“Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise.”
Ben Franklin said that, and smart people agree that history’s most prolific source of aphorisms was a pretty sharp fellow. Thing is, a growing body of research may lead some to suspect that ‘Poor Richard’ didn’t necessarily practice what he preached. Just lately, a bunch of new-fashioned brainiacs are awakening to the possibility that people who fly by night are more apt to be bright.
12 o’clock scholar
Certified genius, Satoshi Kanazawa
“Some people are night owls, and others are morning larks,” explains deep-thinker Satoshi Kanazawa, a psychologist with the London School of Economics and Political Science writing for Psychology Today. “Compared to their less intelligent counterparts, more intelligent individuals go to bed later on weeknights and weekends.”
So staying up all night watching “F Troop” re-runs makes you smarter?
“People with higher IQs are more apt to be nocturnal night owls, while those with lower IQs tend to restrict their activities primarily to daytime,” clarifies Robert Alison in the Winnipeg Free Press, helpfully. “People who prefer to go to bed early, and who are early-risers, demonstrate ‘morningness,” whereas those whose sleep patterns are shifted later demonstrate ‘eveningness.’ Researchers say ‘eveningness’ tends to be a characteristic of higher IQs.”
Brain food?
Ahhh, so dancing the night away doesn’t make you smart – you routinely close down the nightclub because you’re already smart. Pretty eye-opening stuff, if true, and Kanazawa clearly pulled more than one all-nighter compiling statistics to support his hypothesis, figures which are dutifully detailed on the website PSYBLOG.
“The study examined the sleep habits of 20,745 adolescent Americans,” reports PSYBLOG, “and found that on a weekday the ‘very dull’ went to bed at an average of 11:41 and woke up at 7:20. In contrast, the ‘very bright’ went to bed at 12:29 and got up at 7:52.”
On weekends, again on average, test subjects with IQs below 75 turned in around 12:30 a.m. and got up around 10 a.m., those with “normal” IQs in the 100 range went to bed at 1:30 a.m. and arose at 10:15, and subjects registering IQs above 125 collapsed into the sack at 1:45 a.m. and didn’t slouch out again until after 11 o’clock.
“It’s a sin to go to bed on the same day you get up.”
1920s NYC mayor Jimmy Walker
Granted, those differences aren’t exactly night-and-day, but they’re sufficient for Kanazawa to hazard some thoughts about why those preferring to carpe noctem might enjoy a cerebral edge over the sunlit day-walker. The way he tells it, humans have since ancient times been conditioned to sleep patterns imposed upon them by the sun. Those of more “inquisitive” mental predisposition, however, rebelled against that mundane cycle and sought to establish their own patterns of wakefulness and repose. It’s that same intellectual orneriness, we are to believe, that keeps Carson Daly in clover night after late, late night.
Carson Daly, Friend to the Sleepless
Lest card-carrying members of the Dawn Patrol feel abused by these revelations, it should be noted that all researches indicate a strong genetic component to individual sleep patterns. It’s also worth mentioning that the eveningness effect is most pronounced among those under 30, and that even the most restive night owl will gradually molt into a morning lark as feathers gray.
Still, if we accept the scientific probability that sitting up in a darkened house presumes cognitive superiority, one can’t help but wonder if worshippers of Artemis possess other traits in greater abundance than is given to Apollo’s flock. According to absolutely everybody, absolutely.
Like night and day
The same rebellious nature keeping them up at night often drives them to great feats of creativity. Hours of solitary contemplation may reveal deep truths not visible in the glare of full sunlight. Their love of the new and the novel can compel them to adventure. In broad statistical terms, night owls tend to be open-minded dreamers, suspicious of authority and ardent. They’re uninhibited self-starters who do their best work when everybody else in is bed.
“What hath night to do with sleep?”
John Milton
Alas, just as night must follow day, so too does the nocturnal lifestyle have a dark side. A comprehensive study conducted in 2008 concluded that the after-hours set is “less reliable, less emotionally stable, and more prone to depression.” Eveningness has also been persuasively linked to greater risks of heart disease, arterial stiffness and hypertension. And it turns out that a lot of the folks who are up at all hours aren’t spending that time gulping agave shakes and working out at the 24-hour gym. Night owls lean toward eating disorders, obesity, substance abuse and a variety of other addictive behaviors, all of them aggravated by the fact that late-risers typically manage fewer hours of restful, unbroken sleep thanks to the restless ruckus raised by thoughtless early-birds. Thus the day lark’s chirpy activity inevitably degrades the layabed’s mental acuity.
Colorado’s State Bird
Healthy? It seems clear the midnight-oil class can’t show any particular accomplishment in that field.
Wealthy? “You will find the key to success under the alarm clock,” asserts Mr. Franklin. Of course he would say that. Even so, it’s not improbable that many of those bright and potentially profitable ideas that dawn by the dark of the moon are considerably dimmed in execution by the depreciating affects of persistent sleep deficits and, possibly, gout.
Wise? Unsupported avian stereotypes notwithstanding, “Lack of sleep can affect our interpretation of events,” intones WebMD. “This hurts our ability to make sound judgments because we may not assess situations accurately and act on them wisely.”
Makes you wonder what else ol’ Ben was right about.
“First, it was not a strip bar, it was an erotic club. And second, what can I say? I’m a night owl.”
Marion Barry