Night owls will find this new research a hoot. A study from Imperial College London suggests that those most active at night perform better on cognitive tests. The researchers analyzed UK Biobank data from more than 26,000 people to see how sleep duration, patterns and quality affect mental acuity and cognitive capacity.
Participants completed several tests and identified whether they felt more alert and productive in the morning or evening. Researchers found that a person’s preference for p.m.
or a.m. activity, also known as chronotype, greatly affected test scores.
These chronotypes were designated “night owls” and “morning larks.” En masse, owls outperformed their early-bird counterparts, with larks consistently exhibiting the lowest cognitive scores. Scores improved for “intermediate” types — respondents who expressed a mild preference for either day or night.
Owls scored 13.5% higher than larks in one group and 7.5% higher than them in another group.
Intermediates scored 10.6% and 6.3% higher than morning types, according to findings published this week in BMJ Public Health .
Regarding lifestyle factors, younger folks and those without chronic conditions such as heart disease and diabetes tested better. “Our study found that adults who are naturally more active in the evening (what we called ‘eveningness’) tended to perform better on cognitive tests than those who are ‘morning people,'” explained the study’s lead author, Dr. Raha West, who wor.