Emily Chan
Are you an early bird or a night owl? Early birds swear by the advantages of rising with the sun. They claim it boosts productivity, allowing time for exercise and a healthy breakfast, which sets a positive tone for the day.
On the other hand, night owls come alive after the sun sets. Their peak creativity levels come during the uninterrupted hours of the night when they can work with intense focus.
Whether you like to catch the worm at dawn or burn the midnight oil, it all depends on your body’s internal clock. Our internal clocks are determined by genetics and environment. It turns out that night owls may have an edge when it comes to having sharper cognitive abilities.
Researchers from Imperial College London assessed sleep data from more than 26,000 people to explore the links between sleeping patterns and cognitive abilities.
The data was collected from the U.K. Biobank, a biomedical database investigating the genetic and environmental factors that contribute to the development of certain diseases.
Sleeping for seven to nine hours produced the best outcomes for cognitive function across all participants. They performed well on tests for information processing, reasoning, and memory.
Sleeping for less than seven hours or more than nine hours had negative effects on the brain for all participants.
Additionally, the researchers found that an individual’s preference for morning or evening activity affected their test scores. Night owls consistently performed better than early birds in cognitive tests.
Those who were in between night owls and early birds had test scores that fell somewhere in the middle. After accounting for factors like age, gender, smoking and alcohol consumption, and chronic disease, the results remained true.
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