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Mangesh Hattikudur
Night owls supposedly more creative
by Mangesh Hattikudur - December 12, 2006 - 7:53 AM

Discovery News is reporting that after analyzing 120 men and women of varying ages, an Italian study out of Milan has concluded that “nocturnal types” are more likely to find creative solutions to problems. In fact, the study seems to indicate that creativity has far less to do with age, than with your sleep patterns. And while the explanation of how creativity was scored in the study seems a little dubious to me, what was particularly interesting was that there really are morning and evening personalities. According to a study from the Sleep and Performance Research Center in Washington State University, humans have a small group of brain cells called the suprachiasmatic nuclei that “emits signals to the body that synchronize the time of day. This “biological clock” runs two hours ahead in morning types and two hours later in evening types.” Bizarre, eh? Of course, creativity isn’t the only trait that the Milan study group has associated with the night owls. They also believe this non-conformist group of snooze button advocates to be more extroverted on the whole. Click here to read more.

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Comments (6)

  1. Woo hoo! An excuse for me staying up too late and being grumpy in the morning; I’m an extroverted problem solver! Thank you, Mental Floss. You brighten my day AND validate me.

    posted by Lyssa on 12-12-2006 at 8:49 am

  2. I must agree wholly with the previous post. And could I possibly use this as an excuse for being late, very late, a lot.

    posted by Ellen on 12-12-2006 at 4:52 pm

  3. I’m curious, what makes the biological clock develop that way? Is it genetic? It doesn’t seem like it would be, so what other factors play a part?

    posted by Sammy on 12-12-2006 at 8:30 pm

  4. To everyone I know: TOLD YOU SO!!!

    posted by Amy W. on 12-13-2006 at 5:06 pm

  5. I told everyone to leave me alone and just got to bed so I could get some art work done!! YIPPEE !!!!!

    posted by Linda H. on 12-13-2006 at 11:42 pm

  6. Does getting up at 5am count as night owl?
    I’m the annoying early person, AND the annoying extrovert…and darm proud!

    posted by Lalunacee on 12-15-2006 at 3:28 pm

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