If you had no commitments the next day and were entirely free to plan your own day, what time would you get up? Beyer: 7:45-9:45 a.m. “Ideally, I would wake up and make breakfast, go work out, and spend the rest of my day lounging or finishing up work.”
You have to do two hours of physically hard work. If you were entirely free to plan your day, when would you do the work? Beyer: 8-10 a.m. “I would much rather get it out of the way early.”
You have a two-hour test today, which you know will be mentally exhausting. If you were entirely free to choose, when would you take it? Beyer: 3-5 p.m. “That way I can go home and relax after and not worry about having wasted my day.”
If you were entirely free to plan your evening and had no commitments the next day, when would you go to bed? Beyer: 1:45-3 a.m. “My mind is always working.”
MORNING COFFEE OR MIDNIGHT OIL? At Albion, early birds and night owls take flight.
College students like Kristen Beyer, ’17, learn who they want to become, but they also learn what avian creature they are now. The day-night dynamic is a research focus for psychology professor Mareike Wieth, who continues to receive global media attention for her 2011 study that found night
owls may actually be more creative while the sun is up (and after dark for early birds). From a short quiz, Beyer discovered she was a bit of a winged hybrid. A few of her answers are above. Which are you? Take the quiz and find out (and learn more about Wieth’s work) at www.albion.edu/iotriumphe.
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