Of owls and larks

We all have our own internal clock. It’s just that some clocks are different from others. Why? And what’s that got to do with the animal world? An ode to Doris Büchel’s sleep.

Sound familiar? That magical blue hour just before sunrise when you float between dream and reality? That feeling of energy flowing through your body before you even blink for the first time? That freshness that embraces you as soon as the early rays of the sun penetrate through the open window? The singing birds that put a smile on your face even before you’ve spoken a word yourself? The last pleasurable stretching before you swing out of your bed – rested, recharged and ready for all the possibilities that the new day has in store for you? Sound familiar? Yes? Then I’m happy for you – you’re a lark!

As much as I’d love to fantasise with you a little longer about what I’m sure are great experiences, which you – the voluntary early risers among you – can enjoy every day. But unfortunately, unfortunately, these morning hours are not in my area of expertise. I’m not the early bird to catch the worm.

For the avoidance of any doubt: no, it’s not that I don’t do mornings. You can sit with me from 7 o’clock in the morning (I prefer 8 o’clock). You can smile at me and even talk to me quietly. I will also smile and respond kindly to questions. It’s just that for the first two hours after waking up, I can’t guarantee that I’ll remember anything that’s been said. We, my body and my brain, like to take the days slowly. In peace and quiet. An unexpected phone call before 8 o’clock in the morning can throw us off course. We imagine a meeting before 9 o’clock to be similar to a root canal treatment without anaesthesia. And please, please no cheerful radio presenters before 10 o’clock. Because I know all this and I’m my own boss, I afford myself the luxury of limiting myself to tasks that don’t require too much concentration in the mornings. My morning, my rhythm, my life. Later in the morning I’m concentrated, focused, present – ready for the world.

YOU GUESSED IT:
I’M A NIGHT OWL!

Confused? Let’s start from the beginning again. Fact is, we humans spend about a third of our lives sleeping, which makes sleep an essential part of our lives. How and when we sleep is related to our internal clock. This internal clock – our circadian rhythm – is controlled mainly by our genes. This in turn influences our metabolism, the activity of our organs, our ability to concentrate and our emotions and thus also our individual performance phases. If we are out of rhythm, so are our organs, our performance and emotions. So far, so good. When we talk about the sleep-wake cycle, we distinguish between two chronotypes: larks and owls. The larks are the early risers among us. They have their most productive phase even before noon. But they get tired earlier in the evening. The extreme lark likes to get up at 4 o’clock in the morning and go to sleep at 9 o’clock in the evening. The owls, on the other hand, lag somewhat behind the larks in terms of productivity. They are slower in the morning but remain awake and productive for longer. The later the day, the better they perform. The extreme owl likes to get up at noon, finding its way to sleep around 4 o’clock in the morning.

AM I AN OWL?

Come to think of it ... I don’t really know anything about the night. I know the magical charm, the mysteriousness, this silence that lets us listen to ourselves and turn our thoughts into dreams and back again, but only from sleepless nights. I was never the kind of student who spent nights studying, reading, writing – undisturbed by traffic noise, phone calls, incoming e-mails. Never the writer who could only tap into poetic beauty at night. Never the lone she-wolf who roamed the streets at night. Never a nurse or a policewoman, neither a taxi driver nor a rock star, not a firefighter, a bar owner, a midwife. My services were never in demand after midnight, except when I was on the road for a night for a report. I had to recover from it for two days. I like the twilight that luxuriously lays its dark veil over the world. I love the peace and quiet that melts my mind and body like lukewarm honey into the pillows. Yes! But, when darkness comes, my ability to concentrate decreases. The closer midnight gets, the louder my bed calls me.

OH DEAR, I’M NOT AN OWL AT ALL!

Statistically, most people are neither one nor the other. Only about one in ten is an extreme lark and only one in five is an extreme owl. In between, the lines get blurry. Whether you are more of an owl or a lark yourself is, as mentioned, written in your genes. But external circumstances such as light, what we eat and drink and when, as well as physical and mental activities influence our internal clock too. And not just positively. One thing’s for sure: nowadays we humans spend more time indoors and, so, have less exposure to the most natural of all clocks – sunlight. So it’s quite possible that our 24-hour turbo society and the associated light pollution are throwing us out of our very own rhythm and keeping us awake longer than we would like.

«I like the twilight that luxuriously lays its dark veil over the world. I love the peace and quiet that melts my mind and body like lukewarm honey into the pillows.»

SLEEP – SO SIMPLE, SO COMPLICATED.

So I decide to ask someone who must know the answer: Dr Stefan Telser, specialist in psychiatry and neurology, a sleep physician with his own practice in Bregenz. We connect via Skype, the welcome is warm, we smile cheerfully into our screens. It’s 12 noon.

Stefan Telser, just the other day I read that 90 per cent of all managers get up before 6 o’clock in the morning because many people’s minds and bodies are extra efficient at this time of day. Then I thought to myself that all these people are more likely to get up so early because our society is geared towards the larks and they have no choice.
Stefan Telser: The understanding of the early bird that catches the worm is indeed deeply rooted in our society. So deep, in fact, that it leads to many conflicts within communities. For example, the fact that an adolescent likes to stay in bed until noon can lead to very fundamental and dogged discussions in families about the values of the parents and their authority. It can also lead to problems within partnerships – if one person is in top shape early in the morning at the weekend or during the holidays and the other wants to have their peace and quiet. This very conflict is backed up by studies and is genetic.

What do you mean?
This social jet lag referred to here comes from the fact that owls and larks like to partner up. Biologically, this makes sense, because when two come together to potentially have offspring together, brood care works better if one of them is always awake and can watch while the other sleeps. There are numerous studies on this. Check it out in your own environment.

These studies confirm that our society is geared towards the larks. But what does this circumstance do to the owl who is always having to adapt?
This circumstance actually has consequences. Namely, that the owls may be less mentally stable and therefore more prone to depression than the larks. The owls often have to be awake and productive in everyday working life or at school at times that do not fit with their internal clock ...

It’s like a teacher – if they were a lark – being forced to start teaching in the middle of the night. That’s probably how the owl child feels every morning at school. I could go on listing of examples ... You get the picture. It’s a chronic challenge that doesn’t get any better. You have to constantly fight it, be awake, perform, even if you’re not ready for it. Stress ensues. And we all know that constant stress is a common cause of depression and other diseases, such as diabetes. It can therefore have physical and mental consequences, and may even be responsible for how our life path unfolds. For instance, owls occasionally find a kind of niche in which they and their chronotype fit.

Prejudice abounds too: the productive, hard-working lark – the slow, lazy owl. What do you think? I mean, owls have their advantages too, don’t they?
Absolutely! After all, someone has to function in the evening and at night, be efficient, creative and emotionally balanced. At a time when many are already enjoying their evening off. However, I don’t think we should qualify the two chronotypes this way. One type isn’t more successful than the other. On the contrary, our clocks just run differently. And anyway, dare I say it: Let us owls let the larks have their worms!

You told me at the start of the conversation that you’re an owl. How do you deal with this in your own day-to-day life? Sleeping in probably isn’t an option with work, family and everyday life, is it?
I myself trick my internal clock with the help of light.

I’m sorry, what?
I try to influence my circadian rhythm using daylight lamps; I use these to coincide with the routine I need to adapt to. In other words, without a daylight lamp, I’d probably wake up between 8 and 9 o’clock in the morning. The lamps help me to get up at half past seven.

Amazing! How exactly does that work?
It’s simple. I regularly get up at anti-social hours, use the daylight lamps in the bathroom, with my first morning coffee, but also at work and at home. This means that I use daylight from the moment I get up until late afternoon. From the late afternoon until I get up in the morning, I stick to yellowish, warm light and activate the blue filter on electronic displays. That’s it.

This means that you can definitely adjust your internal clock.
But it requires discipline. Think of it this way: the “outer day” counts exactly 24 hours, but the “inner day” counts approximately 24 hours. In fact, the owl’s internal clock goes on for an average of about 12 minutes longer than the outer clock. If, for example, the owl, who spends the majority of the day indoors, does not consciously set their internal clock every day, their inner time can shift away from outer time. Blind people who do not sense light or those completely isolated from the outside world have their own rhythm take over. For example, after five days, they might be an hour later, and after 120 days, a whole day is missing. People in isolation experiments do not miss this day. Conversely, this means that with the help of the light trick, this natural delay can be stopped or even brought forward. But as I said, it requires discipline.

I talk to Stefan Telser for an hour, and while philosophising with him, I realise that sleep is about much more than that: «You shut your eyes, you open them, and something happens in between.» He continues: «If you start talking about it and go into depth, a whole cosmos of connections with our everyday life opens up.» Sleeping is a basic need. Just like eating, drinking, digesting, excreting. If we are denied these vegetative functions, we cannot function. We get into trouble. Sleep is fascinating. And precisely because sleep is so fundamental, so complex and fascinating, it should be given the attention it deserves. But you can’t sleep everywhere and all the time, says Telser. «Let’s imagine we had laid down to sleep under a tree 30,000 years ago. The chance of a wild animal eating us would have been huge. This means that our sleep-wake habits have always been subject to a certain amount of control. But as long as we can adapt, everything will be fine.»

For me, this connection to nature, going back to our origins, is a good motto for planning my next visit. I am drawn to the Birds of Prey Park in Buchs, where you can marvel at a unique population of around 70 species of birds of prey and owls across an area of around 10,000 square metres, which corresponds to about 190 animals. I meet owner Lucien Nigg on a cold and wet Friday afternoon for a chat to learn more about owls and larks and to understand the connections. We sit down at a table in the Falkenstübli. Even as a young boy, Lucien Nigg was fascinated by birds of prey. In 2001, he turned his dream of running his own bird park into reality.

THE KNOWING SMILE OF AN EXPERT IS WRITTEN ALL OVER HIS FACE.

Lucien, what can you tell me about the sleeping habits of owls?
Lucien Nigg: A nocturnal owl spends around 80 to 95 per cent of its day resting. This means that it looks for a protected branch within its nest – which has a radius of about 100 metres. Once there, it settles down and dozes for up to 20 hours a day. Yes, dozing. Because even when its eyes are supposedly closed, it has extremely good hearing. When dusk sets in and it hears a sound, a kind of thermal imaging camera kicks in. It uses this to sense the body heat of its prey, even in the dark. Thanks to its silent flight, it can then catch these in a very targeted manner and with little effort. The owl is an extremely skilled short-range hunter.

What about the character traits of owls and larks?
The owl thinks before acting. And when it acts, it acts very efficiently. It’s a loner and doesn’t accept any other owls in its territory – except when it has found a mate. Owls are considered a symbol of wisdom and intelligence. The diurnal lark, on the other hand, likes to be in company. It lives in a swarm. It sings as soon as the sun comes up and rests at night. Symbolically, it stands for freedom and independence.

Do you see any parallels between animal and human owls and larks?
Larks need each other – if only for protection. The owls protect themselves by their camouflage colours and by behaving calmly. They regard their nest field as their territory, just as we humans regard our homes or even our hotel rooms as our «nest». We all have times where need our peace and to feel safe.

So one thing they have in common is this basic need for protection.
Absolutely. We know this from ourselves, too. In our home or a hotel room we are looking for peace, security and protection. Because only when we feel safe do we allow ourselves to shut down our system. You have to be able to let go in order to recover. To do this, you need peace and security – whether human or animal.

Interesting, I think as I leave the bird of prey park, after I have made it into my car just in time for a violent thunderstorm wave to hit, summarising what I have learned during my research: As different as owls and larks are, their unique characteristics and behaviours are just as important. Our society needs both. The prospect of us starting to acknowledge this fact in a non-judgemental manner is exciting. And as decision-makers, we also have to address the fact that we humans are different and operate to our own internal clocks. I ask myself: What would it do to us and our society if we could all work, live, sleep – be – at our own pace?

One thing is certain: enabling ourselves to sleep deeply is a great freedom. And what could be more valuable than that?

We all love and need sleep and want nothing more than a safe, quiet place with an optimum climate, a high-quality bed and the finest bedding, preferably with the scent of a forest and meadow. (Or freshly cut grass and grapefruit. Lavender and bergamot. Or rose petals. Mmmh!) Sleeping is existential. Sleeping is healing. Sleeping is nice! For the larks who can’t wait to finally crawl into bed at night, and the owls who love to snuggle up in fine bed linen in the early morning hours. On that note: Goodnight and good morning! Whenever, wherever: sleep well!