NIGHT OWLS: It's even harder to know now whether we should go to bed early or burn the midnight oil.
Image: iStockphoto
Early birds may get the best worms—or at least the best garage sale deals—but they also tire out more quickly than night owls do. In a new study researchers Christina Schmidt and Philippe Peigneux, both at the University of Liège in Belgium, and their colleagues first asked 16 extreme early risers and 15 extreme night owls to spend a week following their natural sleep schedule. Then subjects spent two nights in a sleep lab, where they again followed their preferred sleep patterns and underwent cognitive testing twice daily while in a functional MRI scanner.
An hour and a half after waking, early birds and night owls were equally alert and showed no difference in attention-related brain activity. But after being awake for 10 and a half hours, night owls had grown more alert, performing better on a reaction-time task requiring sustained attention and showing increased activity in brain areas linked to attention. More important, these regions included the suprachiasmatic area, which is home to the body’s circadian clock. This area sends signals to boost alertness as the pressure to sleep mounts. Unlike night owls, early risers didn’t get this late-day lift. Peigneux says faster activation of sleep pressure appears to prevent early birds from fully benefiting from the circadian signal, as evening types do.
Note: This article was originally printed with the title, "Early Risers Crash Faster."
This article was originally published with the title Early Risers Crash Faster.
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53 Comments
Add CommentThat just says that night owls are more awake at the end of the day, which is close to being just the definition of "night owl."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAlways knew that. The best time of day is one o'clock in the morning; everyone else is in bed asleep and you have the whole quiet house to yourself to think, to watch TV or build some bookshelves in the basement.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisStunning!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNot at the end of the day. After being awake for 10+ hours, no matter when it was that you woke up. That means that the night owls are just more active for longer periods of time. That means that the attention of the morning people is flagging by four in the afternoon.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNow I am wondering about those of us that rise at 5:00am and do not turn in until midnight.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNews of the Obvious: Early Risers Go To Bed Earlier!!!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI have a different conclusion from these findings. Early risers get the advantage of having their bodies encourage a more healthy sleep pattern. The next logical study would be to measure the healthful benefits of this over the long term. I know who I am betting on. I expect I'll be attending the early funeral ceremonies of some long-time night owls.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDuchossois does raise one issue that wasn't mentioned: Duration of sleep.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIs there a difference in the number hours slept between the early risers and night owls?
The article states that they were in a sleep lab. Were their brain states monitored while asleep? In other words, did one group get a "healthier" night's rest than the other?
These factors have to be considered as well as the "alertness" after being awake a specific amount of time.
Are you kidding me? That's a very unfounded and presumptious stance to take. Not a scientist I take it.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhy do people automatically assume that early risers must be healthier and a better lifestyle?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt makes me wonder if we most people were night owls instead, would early risers be seen as the unhealthy types?
Why are you assuming early rising is healthier? I think each person will have a healthy period of time in which to sleep and duration required. And imposing another schedule on them calling it healthy is hardly going to be healthier.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI agree with the above poster, I hardly think I would be healthier by rising earlier. I feel ill and exhausted waking up early every morning for my job, and I have been doing it for a while. If left alone I would sleep until 10 and be perfectly happy. It does not matter what time I go to bed, this is the time my body wishes to wake up.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisEveryone has a different healthiest habits. I hardly think early rising is healthy unless that is what your body wishes.
I posit that night owls are night owls *because* they are individuals who get that late-day lift.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"Early to bed and early to rise,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMakes a man stupid and blind in the eyes"
I'm in bed at 9, read for a little and am up at the crack of 10 or 11 am.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishow early is extremely early?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI thrive at night. I find it extremely hard to wake up at 5-6 in the morning unless I go to sleep at 5-6 at night, but I can wake up at noon-1 and be awake all night without any problems at all. I found school unnatural.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe experimenters seem get to their conclusion without enough evidence, or at least the article here does not show sufficient for the conclusion. More factors should contribute to the better performance of the night owls, for example, as jh443 said, the duration of sleep. But I really agree that we should not automatically assume that early risers must have healthier lives. We shall open our mind to the challenge of the opposite opinions. Waiting for more information of this study...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisActually, the point of the study is that early risers have fewer hours of higher brain function than late risers do.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisExample:
An early riser gets up at 5 a.m. Exactly ten hours later (at 3:00 pm), he takes a test.
A late riser gets up at 9 a.m. Exactly ten hours later (at 7:00 pm), he takes the same test.
Late risers perform better on the test, demonstrating that their brains function for longer periods of time. Early risers mentally crash sooner than late risers. "Sooner" is not the same as "earlier in the day" in this comparison. It implies they have fewer total hours of higher brain function.
Good Lord, Look at the Time!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI better get some sleep already. Damn.
The research focus is on important area. As most of the people in society face the sleep related problem. My sleeping time is 10:00 pm to 4:00 am. I have never observed such phenomena what is reported in this article. For me the 10:00 pm to 4:00 am is very much favourable time. I suffer from concentration problem when I sleep late in the night or donot sleep at all. Another benefit I derive from my usual sleep pattern is high concentration and creativity. Early morning hour is really very pleasant time for meditation . I sleep approximately 6 hours.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFew question for the author of this article are: 1) Does sleeping time has really impact on mental activity and or brain activity ?
2) Why animal sleeps early in night and wake up early in the morning ?
3) How to define the favourable sleep time ?
4) Is sleep depends on time or atmosphere ?
Thanks.
Jaynarayan
jay_tudu@rediffmail.com
Of course night owls perform better at night. This would be like studying early birds and night owls performance in the morning, who do you think does better? What a worthless study.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisnow lets do a new correct test were the night owls have to get up at the same time as the early riser then lets see how well they do.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFor further refinement lets do the test for a month, two days is nothing
I expect the snippy comments from the god squad when evolution is discussed. But I would think that it would be more polite considering this subject. "I'm better because I go to bed earlier"..." No, I'm better because I stay up late". Sounds like..."I'm the candidate of change"..."No, I'M the candidate of change!". "I'm the maverick"..."No, I'M the maverick!". Sounds like it's bed time for some of you (except Quinn).
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnother factor to consider is how both candidates' brains perform at certain time, not just one or the other. For example, instead of testing just the night owls at seven pm, test the early risers too. The results could have more to do with the time of day in general than the habits of the person. For me, regardless of my sleeping pattern, I tend get a second wind when the sun goes down and I have to drag myself through the mid-afternoon. This study is pretty worthless.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI find that late hours are the most productive, because there are a lot fewer dumb people awake to bother me.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisJust a personal observation. still, 7 hours sleep or naptime per 24 hours is needed as a long term minimum for regeneration. For any weekly deficiet, make up hours are needed. Oh, by the way 32 to 36 hours with no sleep can cause permanet brain damage.
it's actually relative n depends on our long last habbits...........so we can not diffrenciate directly like that.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisi think it depends on thr long last habbits ..............so we can not diffrenciate it like that
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPsychology should be delisted as a science.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI function best when I sleep from 2-11am. Needless to say, college sucked.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI also just figured out that my poor wife "really is" tired when I am "warming up!" I guess we will just have to go to nooners!
I am a night owl. Often I go to bed at five o'clock in the morning. My partner is an early riser, usually stands up at five o'clock in the morning. I've had a heart infarct and live with the consequences. My partner has had a stroke and lives with the consequences. Who of the two of us is the healthiest? Anyone knows for sure?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI am a night owl. Often I go to bed at five o'clock in the morning. My partner is an early riser, usually stands up at five o'clock in the morning. I suffered a heart infarct, and live with the consequences. My partners has had a stroke and lives with the consequences. Who of the two of us is the healthier? Anyone knows for sure?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisyou are correct...............we can not diffrenciate it like that
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisyou are correct we can not diffrenciate it like that
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIts a trade off because people who dont sleep at night have more stress.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI've always done my clearest most creative work during the wee hours- but I still need my 8 hours of sleep- even at 87 years! Even when I have to get up early for weeks at a time, I'm lazy in the am and start revving up after 10 pm. I do my best days work and play from noon on! Am I vindicated???
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisjh443 - Thank you for stating the obvious oversights of the articles' depth. Reporting on the results of a study should include the obvious contributing factors (e.g., all people in the study had a minimum of 6-9 hours of sleep every night; like sleep habits were compared to one another from the two groups, etc.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisopen minded... this is science.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYeah I get in arguments all the time with my wife ... she is a early riser and want me to believe night owls are not healthy.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBaaaaah!
I am most alive at 3 am
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thismaybe it's just easier to concentrate later in the day when everything is quiet? spagett!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI would love to read the original research. Do you have a link or the issue of Scientific American where the article was published?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI would love to read the original research. Do you have a link or the issue of Scientific American where the article was published?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn what issue of Scientific American was the article published?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI would suggest that there might be a bias in this experiment. Currently, society imposes an order on people such that there is a bias towards early rising. It might be that the early risers who ran out of gas are really night owls forced into this position by needing to earn a living.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt should be possible to adjust for this possible bias by finding out if people were the way they were by choice or not. Perhaps only college students should be considered, or something like that.
Speaking as someone who has migrated from being a nightowl and an early riser and back again several times over the course of the years, I find this quite an interesting result.
Early raisers body-brains are forced to go to bed early and generate a cycle, by the same token late-owls develop a different cycle. As long as each case sleeps the same number of hours, their mental alertness as well as body resistance should be the same. Food habits play a significant effect on those variables. The effect of the Universe may dictate that the one going to bed early is happier...and lives longer...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs a former over-the-road truck driver, I was able to confirm that the sleepiest parts of the day are between 1300-1500, and between about 0300 and 0600, regardless of sleep cycle.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI agree with the conclusion of the article that the human circadian rhythm seems to be dictated by the position of the sun (time of day), and thus it is only a matter of simple cognitive testing to discover whether night owls vs. early risers are comparatively more able to make more efficient use of the circadian rhythm to help with alertness.
The early risers may have the discipline to get up early, but some of them seem to lack the discipline to not be so vain and stubborn about some pretty straightforward facts and logic about why it is better to stay up late and sleep in.
Considering that a night owl would wake upt at about 09:00 or 10:00, that would means that they will be more alert at 19:30 or 20:30 hours. In another terms, they will be efficiently allert only at night, being less allert during daylight. For people like those, that only become really allert at night, it makes sense to be night owls.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisLook at the original web page. The article was published in the September 2009 Scientific American MIND.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe abiity to stay awake and alert after long hours, regardless of the time of rising, is one that can be "learned". As a medical student, I initially had a hard time staying awake after a long night up at work. (I found out that one can, indeed, fall asleep while standing up). But as time progressed, I was more and more able to stay awake and alert for longer periods of time, sometimes only needing an occasional brief "power nap", before continuing the rest of a 40-hour day. I also found that, after geting out of residency and many years later in my private practice, when the work load had decreased and entailed fewer "all-nighters", I became less tolerant of staying up for such long periods of time. Of course, that may have been age-related, too. However, it was as if I had become, initially, conditioned to the long hours and less sleep, but later on lost that conditioning, much as an athlete who is out of training would.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thislooks like this is the source article here: http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/324/5926/516
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI believe that research is much 'relative,'both from psychological and physical point of view.I'm a 'hatha yoga' practitioner for the past twenty seven years.And here in the middle east i wake-up around twelve in the midnight practicing my yoga.(along with taekwondo and weight training.) So far,there is no effect both on my 'cognitive learning and physical being'-considering that i sleep by seven in the evening.I believe that proper nutrition along with 'good exercise'will outweight any 'few hours' of sleep. (Mr.Polymath)
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI think the said research has a 'relative applicability,' both in cognitive and physical point of view.I'm practicing 'hatha yoga'(along with taekwondo and weight training,i practice in the 'midnight.')) for the past twenty seven years.So far,both my cognition and physical well-being are just 'fair enough,' though-considering that i slept around seven o'clock in the evening.I believe neurosurgeon,practicing dietician,and clinical psychologist will agree with me that 'proper diet and proper excercise' will outweight any 'few hours' of sleeplessness.(Mr.Polymath)