People Who Stay Up Late At Night May Be Exceptionally Intelligent

Sleep is life, am I right?

Sleep is where you get to switch off and have cool dreams about battling dragons and zombie apocalypses. It’s like living inside a book for a few hours each night. It’s no wonder half of us don’t want to get up in the morning. But why do we really find it so hard to drag ourselves out of bed?

Some people would call this laziness, but a recent study has found out that it could be more to do with heightened intelligence. While it’s not saying that morning people are suddenly considered thick, the research does support the fact that staying in bed isn’t such a bad thing – which plenty of people will be glad to hear.

Satoshi Kanazawa of the London School of Economics published her research recently, titled Why Night Owls Are More Intelligent.

He found from his study that not only are night owls smarter, but they also tend to be more creatively inclined, and they’re often happier in themselves too. It seems the benefits are endless, and it might have more of us spending that little bit extra time in bed. But why does this work?

If you tend to hit the snooze button a lot to avoid getting out of bed, it actually shows an evolutionary sign of intelligence. Mobile phones are a modern concept, and our ability to set alarms has only come about in recent years. Though snooze buttons have been around since the sixties, now it’s easier than ever to extend your sleep with multiple alarms on your phone, each with their own snooze setting.

As though getting up wasn’t hard enough, now people have to set five or six alarms just to make sure they get up on time and resist oversleeping. Sound familiar?

This may just seem like avoidance of getting the day started, and let’s be fair, it is in many cases. However, our brain’s ability to adapt to a snooze button shows that we are mentally advanced, placing our intelligence levels higher. While morning people are up and away at the first alarm, being able to switch back off for a while could be a sign of night owls being super smart.

However, research has also shown that this could be an issue. Hitting the snooze button too often is bad for you, and can lead to a higher risk of heart attacks and other dysfunctions. Each time the snooze button goes off, you’re shocking your body awake. Doing this four or five times a day, as well as reacting to the initial alarm means your body is being thrown out of whack over and over again. This can mean you’ll have all sorts of health issues as a consequence of your morning routine. Yikes.

Even so, it’s good to know that you can put your sleepy desires down to something other than laziness. Next time someone criticises your morning habits, now you can hit them back with the facts – you’re doing it because you’re smarter!

Hah! You always knew staying in bed was a good idea.

Share this night owl article with your friends!

Hayley Anderton

Hayley Anderton is a Creative Writing graduate from Liverpool. She’s a freelance writer and the self-published novelist of the LGBT YA book, Double Bluff. She doesn’t go anywhere without a notepad and has been writing ever since she can remember. Her other interests include baking, talking about politics and feminism, and snuggling up with her cat. She has dreams of traveling the world with her best friends, and of being a well-known author someday.