While popular culture is often highly intellectual and literary. intelligent People work all night as night owls, a recent study suggests otherwise.
A writer writing movie scenes all night or a scientist pulling an all-nighter to solve an equation may not be as accurate as we like to believe.
A study by a team of The researchers from the University of Ottawa showed the opposite of what previous studies had shown. Previous research has shown that night owls score better on verbal intelligence.
“Once you factor in key factors including time to sleep And age, we found the opposite, that morning types have higher verbal ability,” said Stuart Fogle, director of the University of Ottawa Sleep Research Laboratory, in a university release.
“This result was surprising to us and indicates that it is more complex than anyone previously thought.”
The latest study, published in Current Research in the Behavioral SciencesOffers insight into the effects of an individual’s daily routines, rhythms and activity levels at different times of the day on intelligence, not just health.
Experts recruited volunteers for the study and noted their chronotype, which is a person’s tendency to be active in the morning or evening. They also monitored each participant’s biological rhythms and their daily preferences.
A chronotype appears when a person prefers to do challenging or important tasks of the day that involve both intellectual activities and physical exercise.
Generally, younger people are “evening types” and older people prefer mornings for their work. This is ironic because the entire education system is built on teaching children in the morning hours and demanding energy from them.
Fogel explained that schools do not consider chronotypes when deciding when to start an institute. Working hours are decided according to parents’ work schedules.
“So school-aged kids pay the price because they’re evening types who are forced to work on a morning schedule,” Fogel said.
“For example, math and science classes are usually scheduled earlier in the day because whatever morning tendencies they have will serve them well.”
However, mornings may not be best for children who are naturally evening types. Fogel believes that those children are “at a disadvantage because the kind of schedule they’re put on is basically fighting against their biological clock every day.”
The team of scientists studied volunteers of different age groups. They made sure to rule out sleep disorders or other health conditions that could confound the results. To measure their activity levels, the researchers wore a monitoring device to the participants.
The authors believe that establishing a person’s rhythmic strength is crucial because it is what they believe drives intelligence.
“Our brain really craves regularity, and for us to work as much as possible in our rhythm, we have to stick to that schedule and not constantly try to catch up,” Fogel concluded. .