Am I a Morning Person or a Night Owl? (Jin-Kyung Lee's Health Tips)

Characteristics and Patterns of Morning-Type Humans VS Evening-Type Humans

[Asia Economy Reporter Jin-kyung Lee] Nowadays, with 24-hour services becoming commonplace, many people work night shifts, stay up all night, or engage in overnight tasks, leading to lifestyles where day and night are reversed. These individuals find it difficult to wake up early in the morning and start their day during daylight hours, and some say they are more focused during the early morning hours, making all-night studying or working a habit. On the other hand, the number of people challenging themselves to become morning-type individuals, waking up earlier than others to make their day more productive, is gradually increasing. Because they start their day early, they tend to get tired sooner and find it difficult to concentrate late into the night. Are morning-type and evening-type people born that way? Or is it due to individual tendencies or personality differences? Let's find out which lifestyle is better for our health.

● What changes occur in our body?

Our body has a kind of biological clock called the "circadian clock" that governs the body's biological rhythms. The circadian clock is set to a roughly 24-hour cycle and regulates rhythms such as physiology, metabolism, behavior, and aging. It controls hormone secretion and body temperature in response to light stimuli, helping our body fall asleep and wake up. Our daily routine of waking up in the morning, being active during the day, and feeling sleepy at night is all possible because the circadian clock is functioning properly.

● What is the difference in the circadian clock between morning-type and evening-type people?

Everyone's circadian clock operates on a 24-hour cycle, but for morning-type individuals, this cycle is advanced compared to evening-type individuals. When the light entering the body decreases after sunset, the circadian clock triggers the secretion of melatonin, a hormone that induces sleep. Morning-type people secrete melatonin about three hours earlier than evening-type people, causing them to feel tired early in the evening and go to bed early, whereas evening-type people secrete melatonin relatively later, allowing them to stay awake until late at night.

● Are morning-type people more diligent and evening-type people lazier?

While environmental factors influence individual circadian rhythms, genetic factors play a decisive role. In other words, evening-type people are not lazy. Traditionally, work and study schedules are mostly aligned with the lifestyle of morning-type people, so it is easy to think that morning-type people are diligent and evening-type people are lazy. However, since the operation of the circadian clock is largely influenced by genetics, there may be limits to how quickly one can change it despite effort. Therefore, forcibly trying to change someone else's innate biological rhythm with prejudice can harm health, so it is necessary to understand and respect others' inherent biological rhythms and lifestyle patterns.

● Which is healthier, morning-type or evening-type people?

It is not yet possible to say who is healthier, but in fact, evening-type people are at higher risk of exposure to unhealthy habits such as drinking and late-night snacking compared to morning-type people. However, there is no need to suddenly change one's lifestyle cycle. Since it is innate, physiologically, evening-type people secrete melatonin, the hormone that regulates sleep, about three hours later on average than morning-type people, and their lifestyle cycle is already formed accordingly. Therefore, trying to forcibly correct it immediately may actually strain health and be detrimental. Thus, it is more important to maintain appropriate sleep and exercise times and healthy habits within each person's unique biological rhythm and lifestyle cycle.

● Is the health of nocturnal people (owl types) who stay up all night okay?

People who wake up late in the afternoon, mainly active during late-night hours, and sleep from morning to daytime are called nocturnal people. The number of people who switch day and night to work or study well during the quiet early morning hours is increasing more than expected. Some work night shifts or do overnight tasks regardless of their will, but experts say that habitually staying up late and reversing day and night disrupts the body's rhythm and is very harmful to health.

● What negative effects does staying up all night have on health?

Continuing a lifestyle where day and night are reversed disrupts the circadian clock, disturbing the nervous system and causing hormonal imbalances. Also, the circadian rhythm is broken, disrupting the secretion of appetite hormones, making weight control difficult and causing easy weight gain. Since melatonin, the sleep-inducing hormone, is produced in response to light stimuli, insufficient daytime activity suppresses melatonin secretion, potentially causing insomnia. Night shifts excite the sympathetic nervous system, raising blood pressure, which can lead to hypertension. Even after resting post-shift, recovery is difficult, and the heart cannot rest properly, increasing the risk of cardiovascular disease, so caution is needed.

● How should people who frequently stay up all night manage their health?

After staying up all night, it is better to sleep in two sessions rather than all at once, and taking a foot bath or half-body bath two hours before sleeping helps relieve fatigue. Eating late-night snacks and then going to bed immediately interferes with sleep, so it is better to consume a small amount of low-fat, low-calorie food to ease hunger. Excessive exercise usually increases fatigue accumulation, so light aerobic exercise such as jogging or walking for about 20 to 30 minutes helps improve cardiopulmonary function and wakefulness.

● When is the best time to exercise, morning or evening?

In the morning, body temperature rises more slowly, so it takes longer to warm up with preparatory exercises, making afternoon or evening workouts more efficient and better. If doing muscle training in the morning, more time should be spent warming up than at other times to prevent injury and enhance exercise effects. Hormones related to exercise are produced abundantly both in the morning and evening, but more so in the evening. Therefore, for health and muscle strengthening exercises, evening workouts are preferable. However, exercising after finishing daily tasks has the drawback of being difficult to maintain consistently due to fatigue, appointments, or social gatherings.

● Is it essential to eat breakfast?

For health, eating breakfast is essential. Skipping breakfast leads to a long fasting period from dinner to lunch, causing the body's functions to underperform in the morning and significantly impairing brain activity. Our brain needs glucose to function, and even if dinner was eaten around 8 p.m., by 8 a.m. the next day, glucose is depleted, making it difficult to perform important tasks, meetings, or studies in the morning and to concentrate. Also, skipping breakfast increases the stomach's absorption rate during lunch and dinner to compensate for missed nutrients, leading to overeating and fat storage, causing weight gain. The ideal amount of breakfast is about one-quarter of the daily recommended energy intake (approximately 400?500 kcal).

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.