The Hidden Links Between Your Sleep Ancestry

The Hidden Links Between Your Sleep & Ancestry…

Chapters:
0:00 Intro
0:23 The 4 Sleep Chronotypes
4:44 Inheritance of Your Sleep Pattern
5:46 Manta Sleep
6:29 Sleep and Ancestry (& Latitude)
12:05 Countries with Earliest Wake Up Times & Latest Bed Times

Sleep is one of the key pillars of health, but does your sleep pattern hold secrets to your ancestry? Are you a morning lark or a night owl? Have you ever wondered if those traits run in your family, or reflect your ancient ancestry? Well recent science suggests there are real connections between how we sleep and our ancestors, as well as factors such as latitude and social customs.

Now according to one model, there are 4 main different types of sleep chronotypes in people, which are named after animals. They are Bear, Wolf, Lion & Dolphin. These sleep chronotypes are natural, biologically driven patterns, and they determine your body's preference for sleeping and waking at certain times. In other words, they reflect your internal circadian rhythm — the ~24-hour biological clock that regulates sleep, alertness, hormone production, and body temperature. And your internal circadian rhythm is tuned by key genes, including PERIOD3 (PER3) and CLOCK.

Now Bear is the most common chronotype in the world, with around ~50% of people having this pattern. If you’re a bear, your natural wake up time is around ~7–8 AM, and your peak alertness is roughly between 10am-2pm. The time you naturally want to go sleep is quite standard, at around 11 PM, with bears tending to follow the solar cycle in general. Lions on the other hand are early risers. Their best wake time is more like ~5–6 AM and they are most productive in the morning. Lions have an earlier sleep time though of between 9-10pm.

Then there’s the night owls, or wolfs. People with this chronotype naturally want to wake up later, and their peak alertness is often late afternoon and into the evening. Their sleep time is late as well, between around ~12–1 AM or later. Wolfs are often very creative types in general, but they can find the standard 9-5 work schedule difficult given their natural sleep preferences. Now the final category are dolphins, the rarest group, with only around 10% of people having this chronotype. Dolphins are much more variable with their sleep schedule, and this category gets its name from the ability of real dolphins to stay alert even while sleeping. People with this chronotype are known as light sleepers, and have higher rates of insomnia and disrupted sleep. Those with this chronotype as sometimes described as wired and tired.

Now it’s not like you can’t go to sleep at different times and wake up at different times. Behavioural habits as well, such as safely getting some natural sunlight in your eyes at the same time every morning, can help set your circadian rhythm. Any follower of the Andrew Huberman podcast will know this. And as people age as well, their chronotype typically shifts earlier in the day. Some people also prefer different terms rather than the bear, lion, wolf and dolphin model. But everyone tends to have a natural preference hardwired in their DNA, and there is variety across the human population. These are genetic predispositions that mean you tend to be more of a morning person, an evening owl, or somewhere in-between.

Now you can do a chronotype questionnaire online where you answer some questions, and I done one recently. I’m not sure how scientific these things are, but it turns out I’m a bear, and this definitely makes sense for me. I know my most productive hours are between around 10am and 2-3pm, and I structure my day around this. I know that if I’ve got real cognitive work to do, such as writing and researching a video, that’s the optimal time for me to get the hardest part of the work done, and I tend to put less demanding work earlier or later in the day. But you may be different.

Now you may be asking why humans evolved different chronotypes in the first place?

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#sleep #ancestry #dna