Why The Night Owl Might (Not) Be A Dying Breed

How society dismisses our nocturnal urges

You won’t be hard-pressed to find a habitual trend amongst highly successful people. They’re early risers.

Apple CEO Tim Cook is one of them, rolling out of bed at 3:45 a.m. Mozart and Beethoven were two creatives who also made a point to be morning people.

Nowadays it’s practically common sense that if you want to be on the ball, you’re active long before the rest of the world is. The distractions are far fewer.

Quiet time

You’ll get plenty of quality quiet time, provided you’re really a step ahead of others. This could mean setting your alarm clock for 5 a.m.

If you’ve ever taken a stroll at or just after dawn, you’re probably familiar with the sublime spiritual tenor of the air. It’s perfectly calm. First light welcomes you. The streets are yours.

Commuting, you’ll appreciate the empty roads and trains. Not to mention the office, where you’ll be able to work in peace (that is unless your boss isn’t there first).

Productivity

You’ll get a head-start — even if it’s only in your head.

You may be awake before most, and so begin checking emails, cleaning, exercising, whatever it may be. But you’ll also go to bed at a time that allows you to get up when you’d like to.

This means, in effect, you have the same 16–18 hours as everyone else. You’re just taking a different approach to how you attack your daily schedule.

Be that as it may, we tend to believe we’ve reached a greater pitch of productivity. Why? Because we’ve made the first move. We’ve set a pace that can’t be matched. And when night comes, we’re already gearing up for tomorrow.

The mentality that we’re ahead is enough to propel us forward even more.

The pros the early riser boasts seem to outnumber the cons. But are those of us who either can’t get up early and/or do better as the darkness settles doomed? Is it “bad” to be a night owl? Is it even possible to be one and be highly successful?

One famous case is Marcel Proust, French novelist of the 20th century who wrote during the afternoon on into the dead of night. He’d sleep until between 3–6 p.m. He didn’t have money troubles, plus there was his maid Céleste to care for him. But still, he could be shining proof you can do just fine functioning later in the day.

But then there is something that beats anecdotal evidence. Research.

Studies have shown that students with better grades tend to be early risers. These students are also more goal-oriented and consider themselves excellent planners as well as optimists.

And what’s more, sleep quality improves noticeably when you sleep early and get up early. Your body’s circadian rhythm runs more smoothly.

Is it a coincidence that around 50% of self-made millionaires are awake three to four hours before they have to be?

Yet, it was discovered that a higher IQ is associated with night owls, not “larks”.

Consider some night-based activities. You have drinking, clubbing, watching movies or TV shows. From there, they’re more specific to your hobbies and environment.

In a city to be sure, it’s condensed into one word: Socializing. If you’re at home, it’s likely nothing that’ll further your career or make you more well-rounded. It’s about being entertained, enjoying yourself.

For more ambitious types, socializing doesn’t top the priority list. Actually, it’s thought of as the opposing force to our most prolific abilities.

It just so happens socializing is largely viewed as time-sensitive. Drinking, clubbing and the rest fall squarely into the hours we call nighttime. And as if that wasn’t enough, daytime eagerly claims our jobs and demands we be alert and purposeful.

We’re very comfortable with the arrangement: work hard, play hard. Work hard then play hard.

All of this begs the question of if the night owl was ever a breed in the first place? Was staying up late ever championed? Was getting up early ever not?

According to Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker, our falling asleep early or late is linked to our DNA. We don’t actually decide to be morning people or night people. Our genes decide for us.

In his TED talk “Sleep is Your Superpower”, Dr. Walker goes over the ill-effects lack of sleep brings. He emphasizes the importance of regularity in our sleep schedule but doesn’t touch on which is “correct”: early to bed and early to rise, or late to bed and late to rise.

Flextime is coming into its own in corporate spheres. And there’s even a “B-Society” which appeals for more leeway on the behalf of late risers.

Perhaps it’s about time to also acknowledge the respectable list of late risers. How about Barack Obama, John Travolta and Winston Churchill as a small sample size.

While early risers may be more conscientious and cooperative, late risers are seen as risk-takers and arguably more creative.

That’s not all.

The University of Liege in Belgium found that

10.5 hours after waking up, the early birds had lower activity in brain regions linked to attention and the circadian master clock, compared to night owls.

This could suggest that the time you sleep directly impacts your levels of performance the next day.

So the moral of the story is this. If you thrive in the morning, continue your routine. If you prefer the night as your backdrop, don’t hesitate.

I know I won’t.