Researchers at the University of Liege in Belgium examined 15 “extreme early risers” and 15 “extreme night owls.” They measured the participants’ brain activity after they first woke up and then once again 10.5 hours later.
Both the night owls and the early birds had the same level of productivity when they first woke up. Ten hours later, however, early birds had “lower activity in brain regions linked to attention and the circadian master clock, compared to night owls.”
They’re actually ahead of everyone else…and less stressed.
It all depends on how you look at cycles. It may look like the late risers are missing out on the morning hours, but the early risers are actually missing out on an entire night.
The late risers are ahead of the cycle and experiencing chunks of time that early risers sleep through. But late risers are in better moods throughout the day.
According to the BBC, a team of researchers in Westminster analyzed the saliva of 42 volunteers with different sleep schedules eight times throughout the day for two days. After analyzing all the samples, they found that the people who woke up earlier had higher levels of cortisol, the body’s main stress hormone, than those who like to sleep in.
