Thrive at night?

Did you stay up late last night to usher in the New Year? While some folks thrive as they stay awake late into the night, others don't. Night owls have different brains! You'd be interested in what's behind this...

While some folks find that ideas and good work occur late at night, others who try find themselves very drained in the morning. Not too surprisingly, at 9:00 a.m., other folks' brains work at prime. What makes the difference in night owls and early risers?

Night owls have a gene that works more resiliently than those without. Their brains become more active as they tire. Scans show that these folks responded to fatigue by garnering more brain structures to help them perform well on a memory test, according to recent research.

Brains definitely function differently for night owls and early birds

Using magnetic resonance imaging-guided brain stimulation, scientists tested muscle torque and the excitability of pathways through the spinal cord and brain. They found that morning people's brains were most excitable at 9 a.m. This slowly decreased through the day. It was the polar opposite for evening people, whose brains were most excitable at 9 p.m.

Other major findings:

• Evening people became physically stronger throughout the day, but the maximum amount of force morning people could produce remained the same.


• The excitability of reflex pathways that travel through the spinal cord increased over the day for both groups.


• These findings show that nervous-system functions are different and have implications for maximizing human performance.

No matter which circadian rhythm is genetically wired in your brain, work with, rather than against the way your brain is wired as much as possible. When night owl friends play stimulating games on New Year's eve and you feel sleepy, try to stay where the light is bright. Bright light is known to increase your alertness at night.

Thoughts?

Do Night Owls Get the Best from Their Brains?

“Do we all have to be Early Birds?” O Youn-hee, of The Korea Herald, asks. Park Myoung, an office worker, “gets nervous” when others discuss Saisho’s bestselling book, Let’s Become a Morning Person. Park laments, “It seems society demands all employees to transform themselves into morning people,” since colleagues arrived for work one or two hours early to succeed in a very competitive company. Park describes herself as a night person who usually goes to bed at 2 a.m. “I just can’t be an early bird,” Park exclaims. If you're a night owl, like Park, are you actually getting the best from your brain?

Interestingly, recent research shows that the human brain functions best in the evening. Now that was a surprise to me... You? The time of day influences your brain’s ability to learn—and the human brain learns more effectively in the evening, according to findings of Martin Sale and Colleagues at the University of Adelaide.

Another recent Harvard Medical School study finds that people who slept after learning new information at 9:00 pm performed best, successfully recalling more words when tested. This compares to people who learned the new information in the morning. It would be interesting to test someone at 12:00 am to see how the results look.

Want to identify your body clock? Check it out on this Psychology Today Quiz which includes an assessment of results. See where you stand in all of this.

It's clear that Night Owls may benefit by studying in the evening, but they'd still need plenty of sleep. Hmm... our Early Bird world poses a problem... So...

If your Circadian rhythm favors evening hours like Park, what's your secret to successfully navigating in a world set up for Early Birds?

Flickr image by srcohiba.