Poll: Are you a night owl or a lark?

Lark: True larks get out of bed as early as 4 or 5 a.m. and go to bed by 9 or 10 p.m. Your periods of high alertness are about two hours earlier than those of people with standard profiles. You do your best work around 8 or 9 a.m. You might want to think twice before taking a night job.

Intermediate: You have a standard circadian profile (body rhythm cycle). You're comfortable waking up between 7 and 8 a.m. and going to bed between 11 p.m. and midnight. In between, you have periods of high alertness in the morning and the early evening, with a period of low alertness in the early afternoon. If your score is very low in this range, you're still in the standard profile, but you can identify with the lark's ability to rise early and go to sleep earlier in the evening. If you're on the high side of this range, you have the standard circadian profile, but can identify with the owl's desire to sleep late in the morning and stay awake past midnight.

Owl: True owls love to sleep late, but have no trouble staying awake and alert past 2 or 3 a.m. Your periods of high alertness and sleepiness are about two hours later than those of people with standard circadian profiles. In addition, owls' circadian rhythms tend to be more flexible than those of people with standard or morning profiles.