Is Being a Night Owl Healthier Than Being an Early Bird? | Teen Ink

Is Being a Night Owl Healthier Than Being an Early Bird?

April 22, 2018
By HHenry BRONZE, Ho Chi Minh, Other
HHenry BRONZE, Ho Chi Minh, Other
1 article 0 photos 0 comments

Around the world, we find people who work preferably in the mornings till afternoon and they rest during the evening. On the other hand, some people sleep nearly the whole day and work during the evenings through the nights and lastly, some people are a mixture of them too! People who find themselves wake up and do work with more energy in most of the daytime are early birds and the opposite types are night owls. People in the middle are people who are working from a pretty late morning till late evening but they do follow both the lifestyle of an early bird and a night owl, they are people who more flexible in their schedule. I am personally a night owl and I honestly think that night owls do are more productive than early birds base on the reasons below.


Based on numerous studies that night owls are clearly more intelligent. Psychologist Richard D. Roberts and Patrick C. Kyllonen measured between 420 different participants and give them tests that involved mathematics, reading comprehension, working memory, and processing speed. The result is night owls among all those people are the ones that have higher scores than the early birds. Base on this evidence we could also state that because night owls are more likely to obtain success too. Since they are smart, they also strive more success. No study has made on this but we could see through a lot of famous people such as The used to be president of the US, Barack Obama, is an admitted Night Owl and the list goes on of successful people who prefer doing work at night.
In order to success, you have to be patient and the start of that is to concentrate for a very long time and work really hard. A study made by a  team of scientists from Belgium and Switzerland with 16 early birds and 15-night owls and measured their productivity and concentration. Both groups performed similarly in the beginning, but at about 10 hours into the day, early birds start falling behind. As you could see through this study have clearly show that night owls have better concentration than early birds. During this study, the team has used MRIs to monitor the regions of the brain that are responsible for our ability to focus and pay attention. Professor Christina Schmidt led this experiment but the entire project included quite a large team, our ability to concentrate also have a link to our productivity and so this study has shown that clearly.


Even though nights owls are more likely to have depression due to lack of sunlight which is vitamin D and also the lack of fresh air into their working space but on the other hand, considering the face that night owls have more flexible sleeping schedule too, In the book Sleepfaring: A Journey Through the Science of Sleep, professor Jon Horne explains that night owls could adjust their 9 to 5 schedule than Early Birds could. You could just change your schedule to a little later and you could always bike or exercise in the late afternoon and then go home and sleep. Furthermore, as time progresses, more jobs are made on laptops and can be work at home so night owls are fine.


There was this one night where I left work until the last minute which is that night and so I procrastinate which means that I’m really panicking and scared. My grades would affect in a bad way if the work was bad. After I ate dinner with my family it was about 6:30 pm, I plan to go biking and then go home and do work. At 7:00, I went to my bedroom and so I was ready to do work. Since I was always an early bird so I didn’t know how changing this routine that day would do. But I have to anyway. But it got worse when I got really and sleep until 10’ clock. I quickly got onto my table and for some reasons, my speed, focus, the amount of work and productivity as a whole got increased like 5 or even 10 times. This compared to my morning work (even though I have slept like 8 hours). I did all of my work in 2 hours but if it was morning, I would be tired and sleepy so it would take me 3-4 hours. The work I produce was both quantitive and qualitative at the same time. The realization that I was a night person got me!And so through the work, I produce from that time on as a night owl is much more than I use to be so I wonder if others around me have the same perspective as me too!


It is clear that being a night owl is much better than being an early bird. Therefore, by the evidence above we could conclude that being night owls are better than being early birds. Although being a night owl isn’t what some people find easy to do because of their working hours or because they feel like they just work better in the mornings so whether you are a night owl or an early bird as long as you find yourself working productively then you’re great with that routine!



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