You probably dont feel your best when you stay up until the wee hours of the night. But beyond waking up groggy, new research says late bedtimes can actually harm your mental health .

In a recent study published in Psychiatry Research , experts analyzed sleep and health data from 73,888 people in the U.K. Biobank. Those who regularly went to bed after 1 a.m. were more likely to experience mental health disorders like depression and anxiety than those who went to bed before 1 a.m.

It didnt matter if subjects classified themselves as early birds normally or night owls (this is also known as your chronotype) going to bed after 1 a.m. hurt people mentally, the study found. In fact, night owls who went to bed after 1 a.m. were most likely to have mental health impacts. People who went to bed before 1 a.m. had the lowest amount of mental health diagnoses.

This study has some limitations: The people who make up the U.K. Biobank are mostly white and middle-aged or older, according to Dr. Indira Gurubhagavatula , a professor of medicine in the division of Sleep Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, who is not affiliated with the study.

And the way they decided which chronotype you are came from a single question, although they did use one that has been validated. But typically how we assess morningness or eveningness is with a much more thorough questionnaire that has a lot more detailed questions, said Gurubhagavatula. Meaning, whether folks are really morning people or night owls may not be totally accurate in this study.

Additionally, researchers relied on mental health diagnoses data added by doctors. This type of reported data can be inaccurate or doctors can miss a diagnosis, Gurubhagavatula said. That said, she noted that the findings align with what shed expect and said this study should be recreated in other populations, too.

Going to sleep late has many negative impacts on your mental health and overall health.

Generally speaking, if youre not going to bed until after 1 in the morning or 2 in the morning, its very likely youre not waking up until several hours after the sun has come up. And youre not going to bed for several hours after the sun has gone down, so I think it gets that this issue being out of alignment with the environmental light-dark cycle as potentially problematic, said Matthew Lehrer , an assistant professor in the University of Pittsburgh Department of Psychiatry, who is not affiliated with the study.

Its important for our bodies to get strong signals that its daytime, which can come in the form of morning sun. If you arent getting those signals or are getting mixed signals, it can cause issues with your biology, which could also affect your brain, said Lehrer.