Tag Archives: night owl

Night Owls, Beware!

A new batch of research points to a higher incidence of depression in night owls than in early risers. Further studies will be required to determine a true causal link, but initial evidence seems to suggest that those who stay up late have structural differences in the brain leading to a form of chronic jet lag.

From Washington Post:

They say the early bird catches the worm, but night owls may be missing far more than just a tasty snack. Researchers have discovered evidence of structural brain differences that distinguish early risers from people who like to stay up late. The differences might help explain why night owls seem to be at greater risk of depression.

About 10 percent of people are morning people, or larks, and 20 percent are night owls, with the rest falling in between. Your status is called your chronotype.

Previous studies have suggested that night owls experience worse sleep, feel more tiredness during the day and consume greater amounts of tobacco and alcohol. This has prompted some to suggest that they are suffering from a form of chronic jet lag.

Jessica Rosenberg at RWTH Aachen University in Germany and colleagues used a technique called diffusion tensor imaging to scan the brains of 16 larks, 23 night owls and 20 people with intermediate chronotypes. They found a reduction in the integrity of night owls’ white matter — brain tissue largely made up of fatty insulating material that speeds up the transmission of nerve signals — in areas associated with depression.

“We think this could be caused by the fact that late chronotypes suffer from this permanent jet lag,” Rosenberg says, although she cautions that further studies are needed to confirm cause and effect.

Read the entire article here.

Image courtesy of Google search.

Night Owl? You Are Evil

New research — probably conducted by a group of early-risers — shows that people who prefer to stay up late, and rise late, are more likely to be narcissistic, insensitive, manipulative and psychopathic.

That said, previous research has suggested that night owls are generally more intelligent and wealthier than their early-rising, but nicer, cousins.

From the Telegraph:

Psychologists have found that people who are often described as “night owls” display more signs of narcissism, Machiavellianism and psychopathic tendencies than those who are “morning larks”.

The scientists suggest these reason for these traits, known as the Dark Triad, being more prevalent in those who do better in the night may be linked to our evolutionary past.

They claim that the hours of darkness may have helped to conceal those who adopted a “cheaters strategy” while living in groups.

Some social animals will use the cover of darkness to steal females away from more dominant males. This behaviour was also recently spotted in rhinos in Africa.

Dr Peter Jonason, a psychologist at the University of Western Sydney, said: “It could be adaptively effective for anyone pursuing a fast life strategy like that embodied in the Dark Triad to occupy and exploit a lowlight environment where others are sleeping and have diminished cognitive functioning.

“Such features of the night may facilitate the casual sex, mate-poaching, and risk-taking the Dark Triad traits are linked to.

“In short, those high on the Dark Triad traits, like many other predators such as lions, African hunting dogs and scorpions, are creatures of the night.”

Dr Jonason and his colleagues, whose research is published in the journal of Personality and Individual Differences, surveyed 263 students, asking them to complete a series of standard personality tests designed to test their score for the Dark Triad traits.

They were rated on scales for narcissism, the tendency to seek admiration and special treatment; Machiavellianism, a desire to manipulate others; and psychopathy, an inclination towards callousness and insensitivity.

To test each, they were asked to rate their agreement with statements like: “I have a natural talent for influencing people”, “I could beat a lie detector” and “people suffering from incurable diseases should have the choice of being put painlessly to death”.

The volunteers were also asked to complete a questionnaire about how alert they felt at different times of the day and how late they stayed up at night.

The study revealed that those with a darker personality score tended to say they functioned more effectively in the evening.

They also found that those who stayed up later tended to have a higher sense of entitlement and seemed to be more exploitative.

They could find no evidence, however, that the traits were linked to the participants gender, ruling out the possibility that the tendency to plot and act in the night time had its roots in sexual evolution.

Previous research has suggested that people who thrive at night tend also to be more intelligent.

Combined with the other darker personality traits, this could be a dangerous mix.

Read the entire article here.

Image: Portrait of Niccolò Machiavelli, by Santi di Tito. Courtesy of Wikipedia.