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This headline caught my eye also. I’ve written multiple times, as many of you who follow my writing will know, on sleep, but also chronotypes: having a different daily wake and sleep rhythms. I am a bit of an owl — I tend to go to bed later and feel better when I get up later. I have however, been able to retrain myself and get up consistently early and keep my rhythm almost every day. I’m not a bad get-out-of-bedder but I also don’t bounce out of bed with a spring in my step either. So, when scientists say they know how to wake up alert, well, it makes me alert!
So, who are these scientists and what did they do?
This was a group of researchers from the Centre of Sleep Science at Berkely University who conducted a detailed analysis of 833 participants over a two-week period, with different sleep times and different types of breakfast. Their sleep was tracked with smart watches, they also had glucose measurements. Of note is that twins, both identical and fraternal, were in the study to help disentangle genetic effects.
The surprise, which kind of contradicts other studies on chronotypes, is that genetics only accounted for 25% of the variance in alertness in the morning. So, you will be itching to know what else contributed to this alertness.
