Are you a lark or an owl?

Do you wake up early in the morning, refreshed and bouncing with energy, ready to meet the day? Or would you rather stay up late into the night, then sleep in the next day?

"Larks," or morning people, prefer to go to bed early and get up early, whereas "owls," or night people, prefer to stay up later and sleep later.

Most of us are programmed by our circadian rhythms to sleep at night and be awake in the daytime. The circadian rhythm is a roughly-24-hour cycle in the biochemical, physiological or behavioral processes of living beings. The term "circadian" comes from the Latin circa, "around", and diem or dies, "day", meaning literally "approximately one day."

I took this quiz and came up as "very much a night person." Trouble is, my current schedule requires me to get up at 6 a.m. in order to be at work at 7:30 a.m. Maybe this explains why I am perpetually tired at work! My natural rhythm and my work schedule are at complete odds with each other!

This article from the BBC says the answer to why some of us are larks and others are owls may lie in our genes. Researchers found a link between people's preferene for mornings or evenings and a gene called Period 3. If you have a long form of this gene, you're more likely to prefer early mornings. If you have the short form, you're probably an evening person.

I'm betting I have the short form of Period 3. That would explain a lot.

This site from the Medical College of Wisconsin has some interesting information about the body's biological clock and how light affects our brain.

If you're a lark, you probably don't have too much trouble with a normal daytime work schedule. If you're an owl, however, it can be more difficult.

There are ways to train yourself to be a morning person, such as putting your alarm clock across the room, getting up at the same time every day and turning on bright lights as soon as you get up.

Or, if you're like me and your natural rhythm and work schedule are at odds, you can just resign yourself to not going to bed as early as you should and being tired the next day. Naps work great for making up the difference in sleep! If you can escape to your car and take a brief power nap at lunch, it will go a long way toward helping you feel more alert in the afternoon.

Take the quiz above and see if you're a lark or an owl. Let me know what your results are. How do you deal with the differences between your natural circadian rhythm and your lifestyle?