Improve Your Sleep by Understanding Your Biological Sleeping Pattern

Today we're going to talk about an extremely important piece of the whole puzzle called your chronotype. Every person has a master biological clock that's ticking away inside their brains. But they've also got dozens of smaller biological clocks throughout their bodies. But not every person's biological clock keeps the same time. You may have noticed this. For example, some people wake early or don't feel hungry when you do, or are full of energy when you're ready to wind down. Different people fall into different classifications called chronotypes, based on the genetics of your morningness and your eveningness. I actually looked for mammals that accurately represented the four categories as I see them. Lion actually replaces the early bird. And what's interesting about lions is they really are early birds. They usually have their first kill before dawn. Bears replaces hummingbirds. And bears are very interesting creatures. They have a tendency to wake up when the sun comes up and go to bed when the sun goes down. Wolves replace night owls, by the way, I'm old wolf and remember, wolves also hunt at night. They are very nocturnal creatures. And then dolphins represent people with difficulty sleeping. Now, you might be wondering, well, why did you choose dolphins? Dr. Bruce? It turns out that dolphins sleep uni hemispherically, which means half of their brain is asleep while the other half is awake and looking for predators. And I thought these represent those people who are having struggles sleeping because they're never quite asleep. Kind of like a dolphin. Can you change your chronotype? Your chronotype is genetic. It's in your DNA. You can't change your chronotype, just like you can't change your height or your eye color, but you can make small shifts of one or two hours. So to answer the question, can you change your chronotype? The answer is no. But by adjusting the timing of meals, exercise, caffeine and light exposure, each chronotype will make huge improvements in their health, energy and productivity. More on that in days to come.