Are you an ‘early bird’ or a ‘night owl’? Do you get up with the sun, or do you stay up late at night and then find it difficult to get up in the morning? If you have more energy in the morning and less in the afternoon, you're an early bird. If you feel most energetic in the evening, you're a night owl.
There’s some good news for the night owls: Italian researchers have studied 120 men and women, and discovered that those people who prefer staying up late at night are noticeably more creative. These results weren’t only for young people – the research studied people of all ages, and found that older people who prefer staying up late are creative, too.
Another new study by Brazilian researchers suggests that people who stay up late at night and get up later in the morning are more emotional than those people who go to sleep and wake up earlier. The researchers in Brazil asked 6,436 adults about when they slept, and their energy levels during the day. The researchers found that the evening people were more sensitive and emotional than the morning people, and that the evening people were less shy than the morning people.
Morning people of all ages, on the other hand, are usually clear and decisive in the morning, but as the day turns into evening, they become less effective. It seems, however, that they usually get better marks at school and have more success in their careers. Night owls, though, can often think clearly long into the evening, even if they've been awake as long as the morning people.
An explanation for this came from a genetic study at the Sleep and Performance Research Centre at Washington State University. Researchers there discovered that small parts of the brain send signals to the body that synchronize the time of day. This biological clock runs two hours ahead in morning people, and two hours behind in evening people. Evening people, therefore, become most effective later in the day. It is unclear, however, how our biological clocks make us more creative or emotional. Nobody has discovered if people are more creative and emotional because they stay up late. Or perhaps they stay up late because they are too emotional or creative to sleep.