Studying at odd hours: Advantages and challenges
A popular belief is that studying late at night is harmful, propagated by the famous saying, ‘Early to bed, early to rise, makes a person healthy, wealthy and wise’. However, several studies conducted on the same topic have found that there isn’t really a correlation between wealth or wisdom, and your sleep cycle. On the other hand, ‘healthy’ has been long argued, with scores of evidence on both sides.
If you’re one of the night owls, who can revise till 3am, rather than waking up at 5am.
Students generally fall into one of two categories; those who study late into the night and those who wake up early to prepare. What’s less commonly known is that there are terms for both of these categories. The ones that stay up late are commonly known as night owls, while the ones who prefer wee hours of the morning are called early risers.
Advantage of being a Night owl
- Night owls show a higher ability to stay alert and concentrate
- They can concentrate for longest period of time, they stay alert , they are very focused .they can sit at a place for a longer period of time.You would think that staying up late would make you have problems focusing, but as long as you get adequate amount of sleep, it can actually increase your alertness.
2. more relaxed morning.
Sleeping in has its perks. Although some research shows that night owls tend to have higher cortisol levels in general, they tend to have lower levels in the morning than those who wake up early, according to research from the University of Westminster.
3. less exam stress.
British researchers have found that early risers have higher levels of cortisol, the stress hormone, than those who like to sleep late.The cortisol levels of early risers continue to remain high throughout the day, not just during the morning. This means early risers are more stressed about exams than night owls. Since night owls are calmer, they can get work done more efficiently, instead of wasting time panicking.
4. more intelligence.
Prone to staying up late? You might be more intelligent. A study published in the journal Personality and Individual Differences found that more intelligent children are more likely to go to bed late and wake up late on both weekdays and weekends. Although staying up late won’t make you smarter, if you tend to do things into the wee hours of the night, you can go ahead and use that as an excuse why.
Disadvantage of being a Night owl
suffering from disorder
- Lack of alertness
- Decreased productivity
- Decrease of memory
- Increase of injury
- Diabetes- Research has shown that the lack of sleep is linked to the development of type 2 diabetes by influencing the way your body processes glucose.
- Heart Diseases- According to research, people with a sleep disorder are more likely to experience coronary heart disease, stroke, irregular heartbeats and hypertension.
- Elevated Blood Pressure — Those with high blood pressure who do not get more than five hours of sleep may have worse symptoms
- Increased Metabolic Changes — People who do not sleep for long periods of time or have problems staying asleep throughout the night experience metabolic changes that could cause obesity.
2. Your brain loses efficiency with each hour of sleep deprivation
Every hour that you stay up, you get weary and so does your brain. According to a study by Texas A&M Medical College, it was observed that studying late into the night can result in a sharp decrease in performance for specific learning and memory tasks. Our peak cognitive efficiency happens earlier in the day and by studying late night we’re fighting against our natural body clock.
3. You can easily forget what you learned
According to a study conducted by Texas university, everything that you learn at odd hours is actually stored in your short term memory. This memory type doesn’t facilitate extended retention, in fact it deteriorates quickly. If you don’t use the information you have studied shortly, then it disappears within a period of a few minutes to a few hours. So when you cram new chapters late at night, it doesn’t allow that information to transcend from short-term to long-term memory, which is important to prepare for an exam that might be months away.
conclusion — whatever suits your body, accordingly take decision to be early riser or night owl.
