"The Life of a Person Who Wakes Up Really, Really Early/'Extreme larks' get up naturally when some people have hardly gone to bed."

By Olga Khazan (in The Atlantic). My first post this morning was at 4:58 AM, so it's a good topic for me.

They are people who wake up early—naturally. Not just “early” in the sense of a perky-at-8-a.m. spouse. These are the people whose bodies rouse them at 5:30 a.m. or earlier—some even at hours others are just going to sleep....

[Louis J. Ptáček, a professor of neurology at the University of California at San Francisco School] says his study is unique because it shows that advanced sleep phase “isn’t rare, and it’s only a problem if the person finds it undesirable.”... Extreme larks... might even be healthier than people who are night owls: Late bedtimes are associated with some negative health consequences, such as Type 2 diabetes and heart disease.

Also in their favor, larks are more likely to benefit from the societal impression that people who wake up early are go-getters and people who wake up late are lazy. That’s not actually true; plenty of night owls wake at noon and work until 2 a.m., right as larks are getting up and brewing coffee. Nevertheless, the stereotype persists.