Getting up an hour early reduces the risk of depression

Not an early bird? Then it pays to become one. A new study shows that getting up early reduces the risk of depression.

Getting up an hour earlier can reduce your risk of major depression by 23%, according to a large study published in the professional journal at the end of May. Gamma Psychiatry figured out.

before one hour
Researchers from the Universities of Colorado Boulder, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University studied the genes and data of 840,000 people and found some of the strongest evidence yet that the time you get out of bed affects your risk of depression.

“We’ve known for a while that there is a relationship between bedtime and mood, but the question we get asked often has been, how much earlier should someone wake up?” says researcher Celine Vetter. “We found that even getting out of bed an hour earlier has a significant effect.”

night owls
Previous studies have shown that night owls are twice as likely to be depressed as early risers, regardless of how long they slept. But because mood disorders can disrupt sleep patterns, it wasn’t clear what the cause and effect was.

New research shows that if someone does not go to bed at 1 a.m. but at 12 a.m., their risk of depression drops by 23 percent. If someone goes to bed at 11 p.m., the risk is 40 percent lower.

Society
There is no real explanation yet, but some studies suggest that exposure to light has something to do with it. People who wake up early get more daylight, and this results in the release of hormones that affect mood.

Others believe that an abnormal circadian clock in and of itself affects mood. “We live in a society designed for morning folks,” said study leader Iyas Douglas. “Evening people constantly feel outside the clock of society.”