Studies have shown that being a night owl can carry health\nrisks, including increased risk of metabolic conditions due to a tendency to\nmake poor dietary choices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But new research from the University of Birmingham in the UK\nis providing details about how night owls\u2019 brain activity can impact their\nlives, especially productivity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Studying night owls<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The new study divided 38 healthy volunteers into two groups:\n22 night owls (who, on average, went to bed at 2:30 a.m. and woke up at 10:15\na.m.) and 16 early risers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The groups were determined based on melatonin and cortisol\ncircadian rhythms, not just self-reported descriptions. The research team had\nthe volunteers fill out questionnaires about their rhythms, but also monitored\nall the participants\u2019 sleep and wake patterns. They watched the volunteers\u2019\nbrain activity under MRIs and measured their performance on various tasks\nthroughout the day to determine how their ability to function was affected by\nsleep-wake cycles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This is your brain\nwith jet lag<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The researchers discovered some major differences in the two\ngroups, including:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2022 The night owls had lower resting brain connectivity in the\nbrain regions associated with maintaining a state of consciousness. This was\nlinked to slower reaction times, shorter attention spans and lower energy\nlevels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2022 Early risers said they were less sleepy during morning\ntasks and they performed better and had faster reaction times during these\nchallenges.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2022 Night owls performed best around 8 p.m., but even though\nthis is when they showed their best reactions times, they didn\u2019t do much better\nat 8 p.m. than the early risers did at 8 p.m.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThis mismatch between a person\u2019s biological time and social\ntime\u2014which most of us have experienced in the form of jet lag\u2014is a common issue\nfor night owls trying to follow a normal working day,\u201d explains Dr. Elise\nFacer-Childs. \u201cOur study is the first to show potential intrinsic, neuronal\nmechanism behind why night owls may face cognitive disadvantages when being\nforced to fit into these constraints.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Studies have shown that being a night owl can carry health risks, including increased risk of metabolic conditions due to a tendency to make poor dietary choices. But new research from the University of Birmingham in the UK is providing details about how night owls\u2019 brain activity can impact their lives, especially productivity. Studying night […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[692],"tags":[975,921,976,693,843],"class_list":["post-13371","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sleep","tag-jet-lag","tag-night-owl","tag-productivity","tag-sleep","tag-work"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.healthymale.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13371","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.healthymale.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.healthymale.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.healthymale.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.healthymale.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13371"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.healthymale.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13371\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.healthymale.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13371"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.healthymale.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13371"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.healthymale.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13371"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}