Chronotype quiz: are you a morning person or a night owl?

The short answer

This chronotype quiz asks the 5 questions of the reduced Morningness–Eveningness Questionnaire, a short research scale. Your answers add up to 4 to 25 points: 18 or more means a morning type, 12 to 17 in between and 11 or less an evening type. You get a daily schedule that puts focus, exercise and wind-down at the right hours.

What is a chronotype?

Your chronotype is your body clock’s natural timing: when you tend to fall asleep and wake up if nothing forces you, and when you feel most alert. Researchers place people on a line from morning types (larks) to evening types (owls), with most adults somewhere in between. It is partly inherited and shifts with age: teenagers and young adults run later, and most people get earlier again after their twenties.

This quiz uses the five questions of the reduced Morningness–Eveningness Questionnaire (rMEQ), a short version of the Horne–Östberg questionnaire published by Ana Adan and Helena Almirall in 1991 and still used in research. The questions above are worded in plain English; the answer times and points follow the scale.

How is the chronotype quiz scored?

Each answer gives 0 to 6 points, and the total runs from 4 to 25. The cut-offs below are the ones Adan and Almirall published for the reduced scale. A score near a border means you sit close to the next type, and a single answer can tip it.

The best daily schedule for each chronotype

The schedule in your result moves with the wake-up time you set. These are the same blocks for a 7 AM wake-up, so you can compare the three types side by side.

The point is to match your hardest work to your best hours. In a study of 56 adults sorted by the Munich ChronoType Questionnaire and lab measures, late types were sleepier and did worse than early types on reaction time, mental tasks and grip strength in the morning, while their scores rose through the day. If your job starts early, protect the hours you do have: easy tasks first, the hard task once you are awake.

Lion, bear, wolf or dolphin: are those real chronotypes?

Not in research. The four animals come from The Power of When (2016), a popular book by sleep psychologist Michael Breus. They are an easy way to talk about timing, but the quiz behind them has not been tested the way the questionnaires used in studies have. Roughly, a lion is a morning type, a bear is in between and a wolf is an evening type. A “dolphin” describes light, broken sleep, which is a sleep problem rather than a time of day: if you sleep badly most nights for weeks, talk to a doctor.

Can you change your chronotype?

You cannot rewrite it, but you can move your body clock a little. In a small study of 22 night owls, three weeks of waking two to three hours earlier, getting morning daylight, eating at fixed times and keeping the same times on weekends moved their body clock about two hours earlier, with better morning performance and lower reported stress and depression scores. The steps that help most:

1. Keep one wake-up time all week, weekends included, within about an hour. The weekly sleep schedule sets lights-out for each night from it.
2. Get daylight in the first hour and keep evenings dim. Light is the main signal that sets your clock; see what research says about morning light.
3. Move bedtime in small steps, 15 to 30 minutes every few days, as in our guide on how to fix your sleep schedule.
4. Give the evening a routine that starts at the same time: the bedtime routine guide has a 30-minute version.

Then plan around what is left. A time block planner puts your best focus window on the calendar, and a morning routine that fits your type makes the first hour easier, whether it starts at 6 or at 9.

Frequently asked questions

What is my chronotype?

Answer the 5 questions above: when you would get up on a free day, how you feel after waking, when you get sleepy, when you feel best and which type you think you are. The total places you as a morning type, an intermediate type or an evening type, with a schedule built around your wake-up time.

Am I a morning person or a night owl?

If you would happily get up before 7:45 on a free day, feel fairly refreshed soon after waking and get sleepy before 10:15 PM, you probably lean morning. If you would sleep past 9:45, feel groggy for a while and only get tired after midnight, you lean evening. Most people are in between.

How accurate is this chronotype quiz?

It uses the scoring of the reduced Morningness–Eveningness Questionnaire, which research has found to agree well with the full 19-question version. It is still a self-check: it measures your preference, not your body clock directly, and shift work, a new baby or illness can change your answers. It is not a diagnosis.

What are the 4 chronotypes: lion, bear, wolf and dolphin?

They come from Michael Breus’s 2016 book The Power of When, not from research questionnaires. Roughly, a lion is a morning type, a bear is in between and a wolf is an evening type. A dolphin describes light, broken sleep, which is better treated as a sleep problem than a chronotype.

What is the best schedule for my chronotype?

Put your hardest work in your best hours: late morning for in-between types, early morning for morning types and afternoon or early evening for evening types. Keep email and errands for your low-energy time, exercise when you feel strong and start winding down an hour before lights out. The result above builds this around your wake-up time.

Can you change your chronotype?

A little. In a small study, night owls moved their sleep about two hours earlier in three weeks with fixed wake and sleep times, morning daylight and regular meals. Your type stays roughly the same, but a steady wake-up time and morning light shift your clock earlier.

Does my chronotype change with age?

Yes. Teenagers and young adults tend to run late, and most adults drift earlier again from their twenties onward. Retake the quiz every few years, or when your schedule changes a lot.

Are my answers saved?

Only in this browser on this device, so your result is still here next time. Nothing is sent to our server and there is no sign-up. Clear my answers removes them.

Sources and evidence

1. Adan and Almirall (1991): Horne & Östberg morningness-eveningness questionnaire, a reduced scale — The 5-item reduced questionnaire (rMEQ) this quiz uses: items 1, 7, 10, 18 and 19 of the full scale, scored 4 to 25, with 4–11 evening type, 12–17 neither type and 18–25 morning type.
2. Horne and Östberg (1976): A self-assessment questionnaire to determine morningness-eveningness in human circadian rhythms — The original 19-question Morningness-Eveningness Questionnaire that the reduced scale comes from.
3. Kim and Kim (2020): Psychometric properties of questionnaires for assessing chronotype — Reviews chronotype questionnaires: the rMEQ uses five MEQ items, ranges from 4 to 25 and showed good convergent validity with the full MEQ; the MCTQ measures chronotype from mid-sleep on free days instead.
4. Roenneberg, Wirz-Justice and Merrow (2003): Life between clocks, daily temporal patterns of human chronotypes — The Munich ChronoType Questionnaire: chronotype is spread along a continuum, most people sit in the middle, and it changes with age.
5. Facer-Childs, Boiling and Balanos (2018): The effects of time of day and chronotype on cognitive and physical performance — In 56 healthy adults, late chronotypes were significantly impaired in the morning on sleepiness, reaction time, executive function and grip strength compared with early types.
6. Facer-Childs et al. (2019): Resetting the late timing of night owls has a positive impact on mental health and performance — In 22 night owls, three weeks of earlier fixed wake and sleep times, morning light and regular meals moved sleep and body-clock timing about two hours earlier, with better morning performance and lower reported depression and stress.
7. Breus (2016): The Power of When — The popular book behind the lion, bear, wolf and dolphin labels; a self-help framework, not a validated research questionnaire.