The good news is that chronotypes are adaptable. They naturally change throughout our life, moving from majority early risers in childhood to late risers as teenagers and early adulthood, and shifting earlier again as we age.

“But you can also shift your natural body clock to an earlier one – mainly through light exposure,” says Dr Lederle. “What that means is you want to make it as bright as possible in the morning and then dim the lights in the evening as early as you can. That’s a problem for most of us because we all like our phones, tablets and laptops on at night.”

In a 2017 study by the University of Colorado, students went camping with no access to artificial light for a weekend. Researchers found that just the short time exposed to natural light was enough to achieve a 69% shift in circadian timing.

“It shows that often the chronotype we think we are might not even be accurate – it is the light that keeps so-called night owls alert. Paying attention to your lifestyle can easily shift your clock back to where it naturally wants to be,” Dr Lederle explains.

“You can follow this up with your eating window as well. Late chronotypes can shift their dinner time to earlier in order to sleep earlier too. You would do the same with exercise, if not moving it to the morning then moving it to late afternoon or early evening so it’s not close to bedtime,” she adds. Fake it until you make it, seems to be the message here – living like the person you want to be until your chronotype falls in line.

What are sleep chronotypes? How to figure out if you’re a night owl or early bird