The differences between being a morning and evening person

Are you an owl or a lark? Your "clock gene" determines your preferred schedules.

If you are one of those people with difficulty waking up in the morningand in the afternoon or evening you feel lucid and can think better than the rest of the people who did wake up early, maybe your difference is not due to laziness or bad habits (as you have always been told), but to the fact that your clock" gene gene secretes melatonin at a different rate than the rest. Now you have the perfect explanation.

Owls and larks: different rhythms in rhythms and schedules

With regard to sleep, we humans can be divided between owls and larksthat is, evening people and morning people.

The morning people usually wake up eight hours (or the usual hours) after they have started to sleep quickly, and in practically 5 minutes they already feel awake. As the day goes on, their performance decreases until they are so tired that they fall asleep without being able to help it.

The evening people, on the other handIn contrast, they take much longer to wake up completely (sometimes more than 1 hour from the time they open their eyes until they feel ready to face the day). However, their cognitive capacities increase as the day goes on, feeling lucid and mentally agile until a few minutes before going to sleep, with a good attention and memory capacity. Are these differences due to habits and education, or is there a determining genetic factor?

Melatonin makes the difference between being an evening or a morning person

It seems that the difference lies in melatonin, a substance secreted during sleep that induces deep sleep states. induces deep states of sleep and rest..

In 1997, the researcher Joseph Takahashi discovered the clock" geneThe study found that the protein is responsible for encoding a protein that regulates the circadian rhythms of sleep and also the way in which melatonin is secreted. Through this research, it was discovered that the different way in which the protein acts in some organisms and others, makes some people secrete melatonin especially in the first hours of sleep (with which, they rest earlier, wake up earlier, and also end up getting tired and sleep earlier) and others secrete the substance in the last hours of sleep (so that they wake up sleepy, take time to wake up, and their performance improves until they sleep again almost when they are still lucid).

Evening people, then, are not averse to getting up early. They simply take advantage of their greater state of lucidity in such a way that they end up delaying their sleep. Actually, both people usually sleep the same amount of hours, only that manage their energies differently.

Society is designed for early risers.

Do we live in a world adapted to this difference? Not at all. We live in a world that is clearly morning-orientedadjusted to morning needs (due to cultural beliefs, work impositions, etc.). Schools are designed for morning children, so that children who spend the first two hours of school still half asleep are judged. In a professional sense it also happens: the day is structured to work in the morning and rest in the afternoon, when evening people are more effective and efficient if they rest in the morning and have activity in the afternoon and evening.

These findings can help us to know ourselves better and better, as well as to consider these differences in order to create a fairer educational model and a society adapted to how we are. a society adapted to how we areWe have to live with our differences, instead of having to sacrifice our differences to fit ourselves into a society designed for only a few. If you are a morning person, maybe now you understand the evening person a little better. If you are an evening person, you now have your perfect explanation. No one else will be able to call you lazy or accuse you of bad habits. Thanks for wanting to get to know you.

Evening, Morning and Intelligence

Is there any relation between being an evening or morning person and intelligence? intelligence? In a previous article we saw that yes. I recommend you to read it, you will be surprised.