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When you wake up in the morning, you hit the snooze button. When you wake up after the snooze button? You’re still so, so tired, and you don’t know why.
Well, new findings in the department of genetics at the University of Leicester may have the answer for you.
This new study, done on fruit flies (a common organism to study in place of humans) found that the times that different fruit flies woke up varied pretty widely. But the interesting finding was that they could breed different fruit flies (late risers with late risers) so that they would produce offspring with the same sleeping patterns.
So is your night owl-ness determined by more than just how late you go to sleep? It looks possible.
We know that people do have a preference for one or the other, but up until now it hasn’t really been studied.
One of the study’s coauthors, Eran Tauber, said “The impact of this preference on health and behavior is well documented, but the molecular basis is largely unknown.”
So of course, because the study was done on fruit flies, there’s no reason to go to your parents and blame them for your tendency to stay up past 3AM. But it may be a part of it.
It’s good to try to regulate your sleep schedule, since sleep deprivation can cause anything from a higher risk of car accidents to increased risk of heart attack and stroke.
At the end of the day, everyone has their own natural sleeping rhythms, and it’s worth it to find out what that is and try to adjust your schedule around it.
