The Differences Between Being Morning And Being Evening

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

Owls and larks: different rhythms in rhythms and schedules

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

The morning people They usually wake up eight hours (or at the usual hours) after starting to sleep quickly, and in practically 5 minutes they already feel awake. As the day goes by, their performance decreases until they are so tired that they fall asleep without being able to help it.

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

Melatonin makes the difference between being evening 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 clock gene, responsible for encoding a protein that regulates circadian rhythms of sleep and also the way in which melatonin is secreted. Through these investigations, it was discovered that the different way the protein acts in some organisms and others, causes some people to secrete melatonin, especially in the first hours of sleep (which means they rest earlier, wake up earlier, and They also end up getting tired and falling asleep earlier) and others secrete the substance in the last hours of sleep (in such a way that they wake up drowsily, take a while to wake up, and their performance improves until they sleep almost again when they are still lucid).

Evening people, then, are not opposed to getting up early. They simply take advantage of their greater state of lucidity in such a way that they end up delaying their moment of sleep. Actually, both people usually sleep the same number of hours, it’s just that They manage their energies differently

Society is designed 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, work impositions, etc.). Schools are designed for morning kids, so 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 more effective and efficient if they rest in the morning and are active in the afternoon and evening.

These discoveries can help us know each other more and better, in addition to considering these differences to create a fairer and more educational model. 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’re a morning person, maybe you understand the afternoon person a little better now. 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. Thank you for wanting to meet you.

Evening, morning and intelligence

Does being evening or morning have any relationship with intelligence ? In a previous article we saw that yes. I recommend that you read it, you will be surprised.