Do you perceive the world differently in the morning than you do in the evening?

When you step out of bed in the morning and walk into the world with sleepy eyes are you seeing things one way and then before you jump back into your pyjamas, a different way?

When I was younger (so much younger than today) I was definitely an evening person. I was a miserable git in the mornings. If I managed to get away with it I would try and hide under my bed covers until someone shouted at me to get up and do something with my life. And then I'd usually stay under there for another 30 minutes...

These days I have been forced to be a morning person. I have no choice, mainly because anywhere between 6 and 6.30 am the little turbo midget that I created is sitting up in bed next to me, poking me in the face with Skye. A pink poodle with wings. So by the time I sit down at the end of the day, circa 9.00 pm I've usually given up on my grand plans for a full evenings entertainment and just fall asleep, half empty wine glass in hand.

But in all honesty, I do enjoy my mornings much more than I used to. I like the practicality of early starts. I see the pleasures in a beautiful sunrise. The whole day ahead of you.

Now everyone is different of course but putting our personalities aside for a minute, let's see how we are influenced by how our senses perceive the world at different times of the day? I always find that cycling home in winter I smell things much more acutely at night. Hearths burning, food being prepared over stoves, that sort of thing. So maybe its not that my sense of smell is heightened at night but just that there are more pertinent smells in the air at night. Nonetheless, this surely influences our mood and our emotions.

Same can be said for noises. Noise travels better at night, when the city isn't as alive as during the day or in the morning. Peripheral noises become pronounced and suddenly we can hear that cat screeching from that back alley, or laughter from a group of pub goers. This all creates a completely different environment for us to take in.

Our heightened senses (excluding sight) can of course be directly attributed to the fact that with everything being darker, our other senses gain more processing power and are thus much more acute at picking up delicate sounds and smell. This in turn can influence the emotions these inputs release and the way we feel. That's not to say that these subtle differences influence everyone similarly. Everyone is different. The strong smell of coffee on a summer morning as you walk past a shop can make some people feel happy, energetic and put them in a positive mindset, whereas for others it might make them feel sick. The same input on a dark winter morning could again have a completely different effect on that very same person.

Another thing to keep in mind is that the more tired we are, usually towards the end of the day, our brain finds it harder to focus its functoion and thus has a broader scope. This leads to more creative thinking. Creative thoughts often come to the fore when we are tired and thus we might look upon the world in a more artistic, melancholic way.

So do we perceive the world differently in the morning than we do in the evening?

Yes we probably do!