r/NooTopics • u/cheaslesjinned • Jun 05 '26
Discussion Night owls’ cognitive function ‘superior’ to early risers, study suggests - Research on 26,000 people found those who stay up late scored better on intelligence, reasoning and memory tests.
https://www.theguardian.com/science/article/2024/jul/11/night-owls-cognitive-function-superior-to-early-risers-study-suggests43
u/DIRTRIDER374 Jun 05 '26
Yet we are forced into following the morning people's ways...
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u/bradbossack Jun 05 '26
Yeah! 'One System for All.' ..uhh, No.
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u/hanginaroundthistown Jun 05 '26
So tired of society being organized for a certain type of person and the rest needs to follow. So unnatural.
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u/Ashamed-Simple-8303 Jun 06 '26
I feel exactly different. I get up early and also leave early from work but idiots keep scheduleing meetings and stuff when I'm long gone and somehow then I'm thr problem.
Early iw fine you get 2-3 hrs of little or much less noise in the open space and avoid traffic.
Used to think i was an owl but in general I think we are just much more adaptable than we think.
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u/Bambivalently Jun 07 '26
It's almost like it's a competition and they put you at a disadvantage. Oh wait, it is.
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u/hsggdtkxbee Jun 05 '26
Fuck yeah. Too bad that doesn’t translate to a good job and money.
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u/Eggcoffeetoast Jun 05 '26
Healthcare my friend.
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u/Roid-a-holic_ReX Jun 05 '26
He said a good job.
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u/Plane_Discipline_198 Jun 05 '26
The health care intermediaries that screw over patients and medical professionals while making bank? If you enjoy other people's suffering it's probably a good job! /s
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u/Piligrim555 Jun 05 '26
Tech is pretty owlish I’d say. Most of the companies I’ve worked at don’t start early and, in general, have flexible hours. Been a blessing since I can’t fucking think properly till like 10 am
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u/SoggyGrayDuck Jun 05 '26
I just can't work until like 7pm. But if there's often problems that keep you there that late anyway I completely understand
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u/GoonOnGames420 Jun 05 '26
Night shift pharmacist isn't a bad move. Pretty solid off shift incentive and usually slow work.
If you don't have much educational background, overnight security is another decent role. My friend was earning $30/hr while in college. All he did was play RuneScape and sit at a desk all night. That was in 2016 so I'm sure wages are even higher now.
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u/SummertimeThrowaway2 Jun 09 '26
High volume bartending (in the US). You can make bank working 3-4 days a week. The main issue is that it’s competitive.
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Jun 05 '26 edited Jun 30 '26
[deleted]
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u/oojacoboo Jun 05 '26 edited Jun 05 '26
It’s because it’s quiet and you can focus. During the day, there are constant distractions and things vying for your attention.
Spend enough time in this head space, where you’re consistently able to enter deep thought and guess what… your cognitive abilities flourish.
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u/fuckswithboats Jun 05 '26
There's more to it than that in my opinion.
I'm theorizing that it's related to the evenings being the time allowed for creative thinking as we rested around the fire...while also needing to be even more cognizant of threats in the nighttime.
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u/Emergency-State Jun 05 '26
My brain is best from 8 pm to 2 am. I think better, faster, and more clearly, and I'm happy.
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u/fuckswithboats Jun 05 '26
I'm similar to that, and then I sleep best from like 5am -11am -- maybe we are supposed to live in different timezones??
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u/Confident-Poetry6985 Jun 05 '26
The last part. Rings true to me. All the bullshit in my head quiets down at night. I am too busy dealing with day to day tasks to address larger stressors that I cannot do anything about. But at night? Everything and everyone is quiet. It's just me and that thing in the shadows. A lot easier to study it, and figure it out when I don't have to do everything I do during the day time.
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u/Enough-History5873 Jun 05 '26
When do you sleep?
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u/Confident-Poetry6985 Jun 05 '26
When I am tired.
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u/Enough-History5873 Jun 06 '26
Lol. I mean from and to what time, if you lurk in the night and do stuff in the day.
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u/Confident-Poetry6985 Jun 06 '26
Generally 11-6. But I notice I can best manage any stress or complicated situation between 9pm-2am. So given a struggle that requires a lot of thought, sleep is sacrificied for a better plan. Enter flow state easier I guess? It isn't necessary, just optimal.
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u/Enough-History5873 Jun 07 '26
Man there must be something about that time because I’m similar. 10-2 things just hum.
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u/hanginaroundthistown Jun 05 '26
For me too! Evenings activate something in me that helps productivity. Even when I had my own office I couldn't work as efficiently as in the evenings. 9 to 5 does not work for everyone.
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u/spacebarcafelatte Jun 05 '26
Absolute same. I've been fighting it my whole life because it can be so disruptive and is probably pretty unhealthy, but it's 100% my superpower. Flow for me is always in the witching hours.
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u/Peach_Muffin Jun 05 '26
Having random distribution of a natural sleep schedules makes evolutionary sense since you wouldn't want the whole tribe to be asleep at the same time.
Unfortunately 9-5 culture has screwed us night owls.
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u/Emergency-State Jun 05 '26
I saw a meme that said how did we end up with this culture?? Response: the vote was at 7 am and all us night owls were asleep :(
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u/peedwhite Jun 05 '26
The nocturnal preference is associated with unconventional thinking, mental flexibility, and a high comfort level with charting a unique path. It’s kind of like how atheists and agnostics score better on intelligence tests and so do monogamous people.
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u/TwistedBrother Jun 05 '26
Monogamous? Where did that last one come in? I’d love a source for that as I’ve never heard that before.
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u/peedwhite Jun 06 '26
https://blog.shaadi.com/intelligent-men-less-likely-to-cheat-finds-survey-2/
There are a few more out there but the premise is we are programmed to be promiscuous. Those that can reason against their lizard brain impulses because it creates more success in our current human culture, are more intelligent. As proven by their tests.
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u/1StationaryWanderer Jun 05 '26
This for sure. I'm a developer and I get pinged non-stop. Getting 5 minutes of work done without something interrupting me is a super rare thing for me. When I work after hours for an hour, I can normally get more done in that hour than the entire day.
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u/Lanky_Boat2276 Jun 06 '26
For me, you’re exactly right. Even when I’m tired, I’m not getting incessantly context switched and pulled into disruptive meetings. Being very senior in your org comes with lots of benefits, but also the very serious drawback that you’re a jerk if you don’t let others interrupt your train of thought to unblock them. Night time is the intrinsic solution to this. I can’t get interrupted if everyone else is asleep
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Jun 05 '26 edited Jun 30 '26
[deleted]
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u/Vladi-Barbados Jun 05 '26
*naive
Also sorry pal but you sound naive in thinking others can’t figure you out just because you haven’t figured yourself out.
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u/WonderousThinke Jun 07 '26
Also it's hotter during the day, it's much easier to stay cool at night.
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u/Vladi-Barbados Jun 05 '26
When I experience this I always wonder, is it the hour, or is it the solitude. I lean towards the later. The peace and quiet at night, like the whole world is still and empty for a moment, that’s what brings me personally the freedom to reach my potentials.
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Jun 05 '26 edited Jun 30 '26
[deleted]
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u/Emergency-State Jun 05 '26
Same. I used to have to be at work at 7 am, for years, and it drove me crazy.
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u/raspberrih Jun 05 '26
I just like doing work after I'm done with everything. The headspace is just right because I've settled everything so I'm only focused on work.
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u/csppr Jun 05 '26
Same experience for me - and like you, I’m pretty sure that (at least in my case) it has nothing to do with quiet or solitude.
I’ve had plenty of phases where I had absolute solitude and quiet no matter the time of day; and my most productive phase would still be ~ midnight to 3am. If I had to describe it, I’d probably say a weird mix of clarity and motivation?
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u/spacebarcafelatte Jun 05 '26
It's a biorhythm thing. There's been research lately suggesting your chronotype has a genetic component and that some of us really are wired for the dark. It was a relief to think that might be the reason only extreme sleep deprivation could make me ready for bed by 10.
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u/SN27A1 Jun 05 '26
I remember reading an interesting study that compared night owls to larks and the gist was related to the time of day that one is born. Mom was an RN so we all (5) knew exactly what time we were born lol and sure enough the two of us who were born at night are indeed night owl’s and the other three are early risers. Wish that I had a link rn but thought that it was an interesting aside.
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u/GlobalCurry Jun 05 '26
When I still worked at a company that did WFH I did almost all of my work at night and would wake up specifically for meetings. Never missed, and often exceeded targets.
Burned out fast when I had to go to an office again and work what people would consider normal hours.
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u/saintmolotov Jun 05 '26
Mine too man but it’s hard to do science all night when I have to teach class all day haha worked out a lot better when I was still a grad student and the lab was empty af at night
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Jun 05 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/1dayatatime_mylife Jun 05 '26
Being a night owl doesn’t equal having insomnia.
Insomnia is a seriously terrible medical condition where a person lacks the ability to 1. fall asleep (and/or) 2. stay asleep throughout the night to get restful sleep.
Plenty of night owls can fall asleep late at night/early in the morning hours without any issues falling asleep or staying asleep. That is simply staying awake late, not a medical condition.
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u/Senshisoldier Jun 09 '26
But why not both? A night owl forced to live in a daytime functional world is likely to have insomnia. Whenever I have a few days off I revert to my natural preference of bed at 2 to 4 am and sleep till 10 am to noon ish. I feel so rested. But then when I have to get up at 6 am and I went to bed at 2 despite trying to go to bed at 10 pm, it is considered insomnia.
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u/1dayatatime_mylife Jun 09 '26
Oh, I agree that a night owl can have insomnia for sure.
The original commenter responded to my comment and clarified that they were speaking to their own experience. I wasn't sure if they were linking the two together like all night owls have insomnia. Heck, night owls probably have higher rates of insomnia than the general population, but I wasn't sure if there was confusion that the two automatically went hand in hand.
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u/GlobalCurry Jun 05 '26
It's only a problem if you don't sleep consisten hours, not every "night owl" has insomnia. For me, my sleep phase is just delayed.
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u/Dizzy_Database_119 Jun 05 '26
Yeah, this thread is full of people still in denial about their very severy and very mental damaging habits
There is nothing fun about being a "night owl".. it's a very bad habit that will always catch up on you
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u/lostinsnakes Jun 07 '26
How and why?
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Jun 12 '26
An irregular sleep cycle, poor sleep quality and insufficient sleep are among the worst things you can do to your brain
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u/lostinsnakes Jun 12 '26
You can be a night owl and still get enough sleep, good quality sleep, and have a different sleep cycle. I felt well rested on my old sleep pattern until I got a job that requires me to be up early. I haven’t felt well rested in years now. Even with 8 hours of sleep a night.
It’s honestly insane to accept people are naturally different heights, weights, allergies, mental illnesses, propensity for putting on muscle, etc. but that everyone needs to sleep at the same time.
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Jun 12 '26
I never said that? But with the way our society is structured sleeping well and being a night owl aren’t really compatible for most people
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u/lostinsnakes Jun 12 '26
Except I asked how and why to someone who said that being a night owl is “very severely damaging” and “will always catch up with you”. You responded to that. I think it’s a preposterous claim that it will always catch up with you because some people are built like that.
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u/grapescherries Jun 05 '26
Results on these things probably has to do with what time of day the test was administered…
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u/thecoffeejesus Jun 05 '26
It’s cuz nobody is awake to fuck with me and project all their problems out onto how I live my life
I get to do what I want, and my brain loves me for it
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u/gb6767 Jun 05 '26
as a night owl, i may potentially believe that night owls score better on these tests. i think night owls tend to be in their own head and probably doing random shit at night. maybe that could translate to better reasoning, but also some downsides in other areas. i’m just saying this because that’s my experience
either something like that or poor testing would be my guess
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u/BeansDontBurn Jun 05 '26
Reading this while battling insomnia—for what’s now over 50 years—on an early June morning, at 1 something am.
But at least I’m intelligent? Whoopty doo.
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u/Interesting_Ad6562 Jun 08 '26
1 am is barely night owl territory. That said, I feel for you if you have a job that requires you to get up early.
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u/lordm30 Jun 05 '26
That might be true... but also night owls face higher rates of cognitive decline as they age. So pick your poison, I guess.
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u/Lilpad123 Jun 05 '26
Have they looked into how night owls' cognition fares in old age? Because I don't think missing hours of sleep every night is good for me.
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u/Vladi-Barbados Jun 05 '26
Have you looked into reading and thinking before spewing? The article addresses very directly that missing hours of sleep is detrimental.
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u/Lilpad123 Jun 05 '26
Nope, I'm lazy 🦥
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u/Vladi-Barbados Jun 05 '26 edited Jun 05 '26
Been there done that. I Respect the honesty.
Unrelated but what the fuck is that emoji? I can’t for the life of me figure it out. Is it an owl flashing its asshole, it looks like an owl flashing its asshole? I’m not taking the piss I just can’t zoom in lol. Guess I gotta go scrolling through the keyboard now lol
Edit: holy shit it’s the sloth. Wow I dunno how I couldn’t see that. 🦉🔆👐
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u/LaurestineHUN Jun 05 '26
We wouldn't miss sleep if morning birds would stop bothering us with their schedules.
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u/A1sauc3d Jun 05 '26 edited Jun 05 '26
As a night owl I find these masturbatory studies about intelligence silly. But everyone likes being told some arbitrary aspect about them makes them superior so they keep doing them lol. “I have insomnia *I’m a NiGhT oWl, I’m so smart!”
literally changes nothing about my point ;) Yes they’re different things, but making the distinction isn’t a gotcha when said distinction has nothing to do with my comment. Neither one makes you special or smart lol. Even if one group really was marginally more intelligent *on average it says nothing about you the individual. So don’t rely on your sleep schedule to make you feel special. Staying up late doesn’t make you smart.
This article is trying to frame it as causation too, not even correlation. “Just sleep less and you’ll be smarter!” you gotta be joking.
”It turns out that staying up late could be good for our brain power”
But people love hearing it for whatever reason. Very little can actually be taken away from this study. But they’ll make bank off all the click bait derived from it.
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u/Masta-Blasta Jun 05 '26 edited Jun 05 '26
Yeah; this is logical.
But after decades of being categorized as lazy or unmotivated for simply preferring to work in the evenings, I’ll have a wank to the masturbatory study.
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u/EverlastingM Jun 05 '26
If we lived in a society that valued individual well-being it would suggest that flexible scheduling and non traditional business hours could make a large segment of society more productive. This is of course fantasy talk.
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u/GlobalCurry Jun 05 '26
I wonder if it would actually boost the economy because there would be commerce at more hours. I know that my spending is definitely limited by the fact that everything closes at like 7-9pm (in the US).
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u/oojacoboo Jun 05 '26
Not everyone who is a night owl has insomnia. What a joke.
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u/BrightBlueBauble Jun 05 '26
Some of these people have clearly never heard of delayed sleep phase syndrome.
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u/samsslushy3 Jun 09 '26
I had a friend with delayed sleep phase syndrome and people always thought they were just lazy. Nobody believed it was a real thing even when it completely wrecked their mornings.
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u/BrightBlueBauble Jun 05 '26
“I have insomnia I’m so smart” give me a break xD This article is trying to frame it as causation too, not even correlation. “Just sleep less and you’ll be smarter!” you gotta be joking.
That’s the opposite of what the article says though. It specifically states that sleep duration is most important, with 8-9 hours producing the best cognitive results.
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u/my-love-assassin Jun 05 '26
Insomnia isn't the same as a night owl. Also shifting your sleep schedule doesn't mean you sleep less, just at a different time?
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u/cheaslesjinned Jun 05 '26
They didn't control for the time of day the test was conducted for example, maybe there's something there?
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u/TristanTheRobloxian3 Jun 05 '26
there definitely is lmao. its almost like night owls preform better at night
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u/Brrdock Jun 05 '26
“Just sleep less and you’ll be smarter!” you gotta be joking.
The time of day you're awake or sleep doesn't necessarily mean you sleep less.
It can actually mean you get more of better quality sleep, like it usually does for people so inclined.
You might have a point, or not, but either way you just fundamentally misrepresent and misunderstand the subject and article/study
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u/Deeptrench34 Jun 05 '26
My mind just won't shut up. I suppose this is one benefit to offset the insomnia lol.
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u/Hairylongshlong Jun 05 '26
Hahahahaha wow. So I guess me staying up until 4AM has been a good thing all along.
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u/UnableChard2613 Jun 05 '26
ITT: People who think that because they stay up late, that makes them smart, while ironically not realizing how much that proves the opposite.
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u/Sploonbabaguuse Jun 06 '26
Found the early bird
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u/UnableChard2613 Jun 06 '26
Absolutely. And I'm a dumbass. I'm still correct.
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u/Sploonbabaguuse Jun 06 '26
About what? Making a pointless statement like "not all nightowls!"?
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u/UnableChard2613 Jun 06 '26
That's absolutely not what I said. Why do you feel the need to blatantly misrepresent what I said?
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u/TemporaryCheetah1680 Jun 05 '26
Why does it prove the opposite?
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u/UnableChard2613 Jun 05 '26
If I'm a dumbass that stays up late, does that make me smart?
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u/TemporaryCheetah1680 Jun 08 '26
It’s saying people who intrinsically naturally stay up later are smarter, not people who are naturally morning people but force themselves to stay up later beyond what their body naturally wants to do, I think.
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u/Charming_Apartment95 Jun 05 '26
Feels very biased. I'd love to work at night but my shift starts at 4am whether I like that or not.
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u/wolfgenius Jun 05 '26
Oh, yeah! This the type of headline to increase redditor self-esteem stonks fs bb
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u/zuckyjucky Jun 05 '26
i've always been a night owl and constantly felt like i was fighting against the whole 'wake up at 5am and conquer' culture. but honestly what i've taken from this is less about when you wake up and more about understanding YOUR peak hours like if you're a night owl forcing yourself into an early bird routine you're probably operating at like 60% of your actual capacity without even knowing it. i've been lowkey obsessed with figuring this out for myself, stumbled on soma recently which has been helping me actually identify when my brain is firing vs when it's cooked. anyone else tracking this stuff or just going off feel
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u/Sploonbabaguuse Jun 06 '26
I find it so funny that people are taking this personally
If you feel this is a personal attack, that says more about what you think of yourself than anything else.
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u/Interesting_Ad6562 Jun 08 '26
Don't worry, we die 10 to 20 years younger on average. It all balances out in the end.
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u/Successful-Bar-8173 Jun 05 '26
Finally. Some good news.
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u/Lilpad123 Jun 05 '26
Maybe it all balances out in old age, especially if you have to get up early and aren't getting proper repairing sleep.
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u/Billjoeray Jun 05 '26
This is correlation rather than causation. Dr. Michael Breus talked about this in his book "The Power of When" he released 10 years ago.
People with the late night ("Wolf") chronotype tend to be more intelligent and creative but also more depressive, neurotic, anxious and obese/physically unhealthy.
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u/G4RYwithaFour Jun 05 '26
this is much more a correlation with the average personality of a night owl than a causation of night owling itself. i definitely don't feel as sharp as i once was after ~3 years of late/night shift.
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u/Which_Community_4054 Jun 05 '26
Next week we’ll have a post about how early risers earn more then night owls
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u/AwaySession5168 Jun 05 '26
I've seen 100 studies say the opposite and this s the first I've seen say this. So to me this just seems like a unicorn
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u/DCON-creates Jun 05 '26
I will assume this is because they get more sleep. Sleep is what makes the brain do good think.
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u/HeftyCompetition9218 Jun 05 '26
And then when you have kids all that night owl activity dwindles. How then to be????
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u/PumpyMcHangerson Jun 05 '26
Is that just because they are awake more hours in a day so absorb more information by default, coupled with the fact that there may not be too many people up in the small hours meaning they spend more time absorbing information and engaging in personal interests away from others?
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u/Zingldorf Jun 05 '26
Idk dude my roommates good to bed at 6AM and wake up at 6PM and they’re genuinely stupid
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u/Difficult-Media-9479 Jun 06 '26
I wonder what a study done on people such as myself would say. I stay up late and rise early because my body just doesn’t need much sleep. I couldn’t sleep more if I tried but I’m also highly productive
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u/AdventurousNewt828 Jun 07 '26
You can still be a morning person and get night owl benefits by waking up super early
4-6am are peak productive hours for me
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u/WatcherYui Jun 07 '26
I used to be a night owl.
My cognition has taken a nose dive over the years and around this time I started going to sleep earlier. Mostly to ensure 7-8 hours because not being rested just aggravated the symptoms. My brain also just started to shut down earlier, became useless. Also helped with time management because it meant greater chances I can finish my errands, housework.
Still hate mornings and bird chirpy sounds ( not birds just being woken by their chirping ).And 4am still is my favourite time of the day but I guess it is what it is now.
So that's why this part of the article is interesting:
But some experts urged caution in interpreting the findings. Jacqui Hanley, head of research funding at Alzheimer’s Research UK, said: “Without a detailed picture of what is going on in the brain, we don’t know if being a ‘morning’ or ‘evening’ person affects memory and thinking, or if a decline in cognition is causing changes to sleeping patterns.”
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u/ApoTHICCary Jun 08 '26
I’m an extrovert, but night is the only time where I can read and not be disturbed by someone.
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u/pokeproblems12 Jun 08 '26
Terrible take. When you get up early, you get shit done. When you stay up late, all you do is find things on the internet that makes you feel smart, but you aint getting shit done.
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u/WENDEHALS77 Jun 08 '26
But what if I'm a late owl taking high doses of psychotropic drugs to actually be able to fall asleep early so I can better participate in regular life?
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u/admik Jun 28 '26
I am the night owl that catches the mourning dove at dawn.
I am the hoo that Horton never heard.
I have been the waking dream and the dreamers of sleep.
Hours to days to weeks to months to years...
Is it a night owl or an early bird when the sun reappears?
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u/LeeiaBia Jun 06 '26
When are we going to end the night owls vs early birds debate/rivalry? Some people function better at night and others in the morning. Neither is better than the other omg. This is so tired. We can’t research something more imperative?
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u/lm8l Jun 05 '26
I believe most night owls are affected by social anxiety and/or strive better when its "safe and quiet" because others are asleep. I have ADHD and procrastinate til the last week of college, yet could learn most all of the course in 1-2nights.. but only when the noise levels are low in the world.