Night owls live days longer than 24 hours. This has been revealed by a study from Flinders University (Australia) on sleep habits and their relationship with circadian rhythms.
According to specialists in sleep medicine, night owls may suffer from the so-called delayed sleep phase syndrome, which implies a delay in going to bed. Many of those affected are unable to fall asleep before 4 in the morning.
The biological clock
- Circadian rhythms are the variations of some biological constants as a function of time. One of the best known and studied in humans is the sleep-wake cycle, which is affected in the case of night owls under study.
- Australian experts point out that people affected by the syndrome see their sleep cycle delayed, lengthening the time when the body needs to rest.
Days with more than 24 hours
- The indications by which the study moves point as a more plausible explanation that the circadian rhythms of those affected last more than 24 hours, they are slowed down with respect to the natural biological clock.
- The treatment of a phenomenon of this type would be based on a luminescence therapy at the usual waking hours to create a state of alert in the individual. According to the study, the syndrome affects between 10% and 15% of adolescents and young people.
