Does your body naturally wake you up or do you rely on the sounds and buzzes of several alarm clocks?<\/p>\n
If you wake up naturally in the early morning\u00a0that means your body is in sync with your daily schedule. But if you’re a night owl, it could affect your daily mood and anxiety, according to a new study published Monday in the journal Molecular Psychiatry.<\/p>\n
The study used sleep data gathered from wrist activity monitors worn by more than 85,000 participants in the UK Biobank Study, which houses in-depth genetic and health information on more than half a million Brits.<\/p>\n
According to the study’s findings,\u00a0those with an inconsistent sleep cycle, a trait usually associated with night owls, are more likely to report anxiety and depression.<\/p>\n
Need help falling asleep?: <\/strong>15 reasons you\u2019re not getting enough sleep<\/span><\/p>\n Does it make a difference?: <\/strong>Study finds your phone\u2019s \u2018night mode\u2019 doesn\u2019t improve sleep<\/span><\/p>\n “The health problems associated with being a night owl are likely a result of being a night owl living in a morning person’s world, which leads to disruption in their body’s circadian rhythms,” sleep specialist Kristen Knutson, an associate professor of neurology and preventive medicine at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, told CNN.<\/p>\n Our sleep cycles also can change naturally as we age, so a morning person may not always have been so happy to wake up before sunrise.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n “Generally, as we get older, our\u00a0cycles shift toward\u00a0the earlier hours. Teens are more likely to be night owls, and octogenarians are more likely to be early risers,”\u00a0Dr. Neil Kline, a sleep physician and representative of the American Sleep Association, told USA TODAY.\u00a0<\/p>\n Data from the study showed there can be serious consequences to a skewed internal body clock. The higher the misalignment, the higher odds of depression, said Dr. Jessica Tyrrell, author of the study.<\/p>\n For morning people, there’s more good news:\u00a0<\/p>\n “If\u00a0you’re a morning person, then you are less likely to have depression and more likely to report a higher well-being. This may in part be due to people who are morning people are less likely to have ‘social jet lag,'” Tyrrell told CNN.<\/p>\n Social jet lag is when you have a different sleep schedule and routine on the weekends than during the week.<\/p>\n “Regardless of what our typical schedule is, when we sway from the schedule we often don\u2019t perform at our peak,” Kline said. “This can be demonstrated in jet lag. We are creatures of habit.”<\/p>\n