Dr. Matt Walker

with your chronotype, things do not look good.

So in those two circumstances, let's say that I standardize it.

Everyone is going to go to bed at 10 p.m.

and wake up at 6 a.m.

And let's say that we've got a morning type, not an extreme morning type, who kind of likes to go to bed around 9.45.

They are going to sleep very well.

It's very close to their natural rhythm.

And then I get an extreme evening type who likes to go to bed at 2 a.m.

And I have them sleep the same opportunity amount, eight hours, at the very same time.

Well, surely they should be identical.

They're not going to be.

It's not that they don't have the same opportunity.

They do, eight hours.

It's just that one is placed at the inappropriate time on the 24 hour clock for the evening type, but appropriately for the morning type.

And thus the quality of sleep that they each have is very different.

And that's why you always need to build into a metric of what is good sleep.

It's not just about quantity or quality or getting it regular.

It's also about where do you place your sleep opportunity window on that 24-hour clock face to align with your chronotype.

When you fight biology, you normally lose.

And the way you know you've lost is disease and sickness.