I rarely have a hard time getting up in the morning, but I’ve always been more of a night owl. I’ve been told this says a lot about me: I’m a procrastinator, I’m unmotivated, I’m disorganized, and on and on. I bought this—and the morality myths about those who wake up early—for a long time.

Now, I'm suggesting we throw out not just these stereotypes, but the entire binary altogether. New research, which appears to connect being an early riser with a stronger belief in God and religiosity, got me thinking about the way that chronotypes—our natural sleep patterns—are studied. These are my main takeaways after talking to experts who have conducted this type of work:

• Chronotype isn’t binary. It’s a spectrum, and labeling ourselves as either early birds or night owls isn’t helping us or science. Because it’s the main way we talk about our sleep habits with one another, looking at just two categories has become the simplest way for researchers to collect self-reported data from participants. In other words, we’re just not very accurate when placing ourselves on spectrums.
• Chronotype research often leaves out a key variable: time of day. If you gather a group of people earlier in the day, those who naturally have more energy at that time are more likely to shine. In one of the few studies that has accounted for this, Brian Gunia, a sleep researcher, professor, and associate dean at Johns Hopkins’ Carey Business School, found that “morning people are most ethical in the morning, and evening people are most ethical in the evening,” he says. “Maybe it's more of a fit between chronotype and time [of day] than it is this idea that morning people are better or worse.”

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