the morning-challenged.
Most people know at what times they function best. There’s the insufferably perky employee who gets to work at 7 am, claiming she does all their best work in the wee, still hours of the morning. Then there’s the creative, vivacious person who does all her best work, at — let me look at my watch — 1 am.
But the big question I want answered is, why is the world run on the morning person’s agenda? How can this be fair, this mandated 9-to-5 existence, considering not all of us are morning people?
That’s why my new heroes are the British researchers from the University of Surrey who have recently reported that they have found a link between a person’s preference for nights and days and a gene called Per3. The gene helps regulate the body’s internal clock and comes in two forms, long and short. People with the long form of the gene are more likely to be early risers, whereas night owls are more likely to have the short form. I don’t want to simplify too much; after all, there are a lot of other genes and other factors involved in the regulation of the human body clock. But what the heck, let me simplify anyway, and pin my late-night habits on the short form of Per3.
Actually, if I think about it, I’ve been fairly lucky in my existence as a night owl. I’ve worked second shifts and jobs where schedules weren’t set in stone. And working at a newspaper, well, here’s a secret of the journalism trade: most reporters and editors don’t come in until 10 am. Even so, 10 am still seems pretty early to me, as it has my entire life. As a child, I stayed up late to watch Johnny Carson or smuggled in a flashlight under my bedcovers so I could read. I just couldn’t fall asleep at the ungodly hour of 9 pm as all my elementary school pals did. My mom struggled putting me to bed, and struggled waking me up. And still, those tardy slips kept coming. The only detention I ever served in my goody-two-shoes/teacher’s-pet existence was due to being consistently late to my 8 am class. If I had only known about Per3 then.
So it seems that I’m at the mercy of my genes, which help keep my body in sync with the innate sleep-wake, day-night cycle known as the circadian clock. Nearly every organism has some form of this built-in clock, from fruit flies to wasps to mice to us. And most of these organisms have clocks that vary within the species. According to research published a few years ago by Hiroaki Daido of Japan’s Kyushu Institute of Technology, variations in body clocks may have evolved due to competition for resources. Just as species minimize competition by specializing in food and habitats, they can also specialize in the times of day they are active.
And it only makes sense that humans also evolved differing body clocks for a purpose. According to Emory University anthropologist Carol Worthman, variable sleep schedules among individuals and age groups is invaluable, since someone is keeping an eye open for threats to the group at all times. And that, as I’m explaining to everyone I know who bugs me about my sleeping habits, is exactly what I’m doing by staying up this late. I’m keeping the world safe for early birds like you.