Night Owls

By Rhonda Ramsey,

P.O.V. Contributing Writer

 

I am a night owl; I have written about it, and for years I have wished I could change it. I literally become wide awake around 9 pm, my mind is racing and ready to go, and most of all, I am at most creative at night.

I can honestly say every book that I have written was written between the hours of 9 pm and 6 am. Why? I do not know. Again, I wish I could change it, but in reading an article on BBS Research Digest, I may not be losing my mind when I say that I feel like the creative juices just don’t flow the same when I wake up early to write! Here is the article:

“Insight-based problem-solving requires a broad, unfocused approach. You're more likely to achieve that Aha! revelatory moment when your inhibitory brain processes are at their weakest and your thoughts are meandering.

“Mareike Wieth and Rose Zacks recruited 428 undergrads and had them complete a questionnaire to identify whether they were night owls or morning larks. As you might expect, based on factors like preferred time of day and peak performance, most of the students - 195 of them - were owls and just 28 were larks. The remainder came out as neutral.

“Here's the headline result: the students were much more successful at solving the insight problems when the time of testing coincided with their least optimal time of functioning. When larks were tested in the evening and owls were tested in the morning, they achieved an average success rate of 56, 22 and 49 percent, for the three insight tasks, compared with success rates of 51, 16, and 31 per cent achieved by students tested at their preferred time of day...”

From:  You’re Most Creative When You’re at Your

According to this article, which I found very interesting, our insight-based problem-solving is best when our “thoughts are meandering"!

Since middle school, I have had trouble focusing and concentrating altogether, but it is somehow refreshing to know that when it comes to being creative -- maybe, just maybe -- I was onto something when I pounded away at the keys at 3 am.

When are you most creative? Are you the early bird, the night owl or the neutral? Do you ever feel as though you are most creative when you are slightly less focused?