Whether you prefer being up at dawn or burning the midnight oil depends on your genes, experts have found.
Some of us leap out of bed each morning, raring to start the day. Others need at least one alarm clock - preferably one with a snooze button - to ensure they get to work on time.
And some of us happily stay up chatting until the wee small hours, while others prefer to be tucked up listening to 'Book at Bedtime' with the lights turned out.
We really are divided into larks and owls. And this is set by our genes, says neurogeneticist Dr Louis Ptacek of University of California.
He says: "Whether we like it or not our parents are telling us when to go to bed - based on the genes that they gave us."
Scientists have come to realise the importance of understanding a person's chronotype, the time of the day when they function the best. Knowing how much of a lark or an owl we are should help us live more healthily in the modern 24/7 world.
The results have been published recently in the January 12 issue of Cell - click on title below:
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