Brain Creativity and Sleep

Someone told me that creative people have sleep disorders. Is that really true? Studies at the University of Haifa found that people who are more creative tend to go to sleep later, get up later, and have worse sleep overall. They studied both visually and auditorily creative subjects. Both reported sleep disturbances during the night. Higher visual creativity was associated with higher sleep disturbance, daytime dysfunction, and lower overall sleep quality. Higher verbal creativity was associated with longer sleep duration and later sleep midpoint. No one knows the reason for this. Conjecture by the study’s authors theorized that a ‘surplus’ of visual creativity might make the individual more alert, and this could lead to sleep disturbances. For the verbally creative individuals, protracted sleep might facilitate processes that support the creative process while they are awake.