The Power of When - Revisited

I'm sure you all remember my blog post about the book "The Power of When". If not, you can find it here. The reason I'm bringing it back up is because I stumbled across a podcast on The Art of Manliness on the same topic but by a different author. The book on AoM is "When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing" by Dan Pink.

The basic premises of the two books are very similar...that when we do things can make a huge difference in our results.

One of the main differences (at least what was discussed on the podcast...I haven't read the book yet) is the number of chronotypes. In Dan's book, he talks about morning larks, night owls, and those in between. In The Power of When, Dr. Breus talks about four chronotypes...lions, bears, wolves and dolphins. Lions are similar to larks, wolves are the late night hunters (night owls), bears are in between and dolphins are all messed up (I'm a dolphin)!

Dan talks about the peak-trough-recovery cycle of our days. We should do analytical or precision work during our peak times, probably take a siesta during our trough times, and our creative work during the recovery part of the cycle. For lions and bears, these are the morning, afternoon and evening. While for wolves, it's the opposite...recovery in the morning, trough in the afternoon and peak in the evening. What about dolphins? Who knows? This means that you'll want to avoid scheduling important things, like a surgery, in the afternoon.

Dan also talked about the season in which you were born may also have some effect on your chronotype. According to an article in Sleep Education:

And many factors such as genetics and light exposure affect when you are sleepy and alert. A new study in the journal Sleep examined some other factors.

It involved 5,720 college students at two universities in Spain and Italy. Results show that females went to bed earlier and slept longer than males.

Nationality also had a significant effect on sleep patterns. On average the Spaniards went to bed and woke up later than the Italians.

The study even found a significant but small “season of birth” effect. Subjects born in spring and summer went to bed later than those who were born in fall and winter. A study in 1999 reported similar findings.

I was born in the spring (May) and I tend to like to go to bed later.

There are many other interesting things covered in the podcast. I highly suggest that you head over and check it out!

Interesting days

Today - Kid Inventors’ Day, Ditch New Year's Resolutions Day and Cable Car Day

Tomorrow - Women’s Healthy Weight Day, World Religion Day, Winnie the Pooh Day and Thesaurus Day

Next Wednesday - Beer Can Appreciation Day, Talk Like A Grizzled Prospector Day, Belly Laugh Day and Peanut Butter Day

February 17 - Random Acts Of Kindness Day, My Way Day, World Human Spirit Day and World Pangolin Day