During your typical day, when – what time of the day – are you most energetic? Alert? Productive?
That’s your Native Time.
We all have an internal clock. Literally. The science backing it up won the 2017 Nobel Prize in Medicine.
Wow.
Prior to the 2017 Nobel Prize, science gave us proof that our wake-sleep cycles have major impacts on our lives, including health outcomes. Citations for a few of these studies are included at the end of this article.
We associate light and early darkness times with being awake and physically active. Full darkness hours are associated with sleep. These are general principles. What happens when we scratch the surface of how we might differ from one another?
If “I am really not a morning person” sounds like you, you might be known as an owl. Similarly, morning people are called larks.
They each have plenty of activity time … it’s just that their activity time might not overlap very much.
In the early 2000s, I collaborated with an associate who was an extreme owl. He worked best through the night. He went to sleep around 5:00 am and rose about noon. Our schedules synced 2:00 pm – 9:00 pm, and my lark-leaning self wasn’t very happy about working as the clock approached 10:00 pm.
What, exactly, is Native Time?
After distilling scientific descriptions, here’s our definition at Lead On:
Total number of hours, during a 24-hour daily cycle, when an individual is naturally at his or her most energetic, productive, and alert. Each 24-hour cycle includes more than one Native Time period.
For example, Emma’s Native Time is 11 hours each day:
{5am – 10am} + {11:30am – 2:30pm} + {4pm – 7pm}
When it comes to time, we have individual differences about when – within our 24-hour daily cycle – we’re at our best. Yes, the research supports this, and so does our own self-knowledge.
What’s individually different about our time preferences?
Back to that person who said, “I am really not a morning person.” Maybe you’ve said it. When someone says this, it probably doesn’t mean I don’t function well in the mornings because I don’t get enough sleep. That’s not the intention.
The meaning is deeper. It represents something virtually unchangeable about the person. Something they’re born with. An inherent trait that they really just aren’t at their best during morning hours.
Why does this matter, especially for resilience and grit? If it matters, how can we make it work for us?
Stay tuned for Native Time: Part 2.
Lead On.
Afterward: A few research and scientific citations in this area of study are listed below. There are many more. Contact me if you’d like to discuss or read more research material.
Roenneberg, et al, 2003. Life between clocks: Daily temporal patterns of human chronotypes. Journal of Biological Rhythms: https://doi.org/10.1177/0748730402239679
Taillard, et al, 2004. Validation of Horne and Ostberg Morningness-Eveningness Questionnaire in a middle-aged population of French workers. Journal of Biological Rhythms: https://doi.org/10.1177/0748730403259849
https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/neuroscience/chronobiology
Haraszti, et al, 2014. Morningness–eveningness interferes with perceived health, physical activity, diet and stress levels in working women: A cross-sectional study. Chronobiology International: The Journal of Biological and Medical Rhythm Research, 31(7).
Baron & Reid, 2014. Circadian misalignment and health. International Review of Psychiatry, 26(2).
Roenneberg, et al, 2007. Epidemiology of the human circadian clock. Sleep Medicine Reviews, 11(6).
Whittmann, et al, 2009. Social jetlag: Misalignment of biological and social time. The Journal of Biological and Medical Rhythm Research, 23(1-2).
Lucassen, et al, 2013. Evening chronotype is associated with changes in eating behavior, more sleep apnea, and increased stress hormones in short sleeping obese individuals. Public Library of Science • https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0056519
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