Sleep therapists and researchers are examining Australians hardwired to be up through the night and have mused they would have "tended the campfire while the tribe slept" in times past.
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00:00Some people are definitely hardwired to be night owls, but that's a really small percentage
00:06of the population.
00:09Most of us actually, our body clocks actually change a little bit, and it depends on what
00:16we're doing and on our lifestyle.
00:20And definitely over the last few years, as people are spending more time on their phones
00:24and being up later, we're shifting our circadian rhythm, or our normal body clocks are starting
00:30to shift later.
00:32What tends to happen is our normal body clock isn't 24 hours.
00:37It's actually slightly longer than that at 24.2 hours for most of us, and in some people
00:43it's even longer than that, it can be even up to 24.5 hours.
00:47So in most of us, if we tend to stay up later and later, our body clocks will shift to be
00:53later and later.
00:54And so we're shifting our body clock to be up later and then getting up later in the
00:59morning.
01:00Is there any research behind why some people are hardwired to be up later?
01:09Well, some people are definitely more sensitive to light, so that's number one.
01:14And we obviously at night are spending more time in bright lights.
01:19They're also exposed to a lot of blue light with computers, phones and televisions.
01:26So there's a couple of different things why people are hardwired.
01:30But some people really are just hardwired to be slightly different, that their body clocks
01:35don't shift all that well.
01:37Is it possible to change your natural sleep patterns, do you think?
01:43In most people, yes it is.
01:45In most people we can change their body clocks.
01:48And you see it actually, I suppose with teenagers, they go to bed later and later and their body
01:53clocks shift.
01:54So you can, and then what we, when they actually, when school time starts and they have to start
01:59getting up earlier, we can slowly shift it back again.
02:03So in most people, yes, we can shift our body clock.
02:06In some, it isn't shiftable at all.
02:09And obviously some people are more sensitive to light.
02:12And so therefore, and they tend not to shift their body clocks very easily.
02:17How long would it take to try and shift your body clock?
02:21Say you're someone who is, tends to be up late at night, but wants to be the kind of person
02:27that gets up early in the morning, how, how long do you need to sort of get yourself into
02:32that routine before that becomes your, your sleep pattern?
02:38It does take a while.
02:40So if you want to shift your body, it's much easier to advance your body clock than it is
02:44to actually get it to go backwards.
02:47So, you know, it's a bit like jet lag, if you're going over to, if you're traveling
02:51eastward, you know that you, your body clock changes quite quickly with traveling over eastward.
02:57When you come back to Australia and traveling westward, we get terrible jet lag and things.
03:01So it does tend to take a while to shift your body clock, um, backwards, or what some people
03:07do is they stay up overnight, one night and just try and quickly, rapidly change their
03:12body clock so they're awake the next day.
03:15Are there any, um, particular periods, Linda, in your life where your natural rhythm changes?
03:22You mentioned earlier there, teenagers, like, is there some, is it a period of time when your
03:28body does sort of start to change its sleep pattern?
03:31I think shift workers tend to change their body patterns, particularly if you have one shift.
03:39So if you're always on night shift, um, you tend to change your body clock.
03:44Uh, teenagers tend to change their body clock quite easily.
03:48And then people who, um, don't have a set routine.
03:52So do, they can change their body clock quite quickly as well.
03:56So there are particular stages of life where, and I suppose students who are studying late,
04:01your body clock will shift in to adjust for those habits.
04:05So you definitely want to be able to change their body clock to that.
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