In between conversations, you may have described yourself as “I’m a night person” or “I’m a real early bird.” While this looks like a chattering deer, it actually is people really do have different ‘chronotypes’ and our chronotype provides crucial information about many things, from our health to our lifestyle.

In addition, although for many years they were generally grouped as “night person” and “day person”, new studies indicate that there are more chronotypes. So what exactly is a “chronotype”? What is your chronotype? What are the effects on your life?

The answer to the questions of what time of day we are sleepy and what times of the day we feel more energetic and productive tells our chronotype.

Chronotype, in its simplest definition, is this. When you leave out the exceptions, knowing the hours you tend to sleep in the 24-hour cycle and when you are energetic and productive forms your chronotype.

However, we can say that the situation we are talking about here is the reflection of our biological clock in our daily life and not so much some kind of preference or what the circumstances require. good nights when you had to get up to prepare for the exam or being dragged out of bed every morning to go to work says nothing about your chronotype.

The reason this In modern society, certain hours are determined to live the day. and whatever our chronotype, we must follow this system. But hunter-gatherer tribes In our time, sleeping or being awake at different times of the day, thanks to our chronotypes, was beneficial for the protection of the tribe…

I am neither a night person nor a day person. What am I now?’ Fear not, there is a chronotype for everyone.

First of all let me tell you; There are many different studies on how many types of chronotypes there are. It is agreed that it is not really enough to divide it into ‘night’ and ‘day’.

While some studies cite four chronotypes, some recent studies have increased this number to six.

Let’s start with the popular ones; bear, wolf, lion, dolphin. Which one are you?

Perspective that examines chronotypes in four main groups and defines them as bear, wolf, lion and dolphin Clinical psychologist and sleep medicine specialist Dr. by Michael Breus based on his work.

The characteristics of these four main groups are as follows;

• bears They live the day in harmony with the times of sunrise and sunset. They wake up easily in the morning as the day begins and fall asleep at night with no problem. Although the morning hours are the most productive and energizing hours, their energy slowly declines between 2-4pm; their productivity begins to decline. About 50% of people fall under this chronotype.
• wolves People who struggle to wake up in the morning, stay up late at night, and are most energetic and productive in the afternoon or even near evening. It is stated that 15-20% of humans are part of the wolf chronotype.
• Lions starts the day before the sun rises; They are defined as people who are alarm free and wake up easily. Usually their energy starts to wane around noon and they want to go to sleep around 9-10pm.
• dolphins On the other hand, people who are constantly awakened by stimuli such as light or noise due to their light sleep have difficulty establishing a healthy sleep pattern. Even though they generally feel tired from the interrupted sleep and have difficulty waking up in the morning, the hours between 10am and 2pm are the most productive hours.

If you want to know which of these chronotypes you belong to, click here. You can take the test for free on Michael Breus’ official website.

My opinion on these four chronotypes is somewhat a ‘popular culture-oriented’ test and results system that is it. Nevertheless, we can easily say that it gives an idea about chronotypes.

For a much more inclusive chronotype classification without the cool animal names, here’s a list of 6 different chronotypes;

These six chronotypes were revealed by a study conducted in 2020. The team that conducted the study conducted it with 2,300 participants; in a study consisting of tests and questionnaires says only 5% do not include themselves in these six chronotypes. Among the chronotypes, there are four different types in addition to the classic morning and night types.

Let’s see if you can record yourself;

• People with the morning chronotype They get off to an energetic and productive start at first daylight and begin to decline as the clock progresses. At night, before it’s too late, it’s time to sleep.
• night goers Unlike the morning chronotype, those who prefer to start their day at noon stay up late into the night and live their most productive hours from evening towards night.
• All-day active chronotype people with high energy and efficiency from morning to evening; the ones that capture the highest energy in the afternoon.
• Daytime sleepy chronotype Those who start the morning energetically and feel the need for a “nap” in the afternoon, and then their energy and productivity begin to pick up again by night.
• In the chronotype we can call the ‘day type’ People who have difficulty waking up in the morning, start the day sleepy, have the most energy in the afternoon and slowly lose their energy towards the evening. However, these people do not experience intense sleepiness in the evenings.
• Chronotypes that are little active during the day On the other hand, people who have a hard time waking up in the morning have little energy throughout the day and are sleepy.

Okay, we’ve read this one, but what will knowing our chronotype change in our lives?

There are also many studies on this topic. for example night owls are more prone to depressionMorning people are said to be more energetic and cheerful, outgoing characters.

Some studies relationship between alcohol and substance abuse and chronotypes show that. Same way There is also a relationship between life expectancy and chronotypes. familiar. For example, there is a study that shows that people who stay awake at night are more likely to die early. Similar studies show that diseases such as obesity and heart disease may also be linked to our being night and day people.

Basically, our health and psychology are directly linked to our chronotypes. Therefore, knowing our chronotype can help us create the best future lifestyle.

• Sources: Single-Item Chronotyping (SIC), a self-assessment method of daily typing using 6 simple graphs, a six-factor structure of individual variation in tendency to become drowsy and sleep at different times of the day, there is more towards chronotypes than evening and morning types: results of a large-scale community survey provide evidence for a high prevalence of two other types, Associations between chronotype, morbidity and mortality in the UK Biobank cohort, Prospective study of chronotype and incident depression among middle- and older women in the Nurses’ Health Study II, Healthline