The differences between being morning and being evening

If you are one of those people with difficulty waking up in the morning, Y in the afternoon or evening you feel lucid and can think better than the rest of the people who did get up early, maybe your difference is not due to laziness or bad habits (as you have always been told), but because your gene "clock" segregates melatonin at a different pace than the rest. You already have the perfect explanation.

Owls and larks: different rhythms in the rhythms and schedules

With regard to sleep, human beings can be divided between owls and larks, that is, evening people and morning people.

The morning people they tend to wake up within eight hours (or the usual hours) of having 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 helplessly.

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

Melatonin makes the difference between being afternoon or morning

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

In 1997, researcher Joseph Takahashi discovered the gene "clock", in charge of encoding a protein that regulates the circadian rhythms of sleep and also the way in which melatonin is secreted. Through these investigations, it was discovered that the different way that the protein acts in some organisms and others, causes some people to secrete melatonin especially in the first hours of sleep (with which, they rest earlier, wake up earlier, and also end up tired and sleep earlier) and others secrete the substance in the last hours of sleep (such that they wake up drowsy, slow 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 lucidity in such a way that they end up delaying their moment of sleep. Actually, both people usually sleep the same amount of hours, only that manage their energies differently.

Society is meant for those who get up early

Do we live in a world adapted to this difference? Absolutely. We live in a clearly morning world, adjusted to morning needs (due to cultural beliefs, job impositions, etc.). Schools are designed for morning children, in such a way that children who spend the first two hours of class 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 most effective and efficient if they rest in the morning and are active in the afternoon and night.

These discoveries can help us to know each other more and better, in addition to considering these differences to create a fairer educational model and a society adapted to how we are, with our differences, instead of having to sacrifice our differences to adjust ourselves to a society designed only for a few. If you are a morning person, perhaps now you understand the evening a little better. If you are an evening person, you already have your perfect explanation. No one else will be able to call you lazy or accuse you of having bad habits. Thanks for wanting to meet you.

Evenings, morning and intelligence

Does being in the evening or morning be related to the intelligence? In a previous article we saw that yes. I recommend that you read it, you will be surprised.