Moving Beyond the Page Homeschool Community

Groggy Creativity

published on 8/1/2016 ✱by Vicki Kircher, M.Ed.

What time of day is the best for creative problem solving?

The answer, it turns out, depends on whether you are a morning or a night person. Oddly enough, the time of day when you think your brain is not fully functioning could actually be your most creative time of day! Most people consider themselves to be night owls, which means that the morning — when thoughts are still groggy and unfocused — can be their most creative time.

The study behind this insight focused on how participants solved two types of problems:

problems requiring insight and
problems that are purely analytical.

Time of day did not impact analytical problem solving, but for problems requiring insight, participants were at their best when groggy. This means morning was better for night owls, and evening was better for morning people. Less inhibition can lead to greater insights and creativity.

How should this knowledge impact your homeschool? If your kids are night owls, you may want to start the day off with subjects that may require more creativity — like language arts or science — and leave math until later in the day. If your children love the morning, you may consider just the opposite. Let us know how this works for you.