Jack Hardcastle

I have long wondered why it seems that being a night owl seems to go hand-in-hand with being a technophile. Now, a group of scientists have discovered a gene which may explain why I and thousands of other people have such a hard time with mornings.

The altered gene, named “after hours” or Afh, is a variant of a gene called Fbxl3, which had not been linked to the body clock that keeps our metabolism, digestion and sleep patterns in tune with the rising and setting of the sun….

Instead of following the typical 24 hour pattern, some of the mice had body clocks that stretched to up to a 27 hour day.

It follows that if aptitude for technology can be genetic, and if it is linked to (perhaps on the same chromosome as) Afh, then you would see a lot of technologists with late-night tendencies.

Why am I so certain I have the altered Afh gene? In the spring of 2003, and again in the spring of 2006, I took a self-administered sleep study. For six weeks during those two semesters I recorded every time I went to sleep (if I wasn’t asleep within 5 minutes of lying down – very, very rare – I would adjust the recording) and every time that I woke up. I was able to determine a lot of things from this. Most importantly, I found that my body wants to run on a longer-than-24-hour cycle. I calculated that I am much closer to a 27 hour day.

Notice the stair-step pattern of going to sleep later, and later, and later every day until there is a “correction” where I have to be awake for a certain event or function, and then the pattern repeats.

In the 2006 study, I recorded whether or not I awoke with an alarm, how groggy or alert I was, etc. I recorded every nap, every mid-day sleep, every time I fell asleep on the couch at 6am. My intention, in both cases, was to determine my “sleep cycle,” or how long my average cycle of light sleep, deep sleep, REM lasts. In most people this cycle is between 90 and 120 minutes. Mine is approximately 87 minutes. If left alone, I will almost always awake some multiple of 87 minutes after I went to sleep. 3, 4.5, 6, 7.5, 9, or 12 hours are all frequent numbers. I have used this information for about four years now to schedule my alarm clock. Every day, as I go to sleep, I calculate the highest number of full cycles I can squeeze in before I have to be awake the next morning. I set my alarm for an exact multiple. Rarely do I have to snooze more than once, and in those cases it’s usually when I’m so chronically exhausted that I need far more sleep than I’ve allowed myself. Frequently, however, I’ll fly out of bed so alert and awake when the alarm goes off that I don’t need to snooze at all.

Now granted, this is not a scientific “study,” despite my use of the language. It’s a superficial look at one individual’s sleep patterns. It’s telling to me, however, that years before I had ever heard of the Afh gene, my roommates and I had discovered this particular pattern. Can I prove that I have it? No, of course not. I’d need a DNA test. Am I certain? You betcha.