Man, I love sleeping in.  It feels like the best thing in the world to wake up and realize that you’ve had more sleep than you thought.  I’d gladly do so when I was younger, too.  Always making the weekends count and getting up way after most of my family.

Most people, however, don’t like the sleeping in thing.  Especially if it makes them miss an appointment or date.  Or worse, being late to work.  Admittedly, that is kind of a bummer, and I would probably be just as upset as the next person if I got in trouble for clocking in a few hours late.

Yet, it seems that late sleepers, despite the mostly bad rap, are actually staying up late, too.  It’s not like going to bed early and rising with the sun (which many a grandparent, or parent, do).  No, it’s that at night, late sleepers are actually getting a huge burst of energy.  Mostly of the creative kind, too.

These bursts of energy are hard to ignore.  I remember staying up until 6AM almost every other day in high school.  I was just drawing and painting and listening to my Sheryl Crow albums through head phones.  I didn’t care that I actually had to be up at that time to go to school…I just could’t “turn off.”  It was like someone had thrown on the switch in my creative brain after the sun went down.

To this day, I still cherish those late night moments.  As do most of the people who are sleeping in.  Taking this puzzle into their own hands, some researchers at the University of Madrid looked into it, and found out that those who are sleeping in late may actually be displaying a whole new pattern of behaviour for humans.  They’re also displaying a higher intelligence factor, based on a divergence from normal sleeping patterns.  This was supported by the results of several inductive reasoning tests done on nearly 1,000 participants.

So what’s the low down with all of this?

People who stay up late are following their creative instincts.

According to Elite Daily, there was a study conducted by the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart in Milan that asked 120 participants of different sexes and ages about being either night-owls or early risers.  The participants then went through a series of tests to evaluate creative thinking.

“According to their findings, evening types aced each test based on these criteria, while morning and intermediate type people struggled to get scores over 50.”

Marina Giampietro, the leader of the study suggests that these results are due to the “development of a non-conventional spirit and of the ability to find alternative and original solutions.”  Essentially, those who are staying up late are following their creative desires, and seeking out solutions to their problems before heading to bed.

If you think about it, those people who stay up late in your life are probably of the artistic and deep-thinking type.  They probably paint, draw, write, or play music.  They probably also have a deep inner drive to find solutions to their inner issues, and seek them out late at night, when the world is quiet.

Those who are early risers, however, are going to the gym, walking their dogs, or doing their thinking over morning coffee.  They have put aside their worries for the next day, and might even put them away from the next.  That isn’t to say that this is always the case, but it appears to the predominant theme.

That being said, late sleepers also tend to enjoy the hours they’re awake a lot more.

If you’re getting up to go to work at 5 every day, you’re probably not going to be enjoying that traffic, or that broken shower head, any more than anyone else would at that hour.  You might have some energy blasting you through those early hours, and on into the early afternoon, but you’ll soon be burning through it by the early evening.

Not so with late-sleepers.  According to a study conducted by researchers at the University of Liege in Belgium, both night owls and early birds actually have the same level of productivity when they first wake up. After ten hours went by, however, early birds had “lower activity in brain regions linked to attention and the circadian master clock, compared to night owls.”

Okay, so what does this all mean?

Late-sleepers are less-stressed and “performing” better than anyone else.

When someone is getting up early, they’re actually missing out on the night time hours.  That’s a whole big chunk of the day, and one that someone who sleeps in will be able to see.  The real trade off is in the mood and approach to the day.

In an article posted on BBC, it was stated that researchers in Westminster conducted a study on the saliva of 42 volunteers with different sleep schedules.  The test was administered eight times throughout the day for two days. The results were significant: those participants who woke up earlier had higher levels of cortisol.  This is the main hormone behind stress.

Not only that, but Dr. Angela Crow, a doctor involved with the report, says “early awakening was associated with greater powers of concentration, being busier and experiencing more hassles throughout the day as well as reporting more anger and less energy at the end of the day. On the other hand late wakers were more leisurely and less busy.”

This all basically means that being up late may actually put you in a higher bracket of intelligence, and that sleeping in might be letting you live your days stress free.  Of course, there will always be people who do the opposite of this, and quite frankly won’t care about the evidence you present to them, but that’s no matter.  Now you know that you’re completely justified in hitting that snooze button as long as you like.

 

Source: Elite Daily