PLOS Science Wednesday: Hi reddit, we’re Dorothee Fischer and David
Lombardi, in our recent PLOS ONE study we show why adolescents have a
hard time waking up early – they’re the latest chronotype – Ask Us
Anything!
Abstract
EDIT: David Lombardi will not be joining today’s chat. Hi Reddit, My
name is Dorothee Fischer and I am a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at
Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. My research focuses on how to
design shift schedules that minimize risks for health and safety using
the fact that people sleep and function optimally at very different
times of day (they’re different chronotypes). My coauthor, David
Lombardi, will be joining me for today’s chat. We recently published a
study paper titled “Chronotypes in the US - influence of age and sex”
in PLOS ONE. In this study, we found that there are large differences in
chronotype among individuals at any age (from 15 to over 80) and that
chronotype differs systematically by age such that on average
adolescents aged 17-19 are the latest chronotypes in society making it
hard for many high school students to accommodate early school start
times. If you want to know more, Ask Us Anything at 1pm ET!