Waking just one hour earlier cuts depression risk by double digits, study finds
Waking up just one hour earlier could reduce a person's risk of major depression by 23%, suggests a sweeping new genetic study published May 26 in the journal JAMA Psychiatry . The study of 840,000 people, by researchers at University of Colorado Boulder and the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, represents some of the strongest evidence yet that chronotype -- a person's propensity to sleep at a certain time -- influences depression risk. It's also among the first studies to quantify just how much, or little, change is required to influence mental health. As people emerge, post-pandemic, from working and attending school remotely -- a trend that has led many to shift to a later sleep schedule -- the findings could have important implications. "We have known for some time that there is a relationship between sleep timing and mood, but a question we often hear from clinicians is: How much earlier do we need to shift people to see a benefit?" said senior author C