It's 2:10am here in Manila and I just got out of a post-gym shower--just a regular night for me. You might be thinking that I should probably be at least sleepy, especially that I worked out for an hour or two or that I probably had a long day, but I'm actually wide awake right now and I just spent my afternoon sleeping. Yes, I'm that night owl in the city.

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Circadian Rhythm

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It's all about the circadian rhythm. It is this 24-hour internal clock that runs between your sleep/wake cycle (basically the biological clock). The circadian rhythm is all about energy--at the afternoon after my classes with the sun still high up outside, that's when my energy is at its lowest, so you'll find me sleeping in my room as a way to recharge.

I usually wake up at around 8:00-9:00pm from those supposedly afternoon-only naps, and during that time, I'm more focused to do the things I need and want to do than when it's early in the morning and I feel like a vampire weakened by the sunlight.

The circadian rhythm does change though, for I used to be a morning person who would wake up as early as 4:30am and be alert for the whole day but definitely pass out for as early as 7:00pm. What doesn't really change is you--you may have a different schedule for your tasks and hobbies but the way you do them definitely doesn't change with when you do them.

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Are night owls really more intelligent than early birds?

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According to an article I read, I think the answer is yes. Here's an excerpt:

Psychologist Satoshi Kanazawa set out to determine whether children's sleeping habits correlated with intelligence. He recruited 20,745 adolescents from 80 high schools and 52 middle schools for his study. He found that people with high intelligence are likelier to be night owls. This applied across a wide span of demographic variables, such as ethnicity, education and religion.

Sure, it may seem like early birds look more hard-working and productive than the night owls, for they are already working when the rest of the night owls are still asleep. However, that doesn't mean that they produce quality output as the night owls whose creativity is incomparable to that of the early birds. People who work during the night find more ways to put a twist in their work, utilize unimaginable but efficient resources, and come up with innovative ideas because they are not bothered by the stress that comes with the day hustle most early birds are affected by like the morning rush.

Creativity may not be a synonym for intelligence but the former comes from the latter. Everyone could be intelligent regardless of their circadian rhythm but being able to exercise intelligence in ways like producing creative outputs definitely make one more intelligent than the other who's not able to innovate and apply their knowledge in real-life cases.

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Conclusion

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It took me more than an hour to finish this article due to my bad WiFi connection, but still I am wide awake listening to my favorite song just 4 hours before my classes begin. A lot of people here in my dorm are still up as well, burying their heads on their thick books downstairs at the study area. There are definitely students in coffee shops and in Mcdonald's at this time as well, drinking iced coffee or smoking cigarettes at the seats outdoors and procrastinating on squeezing a hundred terms in their heads for a test. I'd say the night owls really do reside in the city; one simply couldn't get any more Manila than this.

references:

• Psychology Today
• Entrepreneur.com

img sources:

• Clock
• Owl
• Coffee shop