The Sleep Paradox
1 in 3 adults get less than six hours of sleep. PER3 and CRY1 have already decided whether that's enough — and most of us never check. Find your chronotype before you fix your schedule.
Adult sleep need follows a normal distribution centred around seven and a half hours. Genuine short sleepers — the DEC2 mutation crowd — are about one to three percent of the population. The rest of us are simply exhausted.
Two genes set the schedule
PER3 codes for one of the core circadian clock proteins. CRY1 variants shift when your body wants to start and stop. Together, they explain a large share of why some people are productive at 6am and others are wide awake at midnight.
What to do before you blame discipline
Same wake time, six days a week. Caffeine before noon. Screens off thirty minutes before bed. The room a few degrees cooler. These work for almost everyone and they cost nothing.
When to test
If you have done the basics for a month and still feel mistimed against your own day, a wellness DNA panel can tell you which chronotype your genes prefer — and stop you from fighting yourself.