Michael Breus, PhD, writes about sleep hygiene tips for the New Year in Psychology Today.
It’s important to look closely at the timing of activities in your daily life and make some adjustments so that your life is more in sync with your biological clock, based on your individual chronobiology.
The knowledge of your chronotype itself is valuable. Your chronotype is your disposition toward the timing of daily periods of activity and rest. Some of us are clearly “larks”—early risers—while others are distinctly night owls. The rest of us fall somewhere between the two.
A review of scientific studies found that athletic performance is strongly linked to chronotype—suggesting the time of day you choose to work out matters, in terms of how hard you can push yourself and how quickly and well you can recover. Another recent study found that different chronotypes prefer different sports, as evidenced by elite athletes. This makes complete sense, given how different chronotypes respond to physical challenges and training schedules, as well as to the social dynamics of team versus individual sports.
