Notice to night owls, you can calmly continue to live at your own pace. A British study, published this Friday and relayed by our colleagues from Parisian, indicates that except in the event of evenings “extendable for drinking and smoking“, people who go to bed late have no additional risk of dying younger than someone who goes to bed early.
This study was carried out over the long term: it started more than 40 years ago, in 1981, in Finland. Researchers began tracking nearly 24,000 same-sex twins of all ages, asking them whether they considered themselves morning or evening. As a result, a majority said they were “morning”, a third said they were “rather evening”, 10% “really evening”.
Conclusions that have limits
In 2018, the researchers resumed their study, to see results 37 years later, and to see if night owls, often younger on the one hand and heavier consumers of tobacco and alcohol on the other, had given their varying life expectancies.
Between the two stages of the study, more than 8,700 of the 24,000 twins originally selected had died. Among them, the researchers estimated that the most night owls had a 9% higher risk of death than early risers from all causes, difference “mainly due to tobacco and alcohol“say the specialists, the other night owls not being concerned.
Bedtime would therefore have “little or no effect” on our life expectancy under “normal” conditions, but this study must be taken with a grain of salt according to other specialists. Indeed, if it gives a general trend, it can be distorted by the fact that people define themselves as early risers or late risers.
