‘Night owls’ – people who stay up late and have trouble dragging themselves out of bed in the morning – have a higher risk of dying sooner than ‘larks’ (those who have a natural preference for going to bed early and rising with the sun), according to a new study from the University of Surrey and Northwestern Medicine in Chicago.
The research, published in the journal Chronobiology International, on nearly half a million participants in the UK Biobank Study, found night owls have a 10 per cent higher risk of dying than larks. Researchers found 50,000 people were more likely to die, in the six-year period sampled.