People who define themselves as “morning people” may not actually be performing better than to those who defined as “nightowls”, according to a new study. The Scientists of Canada’s University of Alberta have revealed these “morning people” may not actually be able to reach their full physical potential because their bodies grow more tired, as the day progresses. This was done by Dave Collins and his team, measuring the difference in muscle force between morning people and nightowls over the course of 23 hours. While nightowls became more alert and stronger as the day passed, morning people experienced no change in strength levels.
“We are suggesting that morning people may never reach their true maximum performance because their brain activity is going one way, and their spinal cord activity is going the other” David Collins said. “In evening people, both brain and spinal cord are at maximum in the evening and they get maximum performance at night”.
The study continued to reveal morning people’s brains were most active and excited during the early morning, ‘9am’ while nightowls weren’t actually fully awake until the late night, 9pm onwards.
One of the researchers, Olle Lagerquist commented on the finding would spur on further research into whether morning people could potentially swap with nightowls and vice-versa. (Sounds very far fetched to me, especially me being a nightowl and all, however I never doubt the minds capability, just the person’s motivation)
“No one has done that and then tested pathways through the brain and spinal cord the way we have, but it would be a very long, time consuming process.” Lagerquist said.
He commented further, saying it would most likely have implications for shift workers, including how difficult it was for nightowls to do early shifts.
What’s your thoughts on the matter? Do you find yourself stuck in the mind of a early riser but truly perform well at night? I know I do, and it happens generally between 9pm and 12am, they are my most productive hours. Even now I’m writing this it’s 9:45pm and I need to get up early tomorrow — ha!
We can’t of course apply this small amount of research across every human being on the planet, however we can apply the understanding that our world is divided between both day and night and it could be a solid base to work up from in understanding the brain even more.
