The article below claims that people who are by nature "night owls" (who prefer to stay up late at night and sleep late in the morning) are naturally subject to more health problems than morning types.
It maintains that this is because society operates in a way that is prejudiced in favor of morning people (think of all the businesses that
open at 8 AM and close at 5 PM, for example) and that this causes health issues in night owl people, who have natural difficulty adjusting to this pattern.
From the article:
"Your chronotype is basically when you prefer to get up in the morning, and when you prefer to go to bed at night""The key link is sleep. Poor sleep wrecks your health, and a chronotype out of sync with your actual schedule is a major factor in sleep deprivation""even a relatively small misalignment between daily schedule and circadian rhythms can have a significant effect on your risk of chronic disease""Sleep deprivation is one of the biggest health risks of the modern lifestyle. It’s arguably more important than diet"The article goes on to suggest ways that night owls may be able to adjust, to minimize negative health effects caused by sleep misalignment, by doing things such as: working night shifts, making up lost sleep on weekends, exercise, diet modifications (lower carb intake, more antioxidants, reducing sugar), and even something like "…using a sun-spectrum lamp in the morning may help push your circadian rhythm a little earlier."
The take-away here is that poor sleep, possibly resulting from one's night owl chronotype, may be worsening our health, and something as simple as getting better sleep may produce noticeably better health benefits.
Well, as an incorrigible night owl (up till 2-3 AM sometimes, sleeping until late morning) (I'm retired), I for one am hardly encouraged by such observations. But being a night owl does have its plusses. For example, sitting in front of my computer glow at 2 AM with the rest of the room lights out, except for a single plug-in night-light nearby, while listening to a gentle rain on the roof, and looking out the nearby window into the night, watching the rain fall and seeing distant lightning flashes, all while perusing an interesting website, certainly has a pleasant effect unknown during daytime hours.
While not expecting to find anything (I didn't), I did do a websearch looking for anything purporting to offer a correlation between sleeping pattern and cancer incidence, but found nothing of credible interest, just some people's theories about
it.
But supposedly, taking corrective actions such as those mentioned above may possibly improve the health of night owls, which some of us certainly are.
paleoleap.com/early-bird-night-owl-chronotype-affects-health/