Humans as a species are hardwired to conform. Some more than others, but on the whole we don’t realise how important being part of society is for our mental health; ancient humans relied on the concept of community to survive, because being part of a group meant you were less likely to starve or get eaten by a tiger . Not a huge worry now, but when environments change so quickly it takes a lot longer for our brains to catch up, which may explain the primal tug of isolation and fear I get every time I wake up, knowing the rest of the working world is already having lunch. It's a protection impulse, which worked then but nowadays could cause serious complications, and it goes some way to explain the 'night owls die earlier' article that I previously skipped over. Yep, apparently we do run a higher risk of health complications (I'm not going to list them because that's hella depressing, but you can have a read here ) but the link hasn't been explained, with researchers speculating that it's possibly to do with the fact that owls are forced to live in a lark-based world, depriving ourselves of sleep when we shouldn't have to. Interestingly, another theory is that the hours owls keep mean they're more likely to self-medicate with drinking and drugs , backed up by another study that found a link between owls and depression.