Staying Up Late Is Bad For Your Health

Some doctors say that if you’re a night owl, you’re in worse shape, health-wise, and have a 10% higher risk of an early death.

By nowproducerdave on April 13, 2018
(Photo by Sean Gallup/Getty Images)

Are you a “night owl?” Do you stay up late, like, 11pm or midnight? Even later? Doctors say that it’s bad for our health, and even carries a 10% greater chance of an early death, they say. Not to be dark or anything.

There are a variety of reasons why we as humans try to stay up late. Our internal clocks WANT to go to sleep when it’s dark outside, but there’s just one more episode on Netflix, or we were working late and had a late dinner, or perhaps we just wanted to talk to someone longer before getting to sleep. Before you know it, it’s your new habit and you find you’re constantly getting in bed at midnight or later, and it’s a struggle to wake up in the morning for work.

A study asked about a half million different people if they consider themselves to be a “night owl” or a morning person who goes to sleep early. They then checked in with those people over the course of 6 and a half years to keep track of their health. They found that people who considered themselves to be “night owls” typically were in worse shape, health-wise, than those who considered themselves “morning people.” This can be due to a lot of different things, overall stress, whether physical or mental, or that being a “night owl” can even be caused by someone’s health or habits. They’re working on more research to figure it out. Something they did note though – daylight saving time has a definite negative affect on the “night owl” types. Unrealistically, they say that if you’re a night owl, you should modify your working hours to match. Because, you know, that’s easy to do…

Check out some more info about the research here. Are you a night owl? Does your working schedule match your affinity to stay up late? In some cases it does, especially if you can work from home, but I bet in most cases “work is work,” and you have to be there with everyone else.

Around the site