Can you change your circadian clock?

An interesting article about changing your body clock was recently in the NYTimes. Something that we may not be aware of is that computers and iPads late at night are highly stimulating to the brain. So it tends to make us night owls. Also, for those of us who are very early risers or night owls, to change is much harder to do. Also, changing your routine on weekends can upset your internal clock. So for those who struggle with making it to work in the morning, there are methods to reset yourself, and for those who fight with jet lag there are methods also.

Enjoy the article below and the link is at the end for your convenience.

November 18, 2011, 11:43 am

So You Think You Can Be a Morning Person?

By TARA PARKER-POPE

Emiliano Ponzi

This column appears in the Nov. 20 issue of The New York Times Magazine.
Like most creatures on earth, humans come equipped with a circadian clock, a roughly 24-hour internal timer that keeps our sleep patterns in sync with our planet. At least until genetics, age and our personal habits get in the way. Even though the average adult needs eight hours of sleep per night, there are “shortsleepers,” who need far less, and morning people, who, research shows, often come from families of other morning people. Then there’s the rest of us, who rely on alarm clocks.
For those who fantasize about greeting the dawn, there is hope. Sleep experts say that with a little discipline (well, actually, a lot of discipline), most people can reset their circadian clocks. But it’s not as simple as forcing yourself to go to bed earlier (you can’t make a wide-awake brain sleep). It requires inducing a sort of jet lag without leaving your time zone. And sticking it out until your body clock resets itself. And then not resetting it again.
To start, move up your wake-up time by 20 minutes a day. If you regularly rise at 8 a.m., but really want to get moving at 6 a.m., set the alarm for 7:40 on Monday. The next day, set it for 7:20 and so on. Then, after you wake up, don’t linger in bed. Hit yourself with light. In theory, you’ll gradually get sleepy about 20 minutes earlier each night, and you can facilitate the transition by avoiding extra light exposure from computers or televisions as you near bedtime. (The light from a computer screen or an iPad has roughly the same effect as the sun.) “Light has a very privileged relationship with our brain,” says Dr. Jeffrey M. Ellenbogen, chief of sleep medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital and assistant professor of neurology at Harvard Medical School. While most sensory information is “processed” by the thalamus before being sent on its way, Ellenbogen says, light goes directly to the circadian system.
But recalibrating your inner clock requires more commitment — in the form of unwatched reruns or lost time with a spouse — than many people care to give. For some, it’s almost impossible. Very early risers and longtime night owls have a hard time ever changing, says David F. Dinges, chief of sleep and chronobiology at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine. Night-shift workers also struggle, he says, because they don’t get the environmental and social cues that help adjust the circadian clock. The most important of these cues, called zeitgebers (German for “time givers”) is sunlight. But a zeitgeber could also be a scrambled-egg breakfast or children coming home from school in the afternoon.
Besides computer screens, the biggest saboteur for an aspiring morning person is the weekend. Staying up later on Friday or sleeping in on Saturday sends the brain an entirely new set of scheduling priorities. By Monday, a 6 a.m. alarm will feel like 4 a.m. “If the old phase was entrained for a long time,” Dinges says, “the biology has a kind of memory of this.” In other words, he says, “it takes self-discipline.”
Are you a real morning person? This version of a test commonly used by sleep experts can determine whether you are a lark, a night owl or somewhere in between. Click the box in front of your answer and we’ll add up your score.

1

How alert do you feel during the first half hour after you wake up in the morning?

• Not at all alert
• Slightly alert
• Fairly alert
• Very alert

2

How hungry do you feel during the first half hour after you wake up?

• Not at all hungry
• Slightly hungry
• Fairly hungry
• Very hungry

3

A friend wants to exercise with you during the week, and the best time for him is between 6 to 7 a.m. Bearing in mind nothing but your own internal "clock," how do you think you would perform?

• Good
• Reasonable
• Poor
• Very poorly

4

You want to be at your peak performance for a test that you know is going to be mentally exhausting and will last two hours. You are entirely free to plan your day. Considering only your internal "clock," which one of the four testing times would you choose?

• 8-10 am
• 11 am-1 pm
• 3-5 pm
• 7-9 pm

5

If you went to bed at 10 p.m, how tired would you be?

• Very tired
• Fairly tired
• A little tired
• Not at all tired

6

If there is a specific time at which you have to get up in the morning, to what extent are you dependent on being woken up by an alarm clock?

• Very dependent
• Fairly dependent
• Slightly dependent
• Not at all dependent

7

For some reason you have gone to bed several hours later than usual, but there is no need to get up at any particular time the next morning. Which one of the following events are you most likely to experience?

• Wake up at the usual time and not go back to sleep
• Wake up at the usual time and doze
• Wake up at the usual time and go back to sleep
• Wake up later than usual

8

Do you consider yourself to be a "morning" or "evening" type of person?

• Morning
• More morning than evening
• More evening than morning
• Evening

So you think you can be a morning person?