Doug.
Here we have the Lemu Emu in its natural habitat, helping people customize their car insurance and save hundreds with Liberty Mutual.
Fascinating.
It's accompanied by his natural ally, Doug.
Uh, Lemu, is that guy with the binoculars watching us?
Cut the camera.
They see us.
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In a world where the early bird gets the worm.
Staying up late is often mistaken for laziness or lack of discipline.
But what if it's not about motivation at all?
It turns out being a morning person or a night owl has little to do with willpower.
As Dr. Jimmy Muhammad explains, we're simply wired differently.
Some people wake up refreshed before dawn, others come alive long after sunset.
Morning types tend to sleep before 10pm and rise early.
Night owls struggle to turn in early and find mornings tough.
About a quarter of us are early risers, another quarter are night owls and the rest of us fall somewhere in between.
This built-in timing is called a chronotype, our body's natural circadian rhythm.
So what determines your chronotype?
It's not habit, it's mostly genetic.
According to Julie Carrier, a researcher at the Centre for Advanced Studies in Sleep Medicine in Montreal, certain genes influence when we naturally feel sleepy or awake.
That's why being a night person can run in families.
A large study by the University of Exeter involving 700000 participants and published in Nature, confirmed this.
After comparing people's self-reported sleep preferences with their genetic data, researchers found more than 350 regions of the genome linked to being a morning or evening type.
In short, our internal clock is partially written in our DNA.
But what if you're a night owl living in an early bird world?
That's where things get tricky.
Our society runs on early schedules.
School, work, everything.
Sleep expert Matthew Walker, author of Why We Sleep, calls this a kind of biological injustice.
Night owls are forced to wake up early even though their bodies aren't ready.
This results in chronic sleep debt, lower performance and higher risks of depression anxiety diabetes, heart disease and even stroke.
So how can you tell if you're out of sync?
Try this.
Next time you're on holiday, don't set an alarm.
If you wake up more than two hours later than usual, your schedule likely clashes with your natural rhythm.
And while you can't completely change your chronotype, you can nudge it.
Exposure to natural light in the morning helps shift your rhythm forward.
On the other hand, dimming screens and lights in the evening, limiting caffeine late in the day, keeping a steady bedtime and taking short naps can also help.
You may never turn into a true early bird, but you can teach your body to meet the day halfway.
There you have it.
Now you know if a night owl can ever become an early bird.
In under three minutes, we answer your questions and help you understand the true meaning behind the trends, concepts and acronyms that are making headlines.
Listen along and you really will know for sure.