Morning:
3°c
Why morning people rule the world
Philip Delves Broughton5 Jul 2010
We are all morning or evening people. Scientists have established that our genes dictate around half of what they call our “chronotypes” — our natural preference for certain times of the day.
Evolution has produced a range of humans capable of being alert to danger at every hour of the day. Our experience confirms these findings. We all know people who love to be at work bright and early, with a cup of coffee to hand and decisions to make, and others who would rather stumble through the day until reaching a state of relaxed clarity around dusk, when their minds are purring.
The problem is that those with the genetic gift of “morning-ness” tend to be more highly rewarded. Morning-ness is perceived as a sign of activity and zest, whereas evening-ness implies laziness and loafing. How often did we have to see David Cameron on one of his early-morning runs to get the idea that here was a leader of potency and vigour? How different would it have been if he slunk out of bed to work, then exercised at around 8pm? Could a Prime Minister be elected today who worked like Churchill, reading, writing and thinking in bed before getting out of it at noon?
History is full of great bores praising the virtues of early rising, but few have made the case for letting the day drift by until you kick into gear around happy hour.
Yet the research continues to mount, arguing that evening people have qualities which should be nurtured. They tend to be more creative, intelligent, humorous and extroverted. They are the balance to morning people, who are said to be more optimistic, proactive and conscientious.
Evening and morning are the right and left sides of our brain, the creative and the analytical, both of which we need to organise, process and advance our lives.
New research by Christoph Randler, a biology professor at the University of Education at Heidelberg, however, concludes that morning people are more likely to succeed in their careers because they are more proactive than evening people.
He surveyed 367 university students, asking them when they were most energetic and willing to change a situation. It was the morning people who were more likely to agree with statements such as “I feel in charge of making things happen” and “I spend time identifying long-range goals for myself.”
Discussing his research in the Harvard Business Review, Randler says: “When it comes to business success, morning people hold the important cards. My earlier research showed that they tend to get better grades in school, which gets them into better colleges, which then leads to better job opportunities. Morning people also anticipate problems and try to minimise them. They're proactive.”
Christopher Coleridge, the founder of V Water, the fast-growing vitamin-enhanced water brand, has a different view on the advantages of morning-ness. “Morning is always the best time to get people to make decisions because people are full of optimism in the morning. By 9am, nothing really can go wrong. You're full of hope. By 4pm, at least six annoying things will have happened, so by the evening you're slightly annoyed and frustrated. Fortunately, you then have the rest of the evening to pick yourself up.”
Earlier in his career, when Coleridge worked in advertising, he found the culture much more focused on the evenings, when conversations over drinks would lead to creative ideas. But as an entrepreneur, he found mornings were the best time to corral people's energies.
Evening-ness, he says, can be exploited by companies that are full of young people. But mornings appeal more to people with families who want a schedule which allows them to get in early and leave on time. For the growing army of part-time and freelance workers, tight schedules are just as important. “They tend to be very focused because they are moving from project to project and they don't have time to yack away.”
In certain environments, morning-ness is unavoidable. In the City, many of the most significant meetings take place before the markets open. Schools, however, force morning-ness on teenagers at a moment when everything else in their lives — their hormones, their social lives, their working patterns — is drifting towards the evening.
But can one change one's chronotype from evening to morning? Randler says “somewhat”, but it can be hard. He cites one study that showed half of school pupils were able permanently to shift the time they woke up by one hour. Chronotypes, however, do evolve over one's life. Adolescents tend towards evening-ness; from the ages of 30 to 50, people are evenly split between morning and evening; and over-50s are more morning types.
The challenge for companies, Randler says, is to accept that evening-ness is an inherent trait and, rather than battling against it, find ways to “get the best out from their night owls”.
Reader views (77)
You people all need to go to bed!
- dav0, Shrewsbury, 06/09/2010 06:05
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I detest sleep and prefer to avoid it whenever possible.
I'm a night owl, and in a 24-hour world would sleep from about 4a to 10a/11a. For now, however, I have to at least make a show of running with the 9-to-5 crowd. As a result, the quality and quantity of my sleep are horrible, and I end up working 50+ hour weeks because I have to start keeping my chair warm around 9a, even though I actually do my work between 1p and 8p.
I have run afoul of many a manager who raved about my productivity, dedication, talent and knowledge, while threatening to fire me for not showing up by 8a. Typically I saved them the trouble. Other managers recognized that if they gave me the right tools, left me alone and didn't care what hours I worked, I could do incredible things for them.
As several commenters have mentioned, morning people appear to be more successful in school and in the corporate world because those entities are designed to favor morning people. I know that all through school (elementary to college) my worst grades were always in the first classes of the day.
I have long believed modern society would function better if it allowed more flexibility in scheduling. Imagine how traffic gridlock could ease up if companies embraced staggered in-times and out-times. But for now, night owls are eyed as lazy and shuffled to the outskirts. Many are quite successful, but usually only when allowed to work on their own schedule.
- CRG, California, USA, 03/08/2010 00:18
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How is it that a scientific discussion about morning and night people has about half the comments turned to religious arguments. I am a Christian fellow, and raise my family the same way, but from my experiance when you interject religious beliefs from out of left field, you turn people off and make them turn them off. There are proper ways, without turning people off, to bring god into the conversation. But throwing them in when the comments for an article should be about the article not only makes those who are not religious upset, but makes us who are "sigh".
Please be conciderate when trying to bring religion into non-religion topics. Thank you and God bless.
- Christian and worried, Villa Rica, GA. USA, 10/07/2010 02:51
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Hey Humans,
Please stop taking the Bible or Koran literally and start using it as a guide to finding Me within you. You and I are not separate. We never have been. I don't judge you as long as you remember Me with every breath. How could you not be with Me when you breathe 15 times per minute? And if you forget Me for a while, that's OK too, but just remember when you do love yourself, forgive yourself, and then love your neighbor once you've figured out how to connect to your higher self. Call on Me anytime. I am praying for you.
Love,
God.
- God, World, 09/07/2010 04:19
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I honestly wonder how many people actually are "morning" vs "evening". I thought for the longest time that I was an "evening" person until I went kayaking down the Colorado River for a couple weeks. Every night I would literally pass out by 10 PM, and then be springing out of the tent barely able to contain myself at 5-6 AM when first light hit.
So with plenty of exposure to natural sunlight and exercise we might all be "morning" people at heart. It's just that since we live and sleep in glorified mausoleums like a bunch of vampires our circadian rhythms have been completely distorted and confused.
- Andre, San Francisco, USA, 08/07/2010 00:31
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Dear God.
How could you have forgotten that information does in fact have mass. You created it, didn't you?
- Steve, Nashua, NH, USA, 07/07/2010 23:50
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Dear Evolutionist,
Please answer this one question: Since you know that Information has no Mass, where did it come from?
Regards,
God
- God. The Beginning and The End. The Uncreated One. The Great I AM., Beyond Time and Space, 07/07/2010 18:07
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Scientific 'theory' is just madness, The theory of gravity is also incorrect, it's really god holding us down so we don't float to heaven too early.
- Sean, London, 07/07/2010 06:54
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I find the subject intriguing, but again tyranny of the majority who are morning-types. I think anyone can adjust to mornings however unpleasant, but the same is not necessarily true about midnight shifts. Many simply cannot fight the generally natural instinct to sleep in the dark. I worked midnights for almost 12 yrs. and thoroughly enjoyed it, but the body began to get sick easier, so nature does interfere. I do not find midnight folks who are smug about getting out of bed or staying awake all night, but find it regularly among those who are moorning-dwellers. Life experience has shown me that only the mediocre feel the need to put others down about simple differences. I think age hugely influences which hrs work for the individual as with age, less sleep is required.
Any day folks who feel the need to put "night owls" down in any way other than jest are probably full-time mediocrities! I am glad for day folks--means I can be awake during my mentally active time which is anytime after 9 AM! Cheers to all and here's hoping we all just continue to get up whenever for the longest time possible!
- Night Owl, Chicopee, MA, 07/07/2010 03:20
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The Bible's text is just fiction? I don't even think scientists would agree with that.
- Dagness, USA, 06/07/2010 23:12
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I am definitely not a morning person. I would rather come to work between 10-12 but am forced in at 7am. I work with a smoker (no offense) who has a horribly scratchy voice and he yells! He gets to work at 4am, and I would like to slap him when he tries to talk to me so early when I get in. If anyone knows of a job where I can make my own hours; I'm an intelligent college student interested in business management 
- Rebecca, Indiana, USA, 06/07/2010 21:39
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How did religion ever get into the discussion? Religious fanatics seem to always find a way to throw religion into the mix regardless of the topic. The Bible is nothing more than fiction, so please stop using its text as fact!
- John Q, Baton Rouge, LA, 06/07/2010 21:08
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It's pointless to compartmentalize people into only two camps. I believe most of us fall somewhere in the "middle afternoon" of the day when, depending on our mood and what's going on in our lives, we can be either decisive or creative.
- Helene, Collegeville, Pa., USA, 06/07/2010 21:00
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Science will never give you the "Peace of God, which passeth all understanding." Philippians 4:7
- Bob, Kentucky, United States, 06/07/2010 20:10
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Personally, I experience both types of behavior depending on my approach to the day. When I wake in the morning at 5:30AM to run or go to the gym I feel I get more tasks completed in the morning and my enery remains high until the evening. Then my mind doesn't wonder into creativity because I am too exhausted to do anything but fall asleep.
However, when I do sleep in, sometime until noon, I am able to stay up much later. Later in the evening is when I experince a flood of thoughts and have more of a creative mind.
Currently, I am learning how to capitalize from both situations. When I have a lot of tasks to do I wake up early and train hard so I get more completed throughout the day. Then when I need to compose music or write the creative portions peek at night, especially as I am going to bed. The nearby pen and paper can catch the thoughts before they disappear into the abyss of the business moring.
- Christopher Kelly, Pleasant Hill, 06/07/2010 19:43
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Up in the morning and off to school...
Ha! I am a coffee drinkin' nite hawk and very very happy about it.
What about people who live in Alaska? They are all night people lots of the time..heheh...
Ron
- ron ernie, Poughkeepsie, NY USA, 06/07/2010 19:11
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What's with all the septics on here? (and no, that's not a mis-spelling)
- ST, London, 06/07/2010 18:19
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... one that has benefited with the fruits of science not religion.
--- ran out of room
- Cory, Calgary, Canada, 06/07/2010 18:07
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Peter J. Fusco, Utica, NY: Your argument is intellectually dishonest. Do you really expect that applying the scientific method to religious study will produce meaningful results? Maybe we should ask how many angels will fit on the head of a pin or what power Moses had to part the waters. These are faith bases questions and as with all such inquiries you start with the answer you want and look evidence, real or contrived, to support it. I’m afraid science doesn’t work like that. If you don’t understand basic point you should go back and learn it in school before people of you predilection remove objective, scientific thought from the curriculum.
You are also being Judeo-Christian centric in your opinion of faith, another indicator of your obtuseness. How do you know that it isn’t the one of the other religions that has the true answer? You can’t because you faith has bound you to whatever Christian denomination you are and you can’t see beyond those high walls your belief has created.
You have called me intolerant of faith which is a pure projection of your intolerance of those around you. I am not. I believe faith has its place which is to give people hope and a sense of morality. I do not believe it has a place in science. I may have been a Luddite (which is completely untrue on this or any other day) but you sir, would have been burning women because the moon turned red one evening. Why don’t you take of your religious blinders and join the 21 century, one tha
- Cory, Calgary, Canada, 06/07/2010 18:05
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Late hours are important for business success but terrible for family life. I know many successful people that work late in technology especially and almost all are either divorced or never married. If you are builing routers at home on weekend you will never be a family person. I do no childless late working married couples that are monetarily successful but are almost adreneline junkies with skydiving, scuba, etc to make up for their lack of normal function
- art, milford ct, 06/07/2010 17:59
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Hely in Oz:
<i>Funny, americans just despise the word >> evolve..as if there's something really mean about this word.</i>
Yes all 300 million of them. That's very observant and clever of you.
p.s.
All Aussies throw boomerangs and ride kangaroos to work in their post-apocalyptal distopia.
- Tom D., Minneapolis, USA, 06/07/2010 17:42
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Ah, folks, don't waste your time with this article. It is sexed up and intentionally misleading. The original research is on Morningness and Eveningness in teenagers.
From Cristoph's website:
"Morningness-Eveningness (Chronotype) in adolescents
People have a tendency to organize their behavior into cycles of activity and rest and are different from one another in the way they practice this organization. Morningness-Eveningness (M-E) can be defined as individual differences in sleep-wake patterns, and time of day people feel and perform best. Previous international studies revealed a tendency in adolescents to become more evening oriented during the age of puberty. The consequences of changes in M-E preference and sleep patterns during adolescence with early school start times, have important impact on the lifestyle habits of adolescents, such as, excessive daytime sleepiness, depressive tendencies, poor performance at non-optimal time of day, behavioral difficulties and higher family and social demands. A greater understanding of the evolution of M-E preference during adolescence might result in practical interventions in order to improve the adaptation (best health and performance) of the adolescent to early school timetables."
- Luis Morais, Bushey, Herts, 06/07/2010 17:39
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Once an article is linked to Drudge Report, you can guarantee the quality and civility of the comments will deteriorate.
- Chimpy, Tallahassee FL, 06/07/2010 17:17
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What is all this blather about religion? I thought we were talking about whether or not being a morning person was better?
Anyway here is another data point:
I am a morning person. I'm an engineer at NASA in Houston. I like getting up before the world and my kids (4:30 am). I get about half of all my daily stuff done (and most of the stuff that matters most) before 9:00 am. Then it is a lot of meetings and poopy-doop. By 5:00 pm my brain is tapioca pudding and it's time to go home.
I have four children under the age of six and by the evening my brain has been reduced to their level. So we all have a good time. By the time they go to bed I am catatonic.
My wife on the other hand is a serious evening person. Don't ask me how we ever concieved our children. Must have happened on the weekend.
- Robert, Houston, USA, 06/07/2010 16:42
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As a broadcaster, I've worked both sides of the clock. I think one can adapt (not without some difficulty) to being either a morning or evening type. For some years, I burned both ends of the candle. Staying up past midnight and then signing on a radio station at dawn. Now in life's seventh decade, I am convinced that so-called "power naps" actually can reinvigorate one, when the day grows long. The key is to not sleep too long.
- Bill Bro, Winnetka, IL, ObamaNation, 06/07/2010 16:31
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To say that people are more receptive in the morning is ok if you are a morning person meeting with a morning person but the same would apply if you are an evening person talking with a evening person in the afternoon .
But since is still difficult to operate most business with open schedules it will tend to favors morning people since they appear more compliant. The evening person may be just as good but may not function at is or her best in such an environment. Your manager will not appreciate you arriving at 9.30 AM but may not notice your leaving at 7pm.
The Government attracts several morning people they get up early and are on hibernation mode for the rest of the day.
They also tend to leave a 5pm on the nose and close the door to that last client(s). They tend to be divided in two groups the submitted and the social climbers.
I think that successful people have absolutely nothing to do with morning or evening.
Successful people are generally creative and not easy to manage. A smart employer does not care if they are morning or evening persons he will give them room to be at there best if not they will always move on.
- Adam, New Providence, 06/07/2010 16:26
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Some feel that self organization of matter occurs by evolution others think it is dictated by information packed DNA, itself something so seriously complex (being mathematically and chemically ordered just so) it could have only been designed. Environment does play a major role in learned behavior and intelligence so read to your small children every day and night!
- Bondmen, Richmond Heights, Obama States of America, 06/07/2010 14:49
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Apparently, this guy doesn't work in Information Technology. Nor can he read the top 50 list of richest people on Earth.
If you think B. Gates got to where he is by waking up bright and early and going to bed early- you are high. Very stupid and very high.
The people that are the "faces" of a company may wake up bright and early so they can be chipper for brunch, but they serve little function other than that. The people that say "I've got a meeting!" all day don't run squat.
You won't see them working 16 hour days and cracking the atom. They will be out like a light by 9pm. Sorry, but common sense and experience have to call BS on this.
- Jack, Virginia, USA, 06/07/2010 12:19
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Cory from Calgary: Your argument is specious since you apply weight to science, a discipline, and none to faith, another discipline no less important to its disciples. Both have their place in the human experience, and both are legitimate pursuits. That you apply the rigors of one to the other as if they are the same thing only reveals your intolerance, and marks you as a Philistine in your appreciation for wisdom as a child of study. You sir, would have been comfortable with the Luddites of an earlier time. Dull, plodding, and irresistibly fond of the liberal approach to the search for truth, you eschew and belittle any mention of faith because IT AIN'T COOL. Pathetic.
- Peter J. Fusco, Utica, NY, 06/07/2010 12:10
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Sorry, this kind of study is rubbish if the sample population is smaller than 1000- 5000 people, 10,000 would be even better. There are so many variables that make the conclusions stated here worthless.
- TomRoberts, Tokyo, Japan, 06/07/2010 10:28
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Funny, americans just despise the word >> evolve..as if there's something really mean about this word.
- hely, sydney,australia, 06/07/2010 10:21
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Cory, logic is not the foundation of science. Logic is used in the process of reasoning. The foundation of science is fact (or assumptions) and these are typically understood or stated. Note that assumptions may be based on facts which prove incorrect: 'the earth is flat'.
faith is acceptance of things that cannot (yet) be proven to be true or of things that have been accepted as true. we all excercise degrees of faith in certain things. i think people who believe in science alone have a lot of faith in the fact that anything that cannot be proven is not true. Science can be seen to be reductionist therefore but makes sense in view of the defintion of science. Faith, whateever its form, can be complementary to science. The idiocy of the religious nut is that for him God's main agenda is to judge people and find them guilty of incorrect belief and as a result send them into some eternal flame. I thought God was loving and compassionate beyond what we understand and that his main agenda was, in setting people free, reconciled them to Himself - but clearly this is not true for everyone.
- barns, Durban, South Africa, 06/07/2010 09:32
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I don't know about most "studies" since there are always so many exceptions to the "revelations." I'm well over 50 and definitely NOT a "morning type." When I was a small child I would drive my parents crazy because I wanted to be up all night while the family slept. I always hated morning hours -- still do.
I agree with another poster, morning is not the time to deliver a sales pitch to me since I will only be grouchy and unresponsive.
Naturally I married a "morning type." It works, though, and in forty-five years of marriage, our day versus night lifestyle has never been an issue. Live and let live is good advice whether it is individual preferences -- or religious differences.
- Susan, Springfield, IL USA, 06/07/2010 07:07
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The research relied on in the article is on the "softer" side of science (since there are so many variables unaccounted for) but that doesn't mean that it's worthless. Evolutionary biology, on the other hand, doesn't technically qualify even as a scientific theory since there's little if anything about general evolution that's even remotely empirically demonstrable. Belief in evolution is based on a rationalistic presupposition against the possibility of intelligent creation - not science. As a scientific model, evolution is lacking as well since human genes have never been demonstrated to mutate to a more complex state. All observed human genetic mutations - last time I checked - where either destructive or neutral. And, even if human genes did have a propensity toward beneficial mutations, the evolution of even a simple protein would take so many beneficial mutations that almost one per second would have to have occurred over the last 4 billion years.
- Eric Jones, Clarkston, Michigan, USA, 06/07/2010 04:52
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Sorry, one cannot make such pronouncements based on 367 people, particularly college age students. If one came up with the same data based on at least 1000 people, then we'll talk.
- Teresa, FL, USA, 06/07/2010 04:49
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I am an evening person. Fortunately, I work a sales job that allows me to set my own hours; I start my days mid-morning and I often work late into the night. I am most productive between 1pm - 6pm and have found I actually accomplish more in my day if I only work these hours verses a 9 -5. I will agree that it is an 'early bird gets the worm' society so I've had to cater my business around that. I often prepare my voicemail the night before and set emails to be sent for 9am the next day. My co-workers that arrive at 8:30am do seem to subscribe to an opinion that I am 'lazy and loafing' however, I continue to close more business on a regular basis. The hardest thing I had to overcome was personal guilt I had of not being able to wake up and get my day rolling by 8am. I fought it for years. I do work a minimum 45 horus a week but I am able to spread it over the work week and occasionally Saturdays for times when i am most 'mentally' productive.
- Elizabeth Donnelly, Philadelphia, PA, USA, 06/07/2010 03:50
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I don't believe in a "natural" prolivity for day or night activity. It's all learned behavior. It's what our parents shared by example (or didn't share by example!), it's our choices for vocation, our habits that become ingrained with repetition, even bouts of depression that come with life events, the compay we keep...so many, many factors. Night people are more creative? Ridiculous sweeping generalization. Are you talking about theatre types, musicians, and artists whose work generally does keep them working at night hours? This is a silly study with flawed conclusions.
- jamie5, New York, NY, 06/07/2010 01:50
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Evolution? All this happened by chance? Boom! Puff! Oozz! Wala! Anyone who thinks this to be fact has no authority to convince me in an article about science.
- marty, westminster, USA, 06/07/2010 01:40
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Hmmm...I haven't been without a dog for 24 years running and consider myself a morning person. I wonder what sort I'd be if I didn't feel like there was always something or somebody to take care of, not that they ever wake me up. However, like my dogs, I nap from about 1pm to 3pm. Then we're off again! To cocktails, if necessary.
- paula, Southwestern Colorado, USA, 06/07/2010 00:44
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Ha! I'm a morning person but I am more creative than analytical. There goes the stereotype.
- Jeff, Washington, DC, USA, 06/07/2010 00:20
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What bunch of crap. I've been a morning and a night person. The only advantage of the morning person is the networking that they are able to do. Isn't it funny how people can take facts and turn them around any which way to make them say what they want.
- ibjohn, Olney, U.S.A., 05/07/2010 23:06
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Ha, Ha, Ha ... the old "standing before the God you denied" argument. Sorry, Jay, God may have set life in motion but the changes that occur from generation to generation are governed by his Divine Biology. No offense and all ... I mean, I'm a Christian and I love my Jesus, but to deny legitimate scientific discovery is to deny original sin.
- Poptop McCluckin, New Orleans, LA U.S.A!!! U.S.A.!!!, 05/07/2010 22:42
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My God is a kind and benevolent God. I have always believed, if my God intended for me to see the sun rise, he'd have scheduled it later in the day. To me, the day doesn't begin until the sun is in the western part of the sky. I think everyone should be up 'by the crack o'noon.
- Jim Vaughan, Venice, Florida, USA, 05/07/2010 22:33
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Is height due to better nutrition really an evolution type theory? Weren't the Vikings big, huge people?
BTW, I am on twilight time these days. I put myself to bed when light appears and birds begin to sing, then I walk the streets as the sun disappears over the horizon. I always sensed I had some kind of vampire lineage, and as I've aged it's becoming more apparent. However, being a non-meat eater, I have evolved.
- Suzy Q, Los Angeles USA, 05/07/2010 21:57
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John V. Karavitis This is my second attempt at making a post here - don't know why my first attempt failed. Anyway, this is good research. Couples may use this information to decide if they are compatible enough to get married. Employers may use this to re-structure their employees' workday to times when they are at their most efficient for work, etc. In addition, research has shown that our biological clocks do in fact shift over time. The elderly are up early in the morning, whereas high schoolers, who are typically forced to get up at 5 to 6 in the morning for school, should in fact be allowed to sleep until 9 to 10 AM. But all in all, a good article. John V. Karavitis
- John V. Karavitis, Chicago. IL, 05/07/2010 21:52
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I have to completely disagree with the statement that people are more likely to agree with you in the morning. That is obviously the POV of a morning person! I'm generally in the WORST mood at least until lunch. Approach me around dinner if you want me to be open to something!
- Elysia, Amsterdam, the Netherlands, 05/07/2010 21:44
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John V. Karavitis I think this is an interesting tidbit of information. It may help couples decide whether to get married, even, let alone helping companies re-structure their working hours to accommodate people when they are their best and most able to put in the most effort at work. In fact, research shows that our biological clocks do change as we get older. Research shows that teenagers shouldn't be getting up at 5:30 or 6:00 in the morning for 8:00 AM classes, rather, they would be better off getting up later in the morning, like around 9 AM to 10 AM. John V. Karavitis
- John V. Karavitis, Chicago, IL, 05/07/2010 21:43
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I have to completely disagree with the statement that people are more likely to agree with you in the morning. That is obviously the POV of a morning person! I'm generally in the WORST mood at least until lunch. Approach me around dinner if you want me to be open to something!
- Elysia, Amsterdam, the Netherlands, 05/07/2010 21:39
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The article was about scientific research and logical conclusions. The comments were about Attention Deficit Disorder. The first word in the article caused many to stop reading.
Evolution actually did not appear in the body of the article. When pushed to the wall, evolution scientists crash and burn because there is no science in evolution. There are several contradictory theories thar prove nothing but disprove each other.
If you want to see pompous acedemia on parade, watch the movie "Expelled" with Ben Stein. In thier own words, THEY actually attribute early life to "Crystals and Aliens".
Science and acedemia reduced to Harry Potter.
- Rich, New York, NY USA, 05/07/2010 21:15
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Was actually thinking about this yesterday before ever reading this and came to the conclusion that our whole culture is developed to MAKE people get up early and go to school or go to work from the time you are 5 years old. I am not a morning person at all. I hate waking up at the crack of dawn and even if I do wake up at an early hour I dont like to be forced to do anything. I certainly hate eating when I wake up. It takes me 2 or 3 hours before I get to the point where I want food. Was one of the reasons I hated school. Get up early, forced to eat something when I wasnt hungry or by 9 or 10 o'clock I would be starving to death and having to wait for 2 or 3 hours for lunch to roll around. Add that to the fact that when you are in high school you need more sleep but you are forced to get up earliest to be at school. My grades certainly suffered because of this madness and as the day went on the grades in my classes got better.
I went into the military after high school and the only time I enjoyed working was when I started my day later. We had a shift that started at 10 am and I loved that shift and even the oddball shifts that started in the afternoon or overnight were preferable to the early morning for me. Thankfully I have a job where I can choose my hours and work whatever shift I want to and right now my preferred shift is 1pm to 12am. It works out great for me. I will never have a job that forces me to be there before 10 am as long as I can avoid it.
- JJ, USA, 05/07/2010 20:53
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"If man has been evolving for "millions" of years, you would think we would be masters of the universe by now!"
You really don't know anything about the theory of evolution do you?
- mike, houston, 05/07/2010 20:53
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This article seems pretty accurate. Society and human EVOLVED (deal with it, fundies) at a time when people had to do most of their business during the day when there was natural light. However, there still had to be people awake in the middle of the night to watch for attacks by animals or other humans.
As a night person, I can understand why society is diurnal. However, morning people need to understand that not everyone else is a morning person, and we don't want to deal with your inane and vacuous conversations first thing in the morning. By all means, talk to other morning people, but leave me the hell alone until 10a, at the very least.
Morning people remind me of that extremely irritating woman at the beginning of Office Space.
- Jeff T., Houston, 05/07/2010 20:35
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There seem to be two types of humans.....Morning people and Evening people. And they always seem to marry each other!
- HMichaelH, Mount Airy, MD, 05/07/2010 17:54
SO true. I considered checking "report abuse" because these mismachs abuse both parties.
But, I love her anyway.
- Charles Akins, college station, TX, 05/07/2010 20:09
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Amazing how one word at the beginning of the article can bring out all the religious nutjobs. Your Iron-Age religious views have no place in intelligent, modern-day discussion.
- Mike, Denver, CO,
Thank You Mike: maybe one day they will evolve enough to have an intelligent discussion and leave their pathetic superstitious rants behind them.
I was beginning to think I
- Raymond, Fairfax, CA USA, 05/07/2010 19:47
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I live in the city, but spend vacations at the farm. No power, iPhone is out of range, bucket in your water, cook on a wood stove, composting toilet.
The thing is there are rhythms in a natural environment that are missing in city life.
When the sun sets you turn on a kerosene lamp or two but it's pretty much time to go to bed.
When the sun rises it's time to get up, fire up the stove and cook a pot of coffee.
Life in the country is focused outward, interest in the wildlife (eating your garden), the neighbors cows (pushing over your fen
ce), the creek (undercutting the driveway).
Life in the city is focused inward, into the TV, into the computer, into the newspaper, into the bus, into the office building.
Natural rhythms of the world are disrupted in city which making it possible to stay up till 3am and slave away at the computer and sleep till noon.
It's always a workout at the farm, lifting, splitting, planting, cutting. In the city you have to go to the gym.
My point is that electric lighting has created night owls they aren't a product of evolution.
- Jill England, Seattle WA USA, 05/07/2010 19:33
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Proverbs 6:9-10 "How long will you lie there, you sluggard? When will you get up from your sleep? A little sleep, a little slumber,a little folding of the hands to rest — and poverty will come on you like a bandit and scarcity like an armed man."
Proverbs 27:14 "If a man loudly blesses his neighbor early in the morning, it will be taken as a curse."
Psalm 127:2 "It is vain for you to rise up early, To retire late, To eat the bread of painful labors; For He gives to His beloved even in his sleep."
All the Bible seems to teach is that you should get a good night's sleep, but not sleep too much. Nothing is said about morning versus evening except for Proverbs 27:14 which protects evening people from the depredations of over-eager and overly optimistic morning people.
- Donald, Dallas, TX, United States, 05/07/2010 19:25
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I think we can all agree that man has accomplished extraordinary technological achievements in just the last 100 years. If man has been evolving for "millions" of years, you would think we would be masters of the universe by now! The Bible actually gives us a direct genealogical link to the age of man. God knew we would be seeking the answer to how we came about. He answered that very quickly in the very first verse of the Bible. Genesis 1:1 states, "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." With that out of the way, we can begin to use our amazing brain for all kinds of great purposes.
- Bob, Kentucky, United States, 05/07/2010 18:51
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Seems like it's largely circumstantial, if grade school was held at night, then likely the early risers would struggle and get worse grades. If anything, it's an argument for changing the way we educate to be maximally effective for different types of learners.
Also, I think this is strongly based on what we've culturally defined as success, as evidenced in the phrase "dress for the job you want, not the job you have" - this presumes that a favorable job is one in which you wear a suit.
The article could be summed up as such: Why do morning people rule the world? Because all the world ruling auditions take place in the morning.
- Brian Sierakowski, Baltimore, MD, 05/07/2010 18:43
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Utter garbage. Winston Churchill was a night owl. Thomas Edison rarely slept, taking short naps during the day. There are just as many brilliant night owls as there are "early to bed, early to risers." A lot of early birds have mediocre jobs; night owls seem to be better risk-takers.
- roxanne, nyc, usa, 05/07/2010 18:09
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There seem to be two types of humans.....Morning people and Evening people. And they always seem to marry each other!
- HMichaelH, Mount Airy, MD, 05/07/2010 17:54
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Gravity is STILL a theory, but everything we see around us, makes us believe it is true. Though they have yet to find a 'graviton' or understand how exactly gravity works.
Most think it is the mass causing a bending of the fabric of space/time. The larger the mass, the more the bend.
EVERYTHING we have found points to the fact that ALL LIFE changes and evolves, over time, else it dies off.
ONLY The Bible disputes it, and that ain't fact, people. It's FAITH.
Am also an evening person, have always been. When I held down morning jobs, my 'clock' would always snap back to 'normal' on the weekends and Monday was ALWAYS a bear....
Am glad to see that some science is recognizing it.
Used to joke, when people poked at me for snoozing at AM meetings that we ought to hold one at midnight and see how well THEY do....
- Rick, St. Petersburg, FL USA, 05/07/2010 17:49
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Even if we live 100 years, that is just a blink of an eye compared to the time that these changes occur.
We now live in homes, we used to live in cabins and before that, we lived in shacks or caves.
Just looking back at what recorded history shows an evolution of thought, of science and how we apply those concepts to our own existence and advance ourselves, as a species.
These missing links people want to find, they don't exist. The process is arduous and slow, from our perspective. To the Earth, 100 million years isn't all that much time.
Dinosaurs had domain of this planet for millions of years, now they are gone. They hit an evolutionary dead end, catastrophic as it was, they could NOT adapt to their changing environment.
Humans have shown GREAT resiliency, over recorded history. We have harnessed resources and technology to advance ourselves to what we hope is a better existence.
Something had to put all the wheels in motion, everything just didn't come to be.
God is THAT force. Exists outside of our limited perceptions of time and space.
We have five senses, how arrogant it is to think that their are only 5 ways to experience the universe, is just the genetic cards we have been dealt.
Insects can SEE in infrared, sea life can SEE with sound. Those came to be out of necessity to live. Those that didn't have those abilities were evolutionary dead ends. Those that did bred and created more who could.
The ones who survive are the ones who pass those traits on....
- Rick, St. Petersburg, FL USA, 05/07/2010 17:38
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I dunno...
The kids now are using their hands and fingers to degrees that no one did just a century ago. That is going to change them and their offspring.
Would also think that micro-evolution is just the word for the parts we can witness at the speed of our own lives. No one lives long enough to see the big changes, but we have the data to show how man has continuously adapted to his surroundings and changed accordingly, or died trying.
I did mean height as in taller, and yes, that is from better nutrition, but even KNOWING that and utilizing that WOULD be part of the evolutionary process.
I STRONGLY believe that science and religion can peacefully coexist, they do in my view.
EVERY scientific mystery we solve, always raises more questions that the one we attempted to solve. The more we know, the more we realize we don't know.
As for the 'nicety' of the species, that isn't evolution, that is boorishness and I suspect it will NEVER be totally bred out of the human equation.
Some people just want to be mean, some have hope - too many are frightened and scared of the world around them.
Friend of mine had a great grandma that passed a few years back, lived to be 105. She saw 3 different centuries.
To her, humanity MOST CERTAINLY evolved and changed significantly over HER lifespan.
I truly believe that PURE Science will lead us to God, and a belief in God requires the curiosity for understanding the mechanisms of our universe.
To me, they go hand in hand....
- Rick, St. Petersburg, FL USA, 05/07/2010 17:23
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I wonder what time of day the college student study was performed, and how that inherent bias was taken care of. Do you run the test exactly at noon?!
- R, Kentucky, 05/07/2010 17:22
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I agree with Jay, evolution is a THEORY not a fact. When I see stuff written like this, I know that this article is not based on fact.
- Eric, Shrewsbury, 05/07/2010 17:11
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Great article. I have three children and last is most certainly an evening person. Although she forces herself to get up at 5:30 for school, on the weekends she doesn't roll out of bed till noon.
When I managed my shop and had 20 employees, I noticed who were on time and who rolled in late. I put the late ones on late shift (never late to work after that) and they loved it. No complaints.
The fact that we are evolving is not mythological. Unlike the belief in creationism, evolution is happening in a most evidential way during our lifetimes. I can't even believe that someone commented on that here.
- paul, miami USA, 05/07/2010 17:09
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Congratulations on totally and utterly missing the point of the article Jay & Bob and for trying to hijack it. (I think Ron has that aspect sussed!)
I am intrigued as to why some people think God gave us all this wonderful intelligence if He didn't want us to use it though. I mean: Evolution, fossils, science, hard facts...
Still, perhaps He's just playing a big trick on us? "What? You used the gift of intelligence I gave you to work out all the clues I left behind? Well done, now off to hell with you..."
For myself, back to the article in question, I'm definitely an evening type. No matter how I go about it, 'normal' patterns of time are always a fighting struggle for me - and I always revert to 'late to bed, late to rise' at the first available opportunity.
- John, London, 05/07/2010 17:07
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"If we didn't 'evolve', how does one explain the greater height of man in the last 100 years and the greater speed at which he can run?? "
Advanced nutrition--advanced medicine. NO SERIOUS theory of evolution EVER proposed evolutionary changes, especially of the supposed type you mention-in short amounts of time. ALSO, look into the mechanism of hybridization-working to promote beneficial genes ALREADY in the genome!! No evolution possible or necessary.
- Charlie, Attleboro, MA USA, 05/07/2010 16:58
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While I agree with -JAY- evolution is a myth (and if an open minded person did some serious research it becomes obvious), I think Jay was way too hard on Philip. Most western schools teach the party line-- (since) there is NO GOD, so there HAS to be evolution. Jay, you should have told Philip that his article was interesting, but that God Created the the heavens and the earth by and for Jesus Christ. You could have told Philip that Jesus loves him and that a person can know the Truth if he/she diligently seeks the Truth. Philip, God loves you and wants you to Know Him.
- Charlie, Attleboro, MA USA, 05/07/2010 16:46
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Rick -
What you describe is micro-evolution, or adaptation within a species. People becoming taller is an example of this. It does involve survival of the fittest and natural selection, but the results are not new species.
Macro-evolution, or speciation, on the other hand, is what many people, like Bob from Kentucky, are critical of. This theory of Darwinian evolution posits that cells became fish became mammals became humans. The newest and most reliable science shoots all kinds of big holes into this theory.
Micro-evolution, or adaptation, is un-deniable.
Macro-evolution, or speciation, is a problematic theory whose critics are increasing in number, and for good reason --- the science is less and less supportive of it.
- Matt, Iowa, USA, 05/07/2010 16:41
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I don't like the word evolve either, but I still enjoyed the article. I think it says something about calling someone a fool their too Jay.
Rick, honest question. "greater height man has achieved". Ok, so we can stop locking our doors at night any day now right? Young women will be able to go out at night alone soon? If I break down beside the road, someone will stop and help me? This was the way it once was. Seems to me we are "evolving the wrong way".
- bubba, nowhere near, 05/07/2010 16:38
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I don't like the word evolve either, but I still enjoyed the article. I think it says something about calling someone a fool their too Jay.
- bubba, nowhere near, 05/07/2010 16:29
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If we didn't 'evolve', how does one explain the greater height of man in the last 100 years and the greater speed at which he can run??
We are evolving, now, toward a more technological side of humanity. Is happening so quickly now that MANY have noticed the changes within their own lifetime.
Mostly, we are evolving away from superstitious beliefs, while still retaining our belief in God....
- Rick, St. Petersburg, FL USA, 05/07/2010 16:11
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Well Jay, it would appear you are correct. Some of us apparently did not evolve.
- Ron, DC, USA, 05/07/2010 16:05
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First of all, Jay, we did evolve. Regret will not even begin to describe your feelings as you discover there's no God or afterlife, and wasted your entire life going to Church and being a pompous [posterior region] for no reason. :P
- Ben, Ottawa, ON, Canada, 05/07/2010 16:03
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I was interested in reading your article until I read the first sentence. As soon as I read the word evolution, I stopped. Not much valuable science there.
- Bob, Kentucky, United States, 05/07/2010 15:49
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First of all, Philip, we did not evolve. Regret will not even begin to describe your feelings as you stand in front of Almighty God on Judgment Day and try to explain to Him that you publicly denied His act of creation.
A fool indeed.
- Jay, Marion, OH, USA, 05/07/2010 15:32
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