Night is better than day. More exciting things happen at night. Sunset is better than dawn. Night is the time to be alive and awake – there is nothing better than not having to get up in the mornings. These are the facts of life for many of us, but we are dismissed as night owls and increasingly encouraged to change our circadian rhythms to some loathsome presbyterian ideal.

I am so sick of reading those interviews about the secret of someone’s success being that they get up in the middle of the night for some resistance training while answering 10,000 emails. It is exhausting just reading about it. These same people go to bed at 8pm. This is weird unless you are five years old or 95, but is now considered sensible advice. Often this is handed out in some therapeutic guise alongside exercise as a way of avoiding stress or anxiety. You may feel better than everyone else, but is this living?

This humblebragging about never being tired because you keep the hours of a shift worker is strange. What is wrong with staying up late and sleeping in, especially in winter? If we are meant to eat seasonally, why can’t we sleep seasonally, too? Why do we do this to our teenagers and ourselves?

Five benefits of being an early riser Read more

The other irritating aspect of we owls being urged to turn into larks in a quest for self-improvement is that so many of these new sleep gurus are not professionally qualified. They are normally flogging something herbal and are pretty clueless about how most of us live. Take Elle Macpherson, given to spaffing on about how she saunas, steams, starves and spritzes herself into exotic yoga poses to get the perfect seven hours. Good to know. I am surprised she can sleep at all, as she goes out with the discredited former doctor Andrew Wakefield, whose work has resulted in measles outbreaks all over Europe.