Setting the Body Clock in the Dark Oct. 11, 2000 -- Are you a
morning lark or a night owl? If you're feeling wide awake when
everyone else is sleeping, new research on sleep disorders in
blind people, reported in the Oct. 12 issue of TheNew England
Journal of Medicine, may help you get back in sync. "This is an
important study, which confirms and extends previous research by
both U.S. and European authors," Derk-Jan Dijk, PhD, tells
WebMD. "It illustrates the importance of the biological clock in
sleep-wake regulation, and shows that 'treating' the clock can
'treat' some sleep disorders." Dijk, who is a chronobiologist at
the University of Surrey in Guildford, England, was not involved
in the study. Normally, our body clock is set for a cycle
slightly longer than 24 hours, which is why we tend to sleep
later each morning, then go to bed later each night if we have
time off and don't set the alarm. But the 24-hour cycle of
daylight and darkness tends to get us back on track. "People
must be able to perceive li