Morning Lark or Night Owl?
Chronotype
Early Lark
You've done a day's thinking before the city wakes up.
An Early Lark is the strongest morning chronotype: you wake early without an alarm, think most clearly in the first hours of the day, and feel sleep pulling at you not long after dinner.
It's you if…
- Your alarm clock is mostly decorative.
- You've answered three emails before anyone else is online — and you'd like replies by 9.
- Late dinners feel like a test of endurance.
The surprise
Larks are often the worst at sleeping in, even when they're exhausted. Your body clock wakes you at the usual hour on holidays too, which is why a late party costs you twice.
Best matchNight OwlBetween you, someone is always awake: you take the sunrise flight and the 7 a.m. errands, they take the midnight emergencies.Worst matchWeekend Time-TravelerThey live two time zones apart between Friday and Monday; you live in one. Weekend plans become negotiations.The science
In lab studies where people live without clocks or daylight, morning types tend to have a slightly shorter internal day than evening types (Duffy and colleagues, 2001). A rare inherited form, familial advanced sleep phase, makes people fall asleep around 7:30 p.m. and wake around 4:30 a.m.; one of the first genes linked to it was PER2 (Toh and colleagues, 2001).
14% of all possible answer paths end here
Take the quizFrequently asked questions
What is an Early Lark chronotype?
It's the strongest morning type in this quiz: you wake early without help, do your best thinking before noon and get sleepy early in the evening.
Why do morning people wake up early even on weekends?
The body clock doesn't know it's Saturday. Morning types tend to have a slightly shorter internal day, so their clock keeps waking them at the usual early hour.
Is being a morning person genetic?
Partly. Twin studies and gene studies link chronotype to several clock genes, and rare families with a PER2 variant sleep and wake about four hours earlier than most people.
For fun, not diagnosis. The science sections cite published research; your own sleep is best judged by how you feel and, if it's a problem, by a doctor.