London, June 10 (TIWN) Researchers have found that a simple tweak to the sleeping patterns and maximising outdoor light during the mornings for a period of three weeks can help night owls -- people with extreme late sleeping and waking habits - bring forward their sleep/wake timings by two hours.

Whether you’re a morning person or love burning the midnight oil, we’re all controlled by so-called body clocks. These clocks (which regulate your circadian rhythms) are inside almost every cell in the body and control when we feel awake and tired during a 24-hour period.

But as it turns out, our latest study found that our body clocks have a much bigger impact on us than we previously realised. In fact, our body clocks actually affect how well a person performs on both mental and physical tasks.

Our circadian rhythms are controlled by the brain’s suprachiasmatic nucleus, which detects light. When cells in your eyes register that it’s dark outside, they send these signals to the suprachiasmatic nucleus. It then releases the hormone melatonin, which makes you feel tired.

Your chronotype is another factor that determines how your biological clocks affect your daily behaviours. For example, early chronotypes (“morning larks”) rise early and are most active in the morning, but feel tired late in the afternoon or early evening. Late chronotypes (“night owls”) are tired during the morning, but feel awake in the evening.

These individuals differences may also be seen in multiple other physiological, behavioural and genetic rhythms that happen over a near 24-hour period. For example, chronotype determines the time melatonin is released. For morning larks, melatonin can rise around 6pm, making them feel tired by 9pm or 10pm. For night owls, melatonin can increase at 10pm/11pm or even later, meaning many aren’t tired until 2am or 3am.