Night owls versus early birds: who is superior according to science? | Well actually

WWe all know that early birds get the worm. But who needs a worm? Not me. For most of my life I have identified as owlgetting out of bed as late as possible and not so much clinging, but reluctantly entering the work day.

The work culture in the United States is not exactly optimal for night owls. Rather, it favors leaders who stand in 4am and run a marathon while everyone else is hitting the snooze button. However, I always consoled myself the idea that night owls are actually more intelligent and resourceful than their earlier counterparts. Franz Kafka and Thomas Wolfe wrote before bed; Bob Dylan recorded at night. Even scientific research indicated that this is true.

However, something strange happened. Due to a combination of existential dread, alcohol withdrawal, and having a small child who wakes me up at inopportune hours, I started going to bed earlier and earlier. These days, going to bed at 9pm is perfection. The idea of ​​regularly staying up until dawn, as was once the case, is now terrifying.

This shift makes me question everything. Can your biological clock really change? Am I really turning into an early bird or have I just been forced to follow a schedule dictated by my child? And if I'm an early bird, does that make me a lesser creature? I went on a mission to settle the dispute between the owl and the lark once and for all.

What makes a person early or late?

My first discovery: you cannot help who you are; the optimal sleep time is programmed into you. “We all have an internal body clock, or circadian rhythm, that controls numerous physiological processes, including activity levels, sleep, hormone levels and blood pressure,” says Kristen Knutson, an assistant professor at Northwestern University who specializes in sleep research. Meanwhile, your “chronotype” is your circadian preference: the scientific way to determine whether you're a morning lark or a night owl. A person with an early chronotype will naturally find it easier to go to bed earlier than a person with a later chronotype.

Although it is difficult to fundamentally change your chronotype, it naturally changes as you age. Anyone with a small child will understand why I don't bother with an alarm clock anymore: instead, my four-year-old rudely wakes me up at 5:30 am. But once puberty hits, the body clock slows down, Knutson says: Adolescents “have a later chronotype. Then, as we get older, our chronotype tends to shift earlier and earlier. By the time we're 80, we're an early type.”

We all go through the same cycle, but from different starting points. “In young people, morning and evening types can differ by about four hours in how their biological clocks influence their behavior,” says Hans Van Dongen, director of the Center for Sleep and Performance Research at Washington State University. Health Spokane Sci. It is not entirely clear why these differences exist, but along with possible evolutionary reasons, there is likely a genetic component. “Children born to evening-type parents are as likely to be evening types as they are morning types,” Van Dongen says.

Is there evidence that night owls are smarter than early birds?

But back to the all-important question: does being a night owl make you more creative and intelligent?

One 2007 study found that “an evening mood correlated with the ability to apply divergent thinking strategies to visual content”—a scientific way of saying “more creative.” IN 2009 study entitled “Why Night Owls Are More Intelligent,” psychologist Satoshi Kanazawa compared the sleep time of 20,745 teenagers with the results of an intelligence test. He found that people with higher intelligence are more likely to be night owls, and suggested that this may be because staying up late is “evolutionarily novel.”

More recentlyResearchers at Imperial College London examined British data on more than 26,000 people who took various intelligence tests. A 2024 report found that late nighters had “superior cognitive function” compared to morning larks.

An image with three lines of text that say in bold letters, “Well, actually,” then “Learn more about how to live a good life in a complex world,” and then a mauve pill-shaped button with white letters that says “More from this section.”

However, all the experts I spoke with were cautious in making clear connections between chronotype and traits such as creativity, intelligence or communication skills. While all of these studies make good headlines, they have important restrictions.

For example, is this study from 2009? Van Dongen notes that “the analysis is based on how late people go to bed… [and] “I can't rule out the possibility that teenagers with higher IQs prefer to study longer at night and need more sleep to recover on the weekends, or they participate in more different activities after school.”

(I emailed Kanazawa, the study's lead researcher and an academic at the London School of Economics, to get his thoughts on this criticism and received the response: “Yes, as if I would talk to someone at the Guardian.It turns out Kanazawa, who once stated that the study found that black women are less attractive than women of other races is somewhat controversial and definitely not a fan of the Guardian.)

So my ideas about night owls were based on shaky ground. But stereotypes about creative geniuses burning the midnight oil and early career CEOs may still apply. “The timing of the body clock not only determines when people like to go to bed and wake up, and when they feel most alert during the day,” Van Dongen says. “It also partly determines the types of activities they may end up participating in and the experiences they are exposed to.” If you are a natural early riser, you may find it easier to succeed in a corporate work environment, for example.

The dark side of the night owl

There's one thing sleep experts seem to agree on: Trying to impose a routine that conflicts with your body clock is unhealthy. In fact, it might send you to your grave.

In 2018, Northwestern's Knutson co-authored study found that night owls had a 10% higher risk of early death and more health problems than early risers. The study couldn't pinpoint the underlying causes, but Knutson notes that the problem may have something to do with “circadian disturbances caused by desynchronization between their internal clock and the outside world.” In other words, she says, “it’s hard for an owl to live in a world of morning larks.”

skip the previous promotional newsletter

after promoting the newsletter

Being a night owl can come with other risks. A 2024 study Researchers from Stanford University of Medicine found that staying up late is detrimental to mental health, regardless of chronotype. The reasons are unclear, but researchers suspect it is because unhealthy behaviors such as drinking alcohol or eating unhealthy foods are more likely to occur late at night.

Similarly, University of Groningen researcher Ana Wenzler worked on a recent study that found that staying up late is associated with cognitive decline. Wenzler notes that at least 25% of the effect was due to lifestyle rather than something internal; Again, you are more likely to make poor choices later in the evening.

Can you hack your chronotype?

Although you cannot change your chronotype, you can try to work in harmony with it. But to do this, you first need to understand what type you belong to, and this is not always obvious. Looking back, for many years I thought I was a night owl only because of my habits. I was young and walked a lot. However, once I stopped drinking, my body clock seemed to shift.

But that doesn't mean I wake up with birds like Snow White ready for the day. In fact, I began to think that I was neither a morning person nor an evening person, but something in between. Which, apparently, is possible. According to sleep specialist Dr. Michael Breus, a person whose chronotype is firmly in the middle “bear”. And we bears really dominate: according to some estimateshalf the population is in this category.

So how do you know your natural biological clock? Wenzler says a way to determine a person's chronotype is to measure salivary melatonin levels “throughout the day to see when melatonin levels rise.” Melatonin is a hormone that your body releases to signal you that night has fallen; morning people release it earlier.

Obviously, saliva tests will not be practical for most people. Without an at-home science lab, try sleeping for a week without an alarm, Wenzler says. Stay away from depressants and stimulants like alcohol and coffee, and avoid artificially prolonging your natural sleep time by scrolling through events or watching TV, and your body will settle into a natural rhythm. You will wake up when your body feels best.

I would try this experiment myself, but it is impossible to get rid of an alarm clock if that alarm clock is a small child.

Finally, if you're sure you're a night owl but need to wake up early for work (or, in my case, entertain a hyperactive four-year-old in the wee hours), can you adjust your body clock? Like!

“It is possible to make a difference, but usually only in moderation,” says Matthew P. Walker, director of the Center for Human Research. Sleep Science at the University of California, Berkeley. Walker mentions a 2019 study in which night owls gained about two hours in three weeks with a structured daily routine: morning light, fixed meal times, earlier exercise, and avoiding caffeine.

“It's impossible to imagine anyone sticking to this routine all the time,” he adds, and these results suggest that people should act in accordance with their chronotype, not against it. “Yes, the early bird may catch the worm. But the second mouse gets the cheese!”

Now try telling that to your boss.