I am a Bear: How Knowing Your Chronotype Can Improve Your Schedule & Change Your Life

Okay, I know from the title, that sounds a little crazy and maybe a little scary, hear me out. I had a conversation several months ago with a friend who’s a business and life coach. We were talking about schedules and how sometimes our bodies don’t work with the schedules that we’re trying to run. Whether that’s getting up super early to work out or for work or whatever responsibilities we might have. Maybe we need to stay up later at night to get all the things around the house done. But for some reason, our bodies just aren’t cooperating, and our brains stop functioning. Then there we are, and we’re struggling and fighting against our schedule. She recommended that I take this quiz, called a chronotype quiz. She said she thought it would be helpful. It has been so helpful I had to share it with you! Because knowing your chronotype can improve your schedule and change your life.

She sent me the link for the free quiz, and off I went. The quiz indicated that I’m a bear chronotype. Again, I know that sounds crazy, but it made perfect sense when I read the chronotype description. I kept saying yes that’s me! It was such a relief to have this understanding. Of course, I had to buy his book and learn more.

The Quiz, The Book & The Doctor

It all started with the quiz designed by the sleep doctor, Dr. Michael Breus. He has done much research about sleep and sleep patterns and how our biological clocks – our chronotypes& how they affect these patterns. As he developed the different chronotypes he wrote this quiz to help people figure out what their chronotype or circadian rhythm type is.

This doctor has divided the chronotypes into four types based on how our bodies and brains work best. He wrote, The Power of When, where he takes the 4 types and applies them to all kinds of activities, helping the reader to see how they can work better within their rhythm.

The 4 chronotypes are:

• Dolphin
• Lion
• Bear
• Wolf

Why You Should Take The Quiz Too

When you take the quiz, you get your animal chronotype and a brief description of what that means. If you want to go deeper, I highly recommend getting the book. It is a guide to help you figure out how to schedule your life, how to schedule the important activities of life that fit best with your biological clock, the way that you were created and designed to function. And at an optimum level. Now, this is not perfect by any stretch of the imagination. We are all individuals. This is a great generalized overview to help you get started and tweak your schedule so that it works best for you, for your family, for your life. And at the end of the day, you’ll feel like you’re more in line with who you were created to be.

It has been eye-opening for me. It has relieved so much stress. There are so many books out there that push the idea of being a morning person. That’s great. if you’re a morning person but I am not. I’m not really a night owl either. I’m somewhere in between. I’ve heard people refer to it as a tired pigeon. Ha ha! I don’t know if I would describe myself that way. I felt a lot of pressure and guilt about how I was and that isn’t helpful!

But just having a framework that I could work from to create a schedule for work for life, for my responsibilities for taking care of myself in a way that felt natural to who I was and the rhythm of my body, felt good and so helpful.

How the Book Helps

In this book you get guidelines on most major areas of your life. Things like the best time to sleep, eat & exercise. Things that will help you at work, like when you should be making your sales calls or when you should ask your boss for a raise or when you should schedule that meeting with your coworkers to talk about that big project. It includes a section on interpersonal relationships with partners, kids, parents & friends, as well as creativity.

Almost every aspect of your life is covered in an overview in this book. The best part is you don’t have to read the whole book to get the helpful information you need. Once you take the quiz & know your chronotype, you can go to your section and see what works best for your chronotype.

It has been so liberating to understand my chronotype. It has helped me understand why my daily work schedule works so well. It’s in my sweet spot for the most creativity and my brain is working at its highest level. The information I learned is helping me make adjustments in other areas to have a better flow to my activities that works with my bio clock instead of against it!

I hope that you’ll check it out. I hope that you’ll take the quiz and please make sure that you let me know what your chronotype is. Also let me know how this concept has helped you in your scheduling and your self-care routine. Have some fun with it. I can’t wait to see who my fellow bears are out there.

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