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Somewhere in a parallel universe: "Scientists discover how a common mutation leads to ‘early bird’ sleep disorder A new study by researchers at UC Santa Cruz

Somewhere in a parallel universe: "Scientists discover how a common mutation leads to ‘early bird’ sleep disorder A new study by researchers at UC Santa Cruz shows how a genetic mutation throws off the timing of the biological clock, causing a common sleep syndrome called anticipated sleep phase disorder. People with this condition are unable to stay awake until later in the evening (often falling asleep before 10 p.m.) and get up abnormally early in the morning..." I'm sort of joking, but not quite. I can't think of an objective reason why being a 'night owl' is biologically an abnormality/deficiency. As many other commenters have pointed out, daily rhythms are socially/culturally imposed, not so much biologically determined. There are many cultures (think of Mediterranean ones for example) where people routinely have late dinners and go to bed after midnight. Hard to imagine that entire countries are just biologically abnormal.

Jon_Lowtek 6y ago
It's not limited to human cultures, many mammals are night-active, not only owls. Society must stop calling such variations genetic abnormalities/deficiencies.
thotsBgone 6y ago
> I'm sort of joking, but not quite. I can't think of an objective reason why being a 'night owl' is biologically an abnormality/deficiency. It leads to being awake during dark hours, and humans do not have night vision. Also Advanced Sleep Phase Disorder, while less common, is also a thing and also leads to being awake during dark hours.
- leto_ii 6y ago
  > It leads to being awake during dark hours, and humans do not have night vision. Humans most definitely can see at night. Not as well as other animals, but we can do it. People also tend to actually stay awake in the dark, otherwise our sleeping times would vary quite a bit throughout the year - by this logic, if you live further up North you would have to sleep (almost) continuously throughout the winter.
  - thotsBgone 6y ago
    A reminder that we did not evolve "up North". Also, we can barely see at night, and that's probably why we sleep when we do, for as long as we do. To keep us safe.

Jon_Lowtek 6y ago

It's not limited to human cultures, many mammals are night-active, not only owls. Society must stop calling such variations genetic abnormalities/deficiencies.

thotsBgone 6y ago

> I'm sort of joking, but not quite. I can't think of an objective reason why being a 'night owl' is biologically an abnormality/deficiency. It leads to being awake during dark hours, and humans do not have night vision. Also Advanced Sleep Phase Disorder, while less common, is also a thing and also leads to being awake during dark hours.

leto_ii 6y ago
> It leads to being awake during dark hours, and humans do not have night vision. Humans most definitely can see at night. Not as well as other animals, but we can do it. People also tend to actually stay awake in the dark, otherwise our sleeping times would vary quite a bit throughout the year - by this logic, if you live further up North you would have to sleep (almost) continuously throughout the winter.
- thotsBgone 6y ago
  A reminder that we did not evolve "up North". Also, we can barely see at night, and that's probably why we sleep when we do, for as long as we do. To keep us safe.