As a night owl, I get the appeal of blowing past any suggested bedtime so you can work or play while everyone else sleeps. It’s great until you actually have to wake up the next day, pounding caffeine and supplements to fend off the violent brain fog you inflicted upon yourself. A new study found that night owl habits can ruin your mood the next day, and might go even further by sabotaging your entire career.Published in Occupational & Environmental Medicine, a Finnish research project that ran for over a decade, tracking over 5,000 workers in that time to see how night owl-ism affected long-term employment, found that nocturnal folks end up on medical leave or early disability retirement at nearly double the rate of early birds who catch the worm.This Common Sleep Pattern May Come With a Career Risk You Didn’t ExpectTapio Räihä, the study’s lead researcher, says staying up late isn’t the villain here as much as the domino effect of living out of sync with the rest of society. Night owls consistently rack up worse lifestyle habits and higher stress levels, thanks to rapidly accumulating sleep debt as they struggle to survive in a corporate landscape built by people ready to tackle the day at the crack of dawn.The solution here, if you’re a night owl, might be to find a job that offers more flexible hours, or to negotiate for them. You could also just, you know, get more sleep and try not to subsist solely on energy drinks and the pure sheer force of will required to keep your eyes open in the middle of the day.The post Your Sleep Schedule May Be Costing You More Than a Rough Morning, New Study Finds appeared first on VICE.