The Power of When: Discover Your Chronotype - and the Best Time to Eat Lunch, Ask for a Raise, Have
This is my third time reviewing books for ELLE Magazine and when I saw the theme of the books I had to review I wanted to cry. They are all psychology/science books. If you don't know me, I'm really bad at science. I failed my physics regents in high school! And I also failed the AP Psychology test. So I wasn't looking forward to reading any of these books.
But damn, this book was so interesting. I have been talking about this book non-stop to anyone who will listen. I learned SO much for this book and I want everyone to read it.
Basically, we as humans have different chronotypes, or, what time of day we function best. There are four different chronotypes: Lions (early morning), Bears (afternoon), Wolves (Late evening) and Dolphins (insomniacs). So based on your chronotype, you should eat at certain times, go to bed, wake up, all different activities. I would have never thought that I the times I do activities would make a difference, but it has. I have adopted my chronotype's (I'm a Bear by the way) schedule and I feel more productive and refreshed.
I still have a lot of questions about the schedule and how one adjusts it to make it more doable in everyday life. For example, a Bear's schedule is suppose to be from 7:00 a.m. to 11:00 p.m. Now I shifted it to 8:00 a.m. to 12:00 a.m. and shifted everything in the schedule an hour later. Now is that okay? Or am I not helping my body as much as I could be?
I really recommend checking this book out. It's so interesting. Breus provides the test to find out what your chronotype is at the beginning of the book. This book will be available starting September 6, 2016. You can get it in hardcover for $17.34.
Favorite Quotes:
"People who play team sports have been found to possess 'mental toughness,' a collection of qualities that includes resilience (the ability to bounce back), perseverance (the ability to carry on), and optimism (the ability to see a positive outcome). Being on a sports team helps kids develop essential skills like self-efficacy (belief in yourself) and emotional intelligence (the ability to read and react appropriately to others' feelings)."
"Weight loss experts suggest that you weigh yourself at the same time every day for three consecutive days, add the numbers together and divide by three for your average weight of the week."
"Internet rush hour - the time of day when traffic on the information superhighway is heaviest - is from 7:00 p.m. to 11:00 p.m."
"Twitter: According to a two-year study by sociologists at Cornell University of 509 million tweets, Twitter is at its most upbeat and enthusiastic at 8:00 a.m. to 9:00 a.m. on weekdays and 9:30 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. on the weekends. But if you want to track the latest Twitter war, log on at 10:00 p.m. to 11:00 p.m., when tweets are emotionally charged and users are fully engaged. Facebook: Prime time is 7:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. (including weekends), per a 2015 study by Klout and Lithium Technologies of over one hundred million posts. Post then to get the most shares, comments, and likes. Online dating sites: According to two major dating sites (match.com and plentyoffish.com), the most popular time of year to sign up is between New Year's Day and Valentine's Day. The most user-active time to log on? Evenings at 8:00 p.m."
*Note: Breus doesn't recommend only weighing yourself three days a week. He suggests weighing yourself everyday. I just thought that quote was interesting because I have never heard of that before.*
