Night Owls

Do you consider yourself a night owl? ?? If your answer is “yes”, have you ever asked yourself this question, “How did you become a night owl?”

Did you know that birds usually require at least ??12 hours of sleep in order for them to have enough energy to carry out their daily functions such as hunting for food. Out of all the birds, we are like owls, many of us prefer to work at night, due to its’ quietness of the night??. We feel like we can concentrate better at night. However, as the time passes into the night, our body starts to show signs of all the exhaustion it went through in the day, reminding us of all the tiredness our bodies accumulate in the day. Still, due to the quietness of the night, some of us enjoy working later in the night, or studying.

Some of the reasons we like to work at night is due to the quietness of the night, away from all the distraction the day brings. ??No phone ringing, no one on the street shouting or kids playing. ??The traffic has slowed down with little to almost none. We flow into the night with our own thoughts and music to help us focus better. Most college students and young working adults fall under this category.?

??Literature often romanticizes night owls. The fact that they don’t conform to the normal working hours, make them seem like a mysterious person, portraying them in an almost appealing way.

However, there are many risk factors that come with working late in the night. One study showed that night owls are more at risk of developing diabetes, or other health problems due to us not giving our body to repair and rest. In studying 433,268 adults, it was found that night owls are 10% more likely to die prematurely compared to individuals who identified as morning people.

Although it is not obvious now, as we get older, all this sleeplessness creeps up in our body and we become highly at risk for diabetes, heart attacks and stroke. Therefore, as there is a saying, prevention is the best medication, we should take care of our body and try to get enough sleep to allow our body to rest and repair all the stress we put our bodies through.