Biology Dictates All by Eldon

Biology Dictates All by Eldon - January 2019 Scholarship Essay

I am definitely a night owl. My most productive hours are generally after many people have already fallen asleep. In fact, I am actually starting this essay at 11:30 in the evening. I always ask myself why I am like this because being a night owl means staying up very late and waking up very late too. Waking up late always makes me feel very unproductive as by the time I wake up, half the day has already passed. However, I can also not focus very well during the day. Part of it probably has to do with me being a procrastinator. When I look at the clock and it is still rather early, a part of me says, “I can do this later and it will still be okay!” Thus, I cannot get productive until it is later at night when there is the pressure to finish soon in order to sleep. I personally feel like this is a very bad habit and I have always wanted to changed it, but I am just always very groggy in the morning and much more awake at night.
However, I have actually seen a YouTube video explaining the biological reason behind the difference between morning birds and night owls (during one of the times I was procrastinating, of course). The video’s explanation is that back when humans were still hunter-gatherers, there needed to be people to protect the tribe at night when everyone else was sleeping. Thus, these people were used to staying up later as a survival tactic and this “night owl” gene has been passed down into modern society, despite the fact that we no longer need someone to stay up at night to protect our food. While I am not sure if I have inherited this “night owl” gene, this is still an explanation I like to use to explain why I am always up at such unorthodox hours. It sounds better to stay I was up late because it is in my biology rather than saying I was trying to finish an essay in a panic.